Lake Anne: It's an Ethnic Marketplace! A Restaurant Row! An Ice-Cream Parlor! A Floor Polish!, Restonian, September 9, 2010

Restonian has his own take on the recent meeting about Lake Anne:

The consultants have spoken, and their recommendation is to make Lake Anne a themed destination area, much like the Fake Downtown. (What is the Fake Downtown's theme, anyway, besides chain retail and dining?) . . .

...At the meeting, folks actually addressed the elephant in the room -- vacancy rates exceeding 50 percent in the Plaza. There was also some debate over whether there needs to be a more unified approach to manage retail properties and "coordinate merchants," which we have to say sounds a bit Soviet, even for the brutalist architecture of the Plaza.

(Speaking of which, apparently Lake Anne can apply for National Historic Registry status in the next few years. Who knew? We can't wait for the signs that reveal that as a young surveyor, George Washington slept nearby and wrote up his first DRB violation notice when he spotted a log cabin chinked with off-teal oakum.) . . . .

For the rest, click here.