News and notes from Reston (tm).

Friday, August 6, 2010

This and That: A Mid-Summer Slouch Through Reston News

  • Remember what a bummer it was that Sallie Mae was moving to Delaware, taking its foul-mouthed CEO and hundreds of employees with it? Well, it looks like Verisign Inc., one of those fancy "Inter net" companies, is looking at Sallie Mae's awesome office building in the fake downtown, unless it moves to some low-slung office space in Loudoun instead.

  • Boston Properties bought a parcel of land in the Reston Town Center, where it might build up to 360 apartments in the "very near future."

  • Marion Stillson will remain president of the Reston Citizens Association following elections during the Reston Festival in July. Hank Blakely and John Bowman will serve two-year terms on the RCA Board, while Mike Corrigan will serve for one year.

  • Ha ha ha ha, the Tyson's Connector shuttle service is so underused it might get shut down. Guess people don't want free rides to gawk at Crystal Koons' sprawling car lots "Fairfax County's Downtown" at lunchtime after all.

  • The W&OD trail will be closed periodically during the next couple of weeks, as crews work on the bridge that will carry the Metro Silver Line over it.

  • Friends of Reston raised more than $1,000 for the Nature House during its recent storytelling fundraiser. You can watch videos from the performance at the link.

  • Because there's nothing else to do in Washington, D.C., these days, Rep. Frank Wolf wrote a fancy letter, on Congress stationery and everything, urging the rollback of toll hikes on the Greenway and calling them "highway robbery." (Get it?)

  • The Reston Post Office will expand its building on Sunset Hills Road, adding space and parking spaces by summer 2011.

  • Herndon-Reston FISH named Darlene Tolbert Palmer president of the non-profit organization.

  • Reston company Tetra Tech EM is one of many local companies that's gotten a share of the Gulf oil spill cleanup work, contracting with the EPA. Maybe if we show up in Louisiana with a roll of paper towels and some Lysol, we could get some of that sweet BP federal money.

  • South Lakes High School and its feeder elementary schools are in a partnership with Google to learn how to use Google Earth and other fancy software in the classroom. Computers in the classroom? Now there's a fad.

  • One judge had enough of a lawsuit involving real estate agents and a disputed house sale, ordering a Reston realtor and her attorney to pay $272,000 as a sanction.

  • Lafarge North America opened a new green headquarters in Reston, which we point out mainly because it's the one and only time we'll be able to link to Pit and Quarry Magazine.

  • Reston native Nora Corrigan recently won $28,200 on Jeopardy, crediting her success to "epic" all-night games of Trivial Pursuit in college.

  • Finally, we've found a place in Reston where brand-new single family homes cost $199,950, and near some sort of body of water to boot! Oh, wait -- it's a new development in suburban Chicago. Never mind.

9 comments:

  1. Per county tax records, the site that Boston Properties acquired is the vacant lot just northeast of the Sallie Mae headquarters and south of the "Town Square" in Reston Town Center (lot bounded by Town Square Street, Explorer Street, Bluemont Way, and St Francis Street); this lot has been used as a staging ground for Town Center construction for a while.

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  2. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonAugust 8, 2010 at 4:23 PM

    Since this is sort of open thread-ish...for anyone who still has to be convinced why Reston, or all of Fairfax for that matter, needs to control its deer population -- take a ride over to Twin Branches just south of Glade. There was one hell of a deer-car collision, to judge by a dead deer sprawled on the east side of the road and a car across from it with a totally smashed-in windshield on the passenger side. I only hope the driver came out of it OK.

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  3. To Peasant..

    I have been thinking about that driver all day. I drove past that at least twice today. My husband couldn't get over the carnage...they need to move the car already? It's disturbing to look at...

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  4. the carcass is still there as of this morning

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  5. was there an arrow in it ?

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  6. I noticed the old Bowman distillery has a SOLD sign in front of it. Have any plans been announced for it?

    (possible deer carcass storage?)

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  7. Peasant From Less Sought After South RestonAugust 9, 2010 at 7:52 PM

    As of 5:30 this evening, the car's gone. So's Bambi. Keep an eye out for any local fine dining establishment serving venison as tonight's special.

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  8. Anon 5:32:

    According to tax records, the old distillery was bought on July 26 by an outfit called "O and D Builders LLC". They paid $540,000 for it (quite a profit for the sellers, who bought the property in 1998 for $80,000). With that kind of money in play, one would have to think that there must be some kind of buildout to come. But as far as I can tell, no site plan or building permit application has been logged yet for this property (1865 Old Reston Ave) at the county (ldsnet.fairfaxcounty.gov).

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  9. Regarding the old distillery warehouse-
    A plan for turning it into condos was approved years ago. It included adding another section of building to the north side of the existing building. Parking was an issue, and the spaces for that plan were located down the little road that runs behind Sycamore apartments, about 50 or so yards from the old warehouse. That never made sense to me, as it would be a long, dark, scary walk at night up that hill.

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