County Planning Commission set to review mixed-use building at Reston Parkway and Bowman Towne Drive next week.
The Reston Association Board of Directors will discuss the plans for a 23-story mixed-use tower at 1760 Reston Parkway at a special meeting on Thursday.
RA will get more information on and consider the rezoning application that will go before the Fairfax County Planning Commission for decision on April 26. If recommended for approval by the county, the plan then goes to the Board of Supervisors.
The RTC Partnership is seeking to demolish the existing five-story "Reston Times" office building and construct a 23-story, 418,900 square foot mixed-use office building, to include office (413,700 SF), retail uses (2,600 SF) and/or an eating establishment (2,600 SF).
The proposal has been scheduled to go before the Planning Commission twice in the last month, but has been postponed. It has already been given conceptual approval by RA's Design Review Board and the Reston Planning and Zoning Committee.
The plans for the building—which include a high-density Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 4.08)—have been met with resistance and criticism from local groups committed to planning principles and smart growth for Reston.
If constructed, the building will be taller than any current building at Reston Town Center.
Members of the Reston Citizens Association's Reston 2020 advocacy group say the proposal "violates many of the Planning Principles adopted by the Reston Master Planning Task Force on 15 March 2011."
"It is the wrong building in the wrong place," Reston 2020 said on its website. "This proposal places a 23-story office building in the midst of the proposed Lerner Spectrum development." The Spectrum plan, which calls for a mixed use community, embodies many of the Task Force’s principles.
Reston 2020 says a building of this density should not be located far from the future Reston Parkway Metro station, which will be more than a half-mile away.
"The proposed building would be one of the highest in Town Center, containing over 1,500 office workers in a 4.05 FAR development. Yet it is over one-half mile from the future Town Center station. The Planning Principles say that the 'highest densities will be within approximately one-quarter mile' from the future stations. The principles also indicate development will be stepped down from the immediate station area."
The Association of Reston Clusters and Homeowners has similar concerns.
"The pending application, which would locate an approximately 2,000-worker job center beyond a half mile from the Town Center Metro Station - defies Transit Oriented Development," ARCH members said in remarks to the Reston Planning & Zoning Committee.
ARCH urges developers and the planning committee to consider current office vacancy rates in Reston.
"We are very concerned that citing a major employment center more than a half-mile from the transit center will siphon office demand away from the immediate transit center," ARCH members said.
ARCH also said that anything that impairs the ability to redevelop areas closest to the Metro stations will increase traffic and could depress Metro ridership, which in turn would pass off increased costs to taxpayers.
Both Reston 2020 and ARCH recommend that the proposal be amended to be in keeping with Reston's planning principles.
However, Richard Wealen, managing partner of RTC Partnership, says the features of the tower—a contemporary design by Reston's Polleo Group—will make it a desirable location, despite nearby office vacancy rates.
Plans for the building include five floors of retail and parking and 18 stories of offices above that.
There are plans for an outdoor 38,000-square-foot terrace and green roof on the sixth floor. Developers hope to also build outdoor seating from a restaurant on that floor.
Skip Endale
11:57 am on Friday, April 20, 2012
RA board members are at odds over this development, to ensure the reduction of greenhouse gasses someone had suggested a lawn tennis court on the roof of this new development. This would have also reduced their tax bill and yielded in carbon credits, and that is where the problem stated. RA members disagree on how the added income should be spent. iPads was the latest suggestion from what I heard through the grapevine.
Rebecca E
8:51 am on Friday, April 20, 2012
Maybe a naive question, but is there a demand for this much office space? Especially considering the buildings going up by the new metro stop?
Kelly D
9:37 am on Friday, April 20, 2012
There are a lot of empty suites in office building throughout Reston; this size building is ridiculous. There also doesn't appear to be a lot of parking space, so unless they're building an underground garage, where will the shoppers and restaurant patrons park? It's just too tall for the space.
The BSD Guy
2:01 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
The FBI really ought to be investigating county and Reston zoning and approval boards, and perhaps some fo the supervisors themselves. JUST EXACTLY HOW MUCH ARE THESE PEOPLE GETTING PAID OFF?? This HAS to be a scam. Obviously some developers and land speculators have CONNED some investors into putting money into this thing, unaware of the fact that over the past 15 years numerous, if not most new office buildings have sat unoccupied, or marginally occupied, with few, if any, tenants in site. The most obvious of this is, of course the "Shrine to Overdevelopment" that sits empty, after 10+ years, at the intersection of Hunter Mill, Sunrise Valley, and the Toll Road....QUITE POSSIBLY THE SINGLE MOST VISIBLE PIECE OF REAL ESTATE IN RESTON, AND NOT A TENANT IN SIGHT AFTER 10 YEARS.
Reston residents really ought to also sue the Reston Association and the individual members of its various boards for allowing this sort of thing to even be considered. Did you move to Reston where you thought there would be some sort of sensibly planned development, or did you move to Reston so you could see it turn into a wall to wall concrete pig-stye with ultra high density and round-the-clock traffic jams?
A CON IS A CON. Face the facts, guys, Reston as a planned community was nothing but a developers scam in sheeps clothing. The least we could do is sue to get back all our dues from the Reston Association that they've been paid over the past few decades.
MJSouth
3:27 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
Regardless of pro or con, what exactly is Reston Association's standing in this? They do not have land use authority. That is the responsibility of the county.
Karen Goff
5:09 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
I think they are just trying to organize an opinion to put forth at a public hearing. But yes, correct, this is a county/developer issue, not an RA issue.
Karen Goff
5:11 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
and also, what Kathy says too about potential residential in the area/proffers/new RA member residents.
Kathy
4:37 pm on Friday, April 20, 2012
MJSouth:
The site of the building, I believe, is not part of the break-away republic of Town Center. Should the building be constructed with apartments instead of commercial space, as some would like, RA certainly would want homeowner dues paid to RA. Over time it would amount to a lot of money. Then there is the issue of proffers for recreational amenities. Money. It's all about money.
Kathy Kaplan
Reston
The Convict
1:18 pm on Monday, April 23, 2012
It appears that all of this Reston Task Force Master Plan has had the unfortunate consequence of unbuttoning the Reston's fly and now the developers stand at the ready to have their way with her. The only way to effectively deal with the developer's in that area is for Reston to put and HOLD an aspirin between her knees, at least until that whole RTC area decides to marry with Reston. Until then...
NO GROWTH IS SMART GROWTH.
RKO
1:40 pm on Monday, April 23, 2012
Someone seriously needs to start either investigating either the legal integrity of the parties involved in this, or at least do some heavy I.Q. testing to see if the "decision makers" are really up to the task.
BSD Guy references the "Shrine to Overdevelopment." Well, Fella, I hate to tell you this, but the "shrines" are all over the place, especially in Reston, Herndon, and Loudoun County.
I would think that driving down a road such as Sunrise Valley and seeing, quite literally, a "for lease" sign on every single building lining the street would be at least some type of warning to someone somewhere that something wasn't quite right. It's this way throughout the county.
I don't know if you remember this, but a few weeks ago a man was arrested for attacking two women in an empty building. When I saw the clip on News 8 I was expecting it to be some dilapidated old building, but it was a new, contemporary building with reflective glass, and apparently the only user of it was some pervert.
The development issues in this area, not just Fairfax, really need some serious looking into.
Big Burrito
10:57 pm on Thursday, May 3, 2012
Let the bulding go up. Reston is not some isolated shrine to "no-growth"--it is in fact, dead in the cross hairs of major developers. RA is impotent to stop this project, and why should it? The insistance on "sustainable" development and so-called "smart growth" growth is a joke--these terms can mean whatever one wants them to mean.And if I don't want to have grass growing on my roof as some environmental radicals insist--I don't have to! Bwa ha ha.