Developers have the Wiehle Avenue Metro surrounded, Washington Business Journal, October 5, 2015

WBJ's Michael Neibauer provides an excellent round-up of the various re-development schemes underway around the Wiehle Metro station, all of them except Comstock's BLVD residential tower in the paper planning stage.  Most of the proposals focus on residential development, not office development, recognizing the huge overhang of vacant or available office space in Fairfax County and across the metro area  (approaching 20%, direct and indirect vacancies and availability).  This is especially important in the Wiehle area where, unlike Reston Town Center, the Reston Master Plan calls for a higher mix of residential than office space and more moderate overall densities.

Here is how the article begins:

Despite Metro’s troubles of late, developers have not lost confidence in the lure of the Silver Line to draw residents to the Dulles corridor.

Case in point: Wiehle-Reston East, where no fewer than eight projects are currently underway, or planned, totaling nearly 3,000 new residential units. . .

Wiehle-Reston East, according to Metro, “continues to be Silver Line’s commuting powerhouse.” The terminus of the line’s first phase surpassed first-year ridership projections, with upward of 14,000 daily weekday users, by far the most of any Silver Line station.

Developers are banking on that surging growth, adding thousands of residential units to an area that, until recently, was largely comprised of mid-rise office and light industrial uses.

One small nit to pick:  Neibauer cites JBG's redevelopment of Reston Heights--"less than a mile away"--as part of the Wiehle redevelopment.   It is, in fact, across Reston Parkway from the soon-to-be built Town Center Metro station and is part of the Town Center transit station area, not Wiehle.

Click here for the rest of this article, including a brief description of each of the eight projects.

 

Office Market Assessment: Montgomery County, Maryland, by Partners for Economic Solutions, June 18, 2015

Below we offer the subject study in its entirety.    Although the report was prepared for the Montgomery County Planning Department, its lessons are equally valid for Fairfax County (which has the highest level of office market vacancies in the region).  Every major point made in this report is consistent with what Reston 20/20 has told the Reston Master Plan Task Force, the County's Department of Planning & Zoning, and the Board of Supervisors (including specifically Chairman Bulova) since September 2011 when we commented on the then peculiar seeming case of Accenture leaving Reston for Ballston.

Here are the report's key findings and a few comments on them.

Findings

• Most jobs created during the economic recovery have been in restaurants, retailers and health care facilities, rather than in office-based sectors such as professional and technical services.

This is consistent with a recent report from GMU's Center for Regional Analysis.  It not only makes the same point, but adds the corollary that a key result has been a lowering of Gross Regional Product as a result of the lower incomes earned in these newer jobs.

• Telecommuting, technological advances, more efficient work spaces and practices such as hoteling have enabled office tenants to reduce their square footage even as they expand their workforce.

This is a point Reston 20/20 has made repeatedly, including four letters to the Board of Supervisors Chairman (here, here, here, and here) to no discernible effect.  The County continues to insist on planning for 300 GSF per employee, an amount that could see twice as many employees in a building as are expected, including all the ramifications of that growth.  

• The most successful office clusters in Montgomery County are part of mixed-use developments with a strong sense of place and a quality environment. Transit connectivity is increasingly important to office tenants. This trend is consistent with recommended land use strategies in recent County plans for White Flint, Bethesda, White Oak and other communities.

Reston and Tysons have the advantage of the arrival of the Silver Line as a focal point for mixed-use development, but in both cases the balance in square footage strongly favors office space increases--at the 300 GSF per office worker level discussed above.  Moreover, the "quality" of these areas is seriously undermined by the absence of concrete goals for open space and the County Park Authority's refusal to adhere to its own "Urban Parks Guidelines" in the development of these areas.  The result could easily be crammed office, residential, and retail development that is unattractive to employers, employees, residents, and shoppers. 

• Single-use office developments without convenient transit or highway access are having difficulty in attracting tenants.

Reston is blessed that its existing single-use office development is almost exclusively located in the former Reston Center for Industry and Government (RCIG) that, except for the far east end, is within conventional transit-oriented development distance of a 1/2 mile of Reston's three Metrorail stations.  This fact could mean that these office spaces will remain well occupied and, therefore, have less near-term motivation for redevelopment, especially in the slower office market development climate discussed below.  

• Future office development is likely to occur at a much slower pace and be concentrated in prime locations. Not every location will be able to attract new office development or maintain former occupancy levels.

One consideration we believe that PES may have overlooked is the prospect of long-term federal austerity, meaning fewer employees and contracts in the metropolitan area for some time as reflected in several Reston 20/20 postings.  It appears to be a concern also shared by GMU CRA in its thinking about regional employment.  This goes beyond GSA's deliberate efforts to shrink office space per worker, do more work in government office buildings, etc.  It is basically an extension of the sequestration mentality of the last few years (not to mention the occasional Congressional budgetary dysfunction resulting in total government shutdowns). 

We encourage readers to review the entire PES report below:

   Montgomery County office market

Hope for the Burbs, James Bacon, Bacon's Rebellion

This is a very thoughtful post on  Bacon's Rebellion regarding "new urbanism" and emphasizing the NEED for suburban counties (especially inner suburban counties) like Fairfax to change to a more (but not wholly) urban model based on presentation by Georgia Tech's Ellen Dunham-Jones, professor of architecture.

Here are some excerpts:

Change is not only desirable, it’s necessary, Dunham-Jones contended. The low-density suburbs consume two to three times more energy per capita than central cities, making them vulnerable to upward spikes in energy prices. Local governments are suffering fiscal stress from the burden of maintaining a sprawling infrastructure. Poverty is an increasing problem as poor people, either immigrants or poor people leaking from inner cities, move into older, run-down suburban neighborhoods. At the same time, housing affordability is becoming a middle-class issue as rising transportation costs kill the old “drive ’til you qualify” housing model. Last but not least, Dunham-Jones cited  suburbia’s  automobile dependency as a public health issue. Infectious diseases (despite the ebola virus hype) are not a major health hazard in the U.S. The real problem is chronic disease stemming from obesity and sedentary lifestyles, which leads to diabetes and heart disease.

Demographics also are driving the transformation of the burbs. People still think of the suburbs as Leave It to Beaver land of households with school-age children. But a majority of households in the burbs now are childless. . . .

There is more than enough land in suburban counties to make room for the surge of Americans looking for urban lifestyles in suburban counties without disrupting the lives of people who still want to live in their conventional cul-de-sac subdivisions. One third of all malls are dead or dying, said Dunham-Jones. . . Meanwhile, as Millennials show a strong preference for working in an urban environment, businesses are less interested in putting their workforce in suburban office parks.

Click here for the full post, including Dunham-Jones' three solutions to the suburban issue.  

Can Reston become the "Ideal Community?"

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has published the results of its latest national survey of community preferences.  Although NAR's press release highlights a preference for mixed-use communities (such as we may expect in the Dulles Corridor), the actual report highlights an ambivalence between higher density mixed-use use communities and retail-rich suburban single-family communities. 

With good planning and good luck, Reston could become the "Ideal Community" as the results of this survey suggest, offering both mixed-use and more traditional residential models.  Reston is a traditional suburban community (with all the bonuses of exceptional planning, including extensive open space and other amenities) with easy access to both day-to-day shopping at nearby village centers and a growing retail center in Reston Town Center. Now, a well-balanced and reasonable new Comprehensive Plan that is equally well implemented for the Dulles Corridor could provide the high-density mixed use that a newer generation is seeking.

Here is the key slide in this report on that conclusion:

 

To see the full presentation, click here.

For complete background, here is the link to the NAR webpage.

There are clearly a number of issues in getting the urban mixed-use portion of this planning right, including congestion, sustainability, the mix of uses, infrastructure and amenities, open space and recreation, etc.  But we have the opportunity if the County to make Reston an "Ideal Community" if the County will permit it.