Metro Silver Line: All that clapping worked!

After basically being left for dead, much like a Metrorail car in an Orange Line tunnel during a track fire, Metro's awesome Silver Line extension through the wonders of Tysons Tegucigalpa, Reston, Dulles and the foreclosed particleboard housing beyond Loudoun County has made a stunning comeback.

Federal transportation officials are planning to approve the proposed 23-mile extension of Metrorail to Dulles International Airport in a letter to Congress today, the officials told local and state authorities yesterday.

Several officials with knowledge of the decision said the $5 billion project had finally met the Federal Transit Administration's standards for cost efficiency, construction and expected ridership. The approval would reverse an opinion from the FTA issued in January that said rail to Dulles did not meet the criteria.

"This is a critical step," one of the officials said. "Two months ago, everybody was writing the project's obituary. Now, thanks to everybody putting their swords away and making this thing work, the project is moving forward again."

Oh, yeah... right. Remember all that hilarious infighting after the initial decision was made, before Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters became BFFs?

Angry exchanges among local and federal officials included an accusation from the FTA that Virginia and the airports authority had ignored signs that the project had been in trouble for months. Project boosters accused the FTA of seeking to kill the Dulles rail project because of the Bush administration's preference for private investment in public infrastructure. Rumors circulated that the FTA sought to force Virginia to sell the Dulles Toll Road to private entities to finance the rail line, and the FTA continued to say that the project's cost was unacceptably high and expected ridership too low.

Officials with knowledge of the federal decision said Peters was behind the reversal despite objections from the FTA staff, which she oversees. Several sources said they might never know what caused federal regulators to ease up after coming down so hard on the project.

Maybe they just saw all the orange cones strewn across Tysons Tegucigalpa and decided what the hey.

Your RA: As much turnover as an urban fast-food restaurant

When we dug up a yellowing, week-old copy of the freebee newspaper and wrote about the new members of the RA board, little did we know we were just scratching the surface!

The Reston Association's Board of Directors underwent numerous leadership changes last week. Cheryl Beamer, Richard Chew and Timothy McMahon were elected to serve on the Board of Directors April 15; the board appointed new officers April 16; and Jenn Blackwell, who had served as president for three years, resigned from her position as an at-large director April 18.

Robin Smyers, who was the board's vice president and is the district director for Lake Anne and Tall Oaks, was elected president. At-large Director Mark Watts was elected as vice president, South Lakes district Director Kathleen Driscoll McKee was elected secretary and John Higgins was re-elected as treasurer.

Yeah, but other than that, did we miss anything important?

Blackwell, who served on the board for two terms, was selected to serve as the assistant United States attorney for Michigan and is relocating to the Ann Arbor area. "It was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life," Blackwell said. Ever since she was in law school she wanted to work as a criminal prosecutor on behalf of the U.S. government, she said. "When it was offered to me, I really had to wrestle with the decision of leaving Reston," she said.

Smyers said she hopes to get started on a number of projects this year, including deciding whether to move forward on an indoor recreational facility, breaking ground on the nature house and seeking out a potential new headquarters for RA. She also said she hopes to improve communication between the tenants and renters of RA properties rather than communicating only with the owners of the properties.

Oh. We thought the awesome indoor tennis facility, long cited as a key hot-button issue among Reston voters, was a done deal. Go figure: Instead of God and guns, our politicians message us about tennis and taupe.

Macaroni Grill Gets Reprieve Until May, Grateful Populace Rejoices

The awesome planned redevelopment of the Spectrum Center adjacent to Reston's Fake Downtown(tm) has encountered yet another delay (second item).

An advertised April 23 Fairfax County Planning Commission public hearing concerning Lerner Enterprises' plans to redevelop the Spectrum Center in Reston has been moved to Wednesday, May 21.

So that means we'll be able to enjoy the Macaroni Grill, an island of classy, reasonably priced fare in a ocean of godforsaken big-box retail, for at least a little while longer.

It's all part of an awesome plan to rectify the original plan for Reston's Fake Downtown, replacing the ugly, soulless big-box retail that got unceremoniously plopped on the site with ugly, soulless faux-urban buildings and not-so-big-box retail.

The redevelopment plan would put 1,350 residential units and almost 676,000 square feet of office and retail space on the 19-and-a-half acre property, the current site of Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Citibank and other retail.

“It is a long-term redevelopment proposal for the existing Spectrum Shopping Center,” said Mark Looney, an attorney with Cooley, Godward Kronish, which is representing Lerner. “That property was zoned as part of the original Reston Town Center creation back in the late 1980s and it was underdeveloped with the current retail uses.”

Looney said that the reason behind the public hearing deferral is to further address some staff recommendations "that were also endorsed by the Fairfax County Planning and Zoning Committee" to improve the pedestrian connections through the development.

“The project has always been designed to be an urban, pedestrian-oriented development opening onto Fountain Drive, but we are now trying to build-in additional pedestrian connections through the development, opening up some of the plaza areas to the public,” he said.

What, were they originally going to be sealed off with barbed wire and a moat guarded by sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads? Losing the Macaroni Grill would have been an awfully big price to pay for that.

Meet the New Boss: As Mauve as the Old Boss

Catching up on a few nail-biters in recent weeks:

• In an election almost as exciting as last week's Pennsylvania primary, except that it was conducted by mail and didn't include a debate peppered with questions about loving the flag or has-been comedian Sinbad, Reston residents decided to vote for change... and experience!
  

  Residents voted to re-elect Cheryl Beamer to the Reston Association's Board of Directors as Hunters Woods-Dogwood district director and selected Richard Chew to serve as one of the board's at-large directors, RA announced during the annual member's meeting Tuesday. Beamer defeated John Bowman by 132 votes and Chew received 539 votes more than Barbara Zicari. Beamer and Chew each will serve a three-year term.

  Huzzah! So, what exciting issues will the new/old board tackle? Controlling the growth of RA dues? The ongoing challenge of maintaining meaningful design covenants in an aging community when such modern innovations as aluminum wiring, hollow, uninsulated metal doors and single-pane windows are laughably outdated? Who on the board does -- and doesn't -- wear an RA pin in their lapel?

  Chief Executive Officer Milton Matthews and Blackwell both said they are looking forward to creating an indoor tennis and recreation facility in the next year. Matthews said it is his top priority and he thought an indoor facility would serve residents well during the winter.

  Sorry we asked.
  
  
• The Reston Community Center has a new director, too, with that whole experience/change thing happening to boot.

  Leila Gordon began working at Reston Community Center in 1983, hired to supervise arts education offerings and working part time as a customer service representative. Twenty-five years later, she is running RCC, having been selected as the center’s executive director. Gordon, 53, spent 24 of her 25 years at RCC as the Performing Arts Director. Now she is the center’s third executive director since 2005. She has committed to a five-year contract with the RCC.

  That five-year contract is a good thing, because the RCC is closing its Hunters Woods facility for renovations this summer, and we all know how quickly contractors work! Who wants to guess whether the shiny new indoor tennis facility or the renovated RCC winds up opening first?
  
  
• The Herndon-Reston FISH Bargain Loft has a new manager, Chris Hartmus. We're sure Chris is a decent person, so we just thought we'd throw this in so no one felt left out.
  

Redistricting Fever: Bratz on Trial!

Hey, remember that time a group of parents formed FairfaxCAPS, a pro-public-school booster club to provide positive input to the not at all controversial redistricting process involving South Lakes High School, Bratz and a bunch of foreign-sounding IB classes that apparently teach kids to not wear American flag lapels? And then remember how they decided the best "input" was a frivolous groundbreaking lawsuit, funded by Christmas ornaments and Indian cuisine?

Yeah, that was awesome. Well, turns out the court date has been set.

Thanks to the support we received from hundreds of friends and neighbors from around the community and across the county, FairfaxCAPS has been empowered to engage attorneys in a landmark case to overturn the Fairfax County School Board's recent decision to redistrict our schools. This case, scheduled to be heard in Circuit Court in early July 2008, will make it clear that the Fairfax County School Board is accountable for its actions and must operate within State law. While winning this battle will not be easy, we are confident in the soundness of our legal claims and the abilities of our legal team.

And here they are -- the legal team that will strike fear into those evil school board attorneys and compel the judge to order that every Fairfax County student (and those from Loudoun County too, just for good measure) be forcibly bused to Langley High School:


Court adjouned!

Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 19: Like Office Space, only without Milton, his red stapler, or anyone else for that matter

It sounds like there's a lot of empty office space out there:

In the first quarter of 2008, developers delivered about 3.2 million square feet of office space in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region but managed to lease only 1.3 million square feet.

Further out in the I-270 corridor, Prince George’s County, Reston Herndon, and along Route 28 south, tenant demand has slowed. “It’s still growing, but more slowly,” Hartley said. “And competition for tenants is rising.”

Reston Town Center just brought three buildings on line and has another on the way, Hartley added. Those buildings are 70 percent leased. Six new buildings are going up in the Dulles Corridor. Hartley believes competition will heat up in this area.

If by competition, you mean "lots of fluttering banners saying "FOR LEASE," that's probably true.

But don't worry about those empty tall buildings. Worry about the foreclosed mauve townhouse down the street because.... it could kill you.

The phrase “bloodsucker” is being bandied about in some conversations about the foreclosure crisis in Fairfax County, but not in the way that one might suspect.

According to the Fairfax-based National Pest Management Association, an unexpected consequence of the rising number of foreclosures in Fairfax County is the number of unoccupied, unkempt properties and their potential for breeding mosquito populations that could heighten the risk of West Nile virus cases this summer.

Alarmist? Perhaps, but no more so than the annual spate of "the iced tea you drink at a restaurant could kill you" stories you get on the news every night.

Happy Birthday, Bronze Bob!

One advantage of creating a mauve-colored New Town out of whole cloth and oil company money: Your birthday becomes a pretty big damn deal. As Reston celebrated its 44th birthday and founder/Dear Leader Robert E. Simon celebrated his 94th birthday on April 12, he unveiled his long-rumored reverse-Midas touch, transforming himself into mauve-colored gold at the touch of two Lake Anne water mold sprites.

Then everyone had cake. Hooray!

Come for the macrobiotic, grass-fed corn, stay for the Macaroni Grill (tm!)

A farmer's market is coming to Reston's fake downtown, fulfilling the longstanding dream of mixing generic, high-end retail with... smelly corn.

Reston Town Square — the park in Reston Town Center nestled between Midtown Towers, the building hosting Greater Reston Arts Center gallery and the new block of commercial buildings at South Market, which hosts Rolls Royce headquarters among other tenants scheduled to start moving in before summer — is the site for the Reston Town Center market.

No starting date has been set for the market, but Barbara Rovin, the Reston Town Center Association executive director, said she hopes the market would open no later than May 1.

Yay! So will this bring on the long awaited battle royale between RTC and Reston's original downtown, the comical-sculpture-festooned Lake Anne Plaza?

She said she does not think the Reston Town Square market would compete with other farmers markets, including the Lake Anne market held on Saturday mornings. "There is no reason why we can’t complement each other," said Rovin.

That's great! But with gas prices what they are, where will we drive the Escalade to pick up our locally grown, carbon-neutral rutabegas?

Bringing in wine vendors to the market is also under discussion.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

Meet Your Neighbors: Like Mystery, Only With HOA Covenants

When deciding to live in a tree-lined suburb instead of a vibrant city center, one has to make certain tradeoffs: more space vs. urban living, ample parking vs. things you'd actually want to park near, Macaroni Grill vs. hip, independent restaurants, and normal, approaching-middle-age neighbors instead of overgrown frat boys.

Not in Reston, though.

It is midway through a Saturday afternoon relationship seminar at Alexandria’s Cameron Perks Coffeehouse, and dating coach Jae Ellis is preparing to shatter a myth. “I’m going to shatter a myth right now,” he says. “Are you ready?” The crowd—nine men, five women—is ready. “Women,” says Ellis, “like to have sex.”

The students nod. Some take notes.

Sigh. Only in the DC area. We're surprised they weren't tapping this vital information into their Blackberries.

The revelation is one of many in Ellis’ crash course on hooking up, “Dating and Attraction 101,” offered through full-service dating help organization AskRomeo.com. Ellis, who sports a maroon button-down, a little bit of heft, and a line of facial hair that traces his jaw and continues up the center of his chin, formed AskRomeo in 2006, along with friend Allen Bickoff. Bickoff is also a little hefty and also wears a maroon shirt—though his is slightly less buttoned. When it comes to attracting women, Ellis and Bickoff will tell you that their looks aren’t nearly as important as their male personae.

Through instructive courses, private pickup tutoring, and intensive dating boot camps, Ellis and Bickoff promise to teach how to best embody gender-specific roles. AskRomeo.com’s programming bills itself as co-gendered; while men will learn “how to project a refreshingly bold masculine presence that sweeps a woman off her feet,” women learn “how to project a wonderfully alluring feminine presence that catches the heart of Mr. Right.”

Yikes. So how much would something like this cost?

Though the group course runs just over a hundred bucks, a three-hour, one-on-one coaching session with an AskRomeo.com instructor goes for $397. A full three-month program, called the AskRomeo academy, runs $3,997 to $7,777. For only $2,996 per week, you can live with Ellis and Bickoff in the Reston apartment that doubles as their office.

Awesome! And worth each and every one of those 299,600 pennies, given the close proximity of their lothario office/lair to Reston's swinging singles scene.

This Week in Crime: When not to call the police: A brief but informative essay

The genius of the week:

A 21-year-old Reston man was arrested on Wednesday, April 2 at his home at Southgate Square in Reston. He was cultivated as a suspect after an investigation into a robbery of a 33-year-old Fairfax man on March 11 in the 13200 block of Blueberry Lane. He was arrested without incident and taken to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center where he was charged with robbery.

Here's a tip to all you would-be armed robbers out there. If you rob someone while wielding a baseball bat, you might not want to call the police to tell them someone's been tampering with your car.

That is all.

Everyone Loves Puppies, Pt. 2: Yeah, but do they give away free cars?

Armstrong Elementary School's student-run TV broadcast managed to scoop Oprah and Ellen on the heartwarming story of Cinnamon, an Afghani dog adopted by a U.S. serviceman when his tour of duty there ended. Turns out the first stop on the obligatory book tour for 44 Days Out of Kandahar wasn't those effete cultural snobs at The New York Review of Books or even Entertainment Tonight -- it was Armstrong Elementary.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: People love puppies.

This Last Week in Crime: Not Quite Like the Brady Bunch

Fairfax County Police are looking for a 17-year-old teenager wanted in connection with the murder of his stepmother at her Greywing Square townhome last Thursday.

Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 18: Anyone want a 60-year ARM on a townhouse?

Reston's awesome housing stock of faux stucco, mildewing concrete and taupe-painted wood hasn't managed to escape the throes of the foreclosure crisis.

According to a Fairfax County-generated list, 156 residential properties in Reston entered foreclosure between January 2007 and February 2008. Southgate Square, Reston’s largest cluster with 178 townhomes, was among the hardest hit areas. Eleven properties in the cluster entered foreclosure during that time period, according to the county list.

Regular contestants of this site's high-low game know Southgate Square well. Other past high-low winners are represented on streets with multiple foreclosures, including Market Street (9 foreclosures), Stoneview Square (9 foreclosures), Coquina Drive (7 foreclosures), Castle Rock Square and White Cornus Lane (6 foreclosures).

FORECLOSURES HAVE hit areas of Reston that are long-established as well as some newer properties. Market Street in Reston Town Center was home to nine properties that entered foreclosure — five of them in the Savoy Condominium — between January 2007 and February 2008. The Savoy was built in 2004. Shadowood Condominium, established in 1974 as one of Virginia’s first condominiums, in South Reston was also hard hit in the same time period, with 15 foreclosures on the two streets that comprise the development — Stoneview Square, nine foreclosures, and Castle Rock Square, six foreclosures.

Meanwhile, neighboring Herndon has had nearly double the number of foreclosures.

According to a Fairfax County generated list, there have been 389 foreclosures in Herndon, both incorporated and unincorporated, between January 2007 and February 2008... n addition to nationwide economic trends, according to Town of Herndon Vice Mayor Dennis Husch, last year’s drought and decline in construction jobs along with questionable home loans from banks contributed to the foreclosures in Herndon. "It was just a perfect storm," said Husch. "When construction jobs tailed off and drought hit last summer, a lot of people couldn’t find jobs."

All of this means it's a great time to buy!