News and notes from Reston (tm).

Monday, June 1, 2009

Another Week, Another Tall Building

rtcmap.jpgBoy, does the Reston Planning & Zoning Committee have a busy evening ahead of it! Along with the awesome mixed-use complex that the JBG Companies is proposing for the site of Fairway Apartments near Lake Anne, the board will also consider another proposal to demolish a two-story day care center near the Reston Town Center and replace it with a 15-story residential tower.

Applicant RAJ Development, LLC seeks approval of a plan to demolish the existing two story day care center known as Winwood located at 1841 Explorer Street on 1.6 acres of land and replace it with a 180 foot high 15 story building containing 375 residential units. The square footage of the existing building is 9100 square feet; the square footage of the proposed building would be 50,000 square feet.
Hello, Manhattan -- at least if you consider Manhattan to be a handful of tall buildings surrounded by low-rise suburbs, limited mass transit options, and a paucity of polyglot hot dog vendors. Seriously, at least this proposal is more or less in character with the buildings that surround it. And who wouldn't want to live in a complex within walking distance of the Macaroni Grill?

6 comments:

  1. 50,000 sq ft bldg divided by 375 residential units gives 133 sq ft for each unit. Does this mean we are going to have our own prison????

    They can call it the Robert E. Simon Center for Reformation. They could bring back all the prisoners that were scattered to Tennessee and West Virginia when they closed Lorton. It would complete our town.

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  2. It's probably 50,000 sq ft per floor. If there are 13 or so usable floors, it works out to a more normal square footage.

    If they wanted to be really out there, perhaps they could include some 3 and 4 bedroom units. Very common in Manhattan...

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  3. The Convict in Gulag 4June 1, 2009 at 2:01 PM

    133 sq ft is huge. Heck, most of us are quite comfortable in no more than a 6' X 8' space.

    If you should find out that you're having problems getting support for nuking the daycare center, RAJ, please note that there are at least three properties in the Gulag that are already zoned for apartments and are ripe for redevelopment. You can find them by looking for the FCPD helicopters orbiting overhead on warm weekend evenings.

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  4. Sorry, Convict. Fairfax County has already bought those apartments to ensure that "prices ... very moderate to expensive" could become "prices ... less than zero to expensive"

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  5. Great...another high rise dwarfing the Reston Regional Library...what I foresee is that by the time the library actually gets its bond issue passed for renovation, the price of land will have skyrocketed to the point that it is no longer economically feasible to do so. On the other hand, the Washington Post says we're going to all-digital reading formats anyway, so who needs a bricks and mortar library?

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  6. Not 375 units, but 125 units and the day care center will be on the third floor. Floors one and two will be for retail. 2,400 sq ft condos and some workforce units at 1,000 sq ft each. At 180 feet tall it will cast a long shadow, but it's a more interesting looking building than any others now in Town Center, in the drawings anyway. P&Z approved the plan. Now the county does their part. Five years from now there will be a new building next to Library Park. We hope Library Park will be there, too.

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