"Peak office": Will this hold true for Reston's station areas?

In an excellent overview of the the nation's office market, leading urban researcher Joel Kotkin concludes:

None of this suggests there are not some good opportunities for new construction, but the office building’s role as a key indicator of the strength of the U.S. economy has faded. In great cities, rather than a ballyhooed era of new office skyscrapers we will see more conversions and the construction of residential high-rises, as well as medical buildings. The secular trend is for the dispersion of business service employment to smaller markets, and into people’s homes. The glory days of the American office tower are over, and not likely to return soon, given technological trends and a persistently tepid economy (emphasis added).

The relative strong areas:  the Washington metro area market--and suburban office development.  Still, the trend is for a weak market for office buildings--and a possible bubble in the making.

Read Dr. Kotkin's article here in NewGeography.com.

New Silver Line delays spur questions about airport authority’s diligence, WaPo, December 8, 2013

WaPo's Lori Aratani gets to the bottom of some the causes for continuing delays in the Silver Line's startup:

In November, (MWAA Silver Line Project Manager Pat) Nowakowski told members of the airports authority board at their monthly meeting that work was continuing and that completion of the rail line — one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the country — would probably come at the end of this month.

But he said it became clear that the timeline could no longer be kept after he learned the result of tests on the system Thanksgiving week. During those tests, officials concluded that changes had to be made to the software that governs what is known as the automatic train control system (ATC), he said. The software changes required will ensure that the computers that help run the system communicate clearly with each other.

The ATC system controls train movement and speed and ensures proper spacing between trains traveling along the system’s more than 200 miles of track. If a train is traveling too fast or gets too close to another train, the system will slow or stop the train if the operator does not act.

The ATC system is critical to the safe operation of Metro’s trains. It was the failure of this system to detect the presence of a train on the tracks that was blamed in part for the 2009 Red Line crash that killed nine people and injured dozens of others.

This also is not the first time that the Silver Line’s ATC system has been an issue. In June, one of the nation’s top transportation officials expressed concern about unauthorized changes made by Alstom Signaling, the contractor responsible for installing the system. . . .

Click here to read the rest or Aratani's thorough article.

We could have had a "central park" too....

A major Washington Post article yesterday highlights how Columbia, MD, the region's other major planned community, is planning to bring a central park to its downtown area.  In an article, "A plan to bring play to Columbia, MD", reporters
Dan Beyers and Jonathan O’Connell quote Michael McCall, president of the Inner Arbor Trust, a group working to refashion Columbia's Symphony Woods into something more, as follows:

“Employers follow employees and employees follow lifestyle,” McCall said. “We have excellent schools and one of the country’s leading library systems, but we need to broaden upon that to satisfy the needs of the 30-year-old professional who is in high demand.”

Wow!  What a refreshing view of what makes a community successful:  "Employers follow employees and employees follow lifestyle."

In Reston, the developer-dominated Reston Task Force position has been and continues to be to build as much office space as can be stuffed into Reston's station areas, even as the demand for office space per worker plummets.  Instead of a substantial central park in North Town Center (RCA has consistently proposed 20 acres or larger) as a major attraction for both families and businesses to settle in Town Center, the current draft plan calls for seven acres of town green --only two more acres of park land than current exist there.

More broadly, developers are trying to limit the allocation of land in areas they develop.  Until the next-to-last draft of the master plan, the draft plan called for a "minimum" of 20 percent open space.  The developer-led effort degraded that standard to a "goal," which is likely rarely, if ever, to be met.  So much for lifestyle and quality of life. 

So instead of employers following employees who are following lifestyle, Reston is looking at developers pushing employment into Reston's station areas in the expectation (in direct opposition to the evidence) that employees will follow no matter the lifestyle.  The closest comparison to this approach is Arlington's Crystal City, chock-o'-block full of office buildings with new efforts to stuff residential buildings into the area even in the absence of substantial open space.

Click here to read the Post's full article.  

And, by the way, we need to work on developing "one of the country's leading library systems."  Thanks to the efforts of a few dozen committed citizens, we have stopped the hemorrhaging, but now the County needs to correct the flawed thinking and budgeting of a half-dozen years to bring the County's libraries up to reasonable standards, much less "leading" standards. 

   

RCC Board moves ahead stealthily with unsustainable Baron Cameron Park rec center plan.

Quietly, even stealthily, the Reston Community Center is moving ahead with its plan to build a financially unsustainable recreation center at Baron Cameron Park (BCP) for fewer than 2,000 users—no more than half of whom would be Restonians—paid for by Restonians as part of the Park Authority’s “master plan” for BCP.  No doubt RCC’s ongoing efforts meet the minimal legal requirements for public disclosure, but the process—generally free of active public involvement--continues to be as opaque as the law allows.

As the BOG’s minutes reflect, the BOG received briefings on the planned recreation center by its consultant and its BOG Building Committee to justify moving ahead and placing the rec center in Baron Cameron Park.  

In October, Vicky Wingert, chairperson for the all-BOG member “Building Committee,” reported to the BOG that the site the BOG had originally chosen for locating a new Reston Recreation Center—Baron Cameron Park—was its preferred location for siting the new center.  A subset of the same group that decided BCP was the best location a year earlier decided that it is best again!   What a surprise!

The BOG Building Committee recommendation comes despite the fact that the Reston Master Plan Task Force has proposed that any new recreation center be located on Park Authority-owned land in North Reston Town Center (west of the Spectrum Center).   The draft Reston master plan now before the Planning Commission would allow more than 18,000 new residents in North Town Center—which would create a huge demand for a nearby recreation center within easy walking distance.  On the other hand, the BCP location would serve little more than 2,000 new residents in the redeveloped Lake Anne when fully built out.  Which location makes more sense to you in an urbanizing community?  The BOG accepted the BOG Building Committee report at its November 4, 2013, meeting.  Apparently, the County-administered RCC thinks it needs a rec center at FCPA’s BCP site to incentivize Lake Anne redevelopment at the expense of all Restonians.  

On October 28, Brailsford & Dunlavey (B&D) came forward again with an update of its update of its market and financial analysis of a new Reston rec center for the RCC’s Long Range Planning Committee.  The update largely undermined any reasonable argument for building a new recreation center in Reston, especially at BCP.

·        Its first key market finding:  Convenient location—as in “location, location, location”—is the most important criterion in the success of a recreation center.   93% of B&D’s survey respondents rated “convenient location” as “very important/important” to the success of a recreation center.  (See p.11.)  In short, this finding argues against the site recommended by the BOG Building Committee report.   

         The second key market finding:  The “potential” market (the broadest measure of usage) for the recreation center—Restonians and others--is very small at 1,500-1,700 people given the large number of private recreation centers available in Reston.  (See p.  21.)  And only about 1/3 to ½ of those users would be Restonians, according to RCA’s Spring 2013 analysis of B&D’s market data.  (See p.  20.)  It is astounding that the BOG would even consider building a non-essential public recreation facility for fewer than 2,000 people—less than half of whom would be from Reston—to be paid for largely by taxes on Reston property owners.  

·        The B&D presentation also highlights that there is “More pressure to develop financially stable operations” and a “Mandate to achieve break-even operations.” (See p. 7).   In this context, “financially stable” and “break-even” mean recovering only operating costs, not the full costs (most notably capital costs) of the construction, operation, and maintenance of a recreation center.   

• The presentation highlights that an unidentified “regional recreation center” (with 110,000 SF) is recovering about 94% of its operating costs.  

• As reported in RCA’s analysis of the feasibility of a Reston recreation center  last spring (p. 21), B&D data in its 2009 “final” report showed that four major Fairfax County recreation centers had operational expense recovery rates averaging 114%--well over operational expense breakeven.

• Still, B&D’s analysis of operational cost recovery for a new Reston recreation center would peak out at 50% in the fourth year of operation using the extremely tax-subsidized “Reston Rate Structure” and would only reach 71% in the third year of operation using the ”Fairfax Rate Structure.”   (See pp. 32-33.) These results are virtually identical to the results in B&D’s update report in June this year.  

B&D’s results as presented to the BOG’s Long Term Planning Committee reflect an expected failure to achieve anything near the break-even or stability needed for the financial success of a recreation center.
 

These recovery rates do not include the major tax-funded capital costs—bond payments and other capital equipment charges—that would go with building and maintaining a new recreation center.  B&D projects the cost of construction at $35-$40 million for an 87,600 SF rec center in this latest presentation.  A 20-year County bond at 2.5% interest would mean Reston taxpayers would need to pay on the order of $3.5 million per year to cover bond payments.  We frankly expect the actual building cost and the interest rate will both be higher, adding to the Reston taxpayer burden.   And that doesn’t include the 29%-50% of the operating expenses—between $500,000-$900,000 per year—that are not recovered through recreation center’s user fees of one kind or another.   To serve the 1,500-1,700 users of the proposed recreation center—no more than half of whom would be from Reston—the County would pay likely need to raise the STD#5 property tax rate on Restonians from $.047/$100 valuation to $.075/$100 valuation, an increase of nearly 60%, when the recreation center is built.

In short, B&D’s most recent market analysis does not support a self-sustaining Reston recreation center for fewer than 2,000 users, half or less of whom would be from Reston, AND would promise a major increase in Restonians’ real estate property taxes.   Of course, B&D didn’t present this adverse conclusion to the BOG, but that is where the data points when the bits and pieces are tied together. 

Despite the highly negative B&D report, County officials say that shortly after the BOG accepted its Building Committee’s report, RCC sent a letter to the Park Authority asking to work together on building a recreation center in Baron Cameron Park paid for by Restonians as part of the new Baron Cameron Park master plan.   As of the date of this posting, you will not find that letter nor any public notification of the RCC request on either the RCC or the FCPA website.  No reason to bother the people who will be paying for this misuse of public funds. 

It goes virtually without saying that RCC Board of Governor’s actions ignore virtually every analytical point, unanswered question, and suggestion RCA laid out its analysis of the Reston recreation center proposal last spring. 

We anticipate that the plans for the referendum and the budget to support it will be finalized by the BOG at its two-day “Strategic Planning Session” offsite at Frying Pan Park on January 3-4, 2014.   At least this time the offsite is in Fairfax County, not at Airlie House near Warrenton where this plot was hatched a year ago.  The meeting is open to the public and we urge you to attend.  In principle at least, the full agenda for the meeting should be publicly provided in a timely manner so you may be able to focus the time of your attendance when the proposed recreation center will be discussed—and possibly some time allocated for public input.

This won't help Silver Line ridership.

WAMU's Martin DiCaro reports this morning:

Come January 1, the public transit benefit available to federal and private sector workers alike will drop from $245 to $130 dollars in pre-tax wages per month — unless Congress votes to keep the subsidy up. The parking benefit will go up to $250.

Yes, you read that right:  Congress is more interested in having federal workers DRIVE their cars than use public transit.  Currently, the subsidy for both is $245, but apparently Congress wants to see more workers drive on traffic-clogged, smog creating, global warming roads than take energy-efficient, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective public transit to and from work.

And here we sit with the Silver Line coming in December, er, February, OMG, April accompanied by the hope if not the expectation that more Reston area commuters will shift their commutes to the Silver Line--and maybe even take the bus to get to the station.  The Congressional proposal is on the anti-traffic demand management (anti-TDM) track:  Encouraging driving while discouraging public transit use. 

You just can't make this stuff up!  And if you did, who would believe you?

For DiCaro's full report, click here.

UPDATE: FCPC decision on Reston Master Plan deferred until January

UPDATE:  The FCPC has deferred its decision until January 9, 2014.

Changes are being made to the draft Reston Master Plan as we speak.  There will not be a new draft published today.  In response to the need for additional time, Commissioner De La Fe is planning to defer decision until after the new draft is published so the community as well as Commissioners can have opportunity to read the updates.

Senator Warner: Silver Line now scheduled to open in April 2014

US Senator Mark Warner, in a letter to Jack Potter, MWAA CEO, decried the further delays in starting Silver Line operations as announced two days ago.  In his letter, he highlighted that the delay until April 2014 will cost WMATA $2-$3 million per month in lost revenues.  Here is the full text of his letter:

   Dulles Metro MWAA Letter