Now Just No Oaks: Reston Tall Oaks Village Center Meets Its More Than Timely Demise (Updated)

Pour one out, as the kids no longer say, for the long-vacant, little lamented Tall Oaks Village Center Stucco Wasteland, which is finally meeting its maker. The Reston village center that wound up becoming the graveyard of a Giant, two international grocery stories, and the seemingly failure-proof 7-11 and Burger King franchises, finally began getting smashed up into tiny pieces of stucco and sadness on Friday, leaving a Susie de Los Santos-sized hole in our hearts.

Adding insult to injury, Confidential Restonian Operative “Joel” took this cellular telephone photo of Fairfax County firefighters recently smashing holes in the gutted building as practice, we guess, for the next time they need to get into a long-deserted shopping complex awaiting conversion into transit-oriented housing and a smidgen of retail inhabited by hordes of CGI grannies.

After the project, which includes 156 residential units, 8,500 square feet of retail and 6,000 square feet of office space, was approved by the county back in ought-sixteen, we’d wondered why it was taking so long for demolition work to begin. Was it because the bloom was off the Metro boom? Were the developers trying to assuage residents' concerns about limited retail space by covertly developing a shrink ray to compress a full-service Wegmans into 8,500 square feet of retail space?

Hahaha,no, silly rabbits, that would just be crazy! While the county signed off on the general design, the property changed hands and the new developer had recently been going back and forth with officials about whether the planned garage parking spaces could be made smaller. Give us some good minimum-width regulation blockquote, BFFs at Reston Now:

In an Aug. 21 proposal submitted to the county, Stanley Martin, the contract purchaser of the property, says the county’s requirements for the size of garages, which are included in original entitlements, are too generous and create a “design challenge that is inconsistent with the planned site layout.” The county requires personal garages to have a minimum width of 11.5 feet for single-car garages and 20 feet for two-car garages.

Maybe the firefighters were practicing punching holes in those fancy new garages so people can open their doors after parking. Or maybe this is all overwrought. After all, these cars will fit perfectly!

Construction is slated to begin in March, and Tall Oaks' last two remaining businesses have already relocated to the two pieces of the village center that will remain standing -- Paisano's Pizza to the former 7-11/Curves building, and the Fur Factory to the office building nearby. But still, the demolition marks the end of a kinder, gentler village center, one where one could pick up some sexist bread for dinner or choose from several legitimately great dining options (RIP Mama Wok's, El Manantial, Pho 75, et. al.) and grab one of those old-timey videocassettes to "Betamax and chill," as the oldsters never used to say but would have been pretty cool if they did.

We’ll let Tall Oaks’ onetime symbol of hope for retail revitalization have the final word.

Farewell, stucco emporium of our dreams.

Update: The first of two hearings on the skinny garage issue is scheduled for November 15. CRO "Joel" sent us another cellular telephone photo of what's left of Tall Oaks after a few days of hot bulldozer-on-stucco action (spoiler alert: not much).

"They sort similar materials into piles, presumably for recycling," he says. "My wife was surprised that there is a market for used stucco."

On Reston's Trails, The Nanny State Is Alive And Well

Welcome back, animated gifs from 1997

You'd think, what with America being Great Again and whatnot, all those pesky gumbint regulations would be null and void, and we'd finally be free to smoke our Juul, or whatever the kids call it these days, as we fire our anti-aircraft guns loaded with extra copies of The Fountainhead into the center of Lake Newport, because freedom.

Well silly rabbits, you'd be wrong, because in the objectively socialist People's Republic of Reston, the NANNY STATE is alive and well, still telling us we can't smoke on Reston Association property with its oppressive, freedom-robbin' signs. Thankfully, as our favorite correspondent, the Peasant from Less Sought After South Reston, points out, some Right Thinking Americans recently struck a blow for freedom, only to be harshly repressed by representatives of the Deep (Ochre) State. Here's his account:

While out and about (or, as they would say in Reston, Manitoba, “oot and aboot”) in our autumnal woodlands recently, the Peasant From Less Sought After South Reston stumbled across evidence of yet another rip in the social fabric that binds all Restonians together.

Remember when our earth-toned overlords at the RA decided to order those overpriced special signs banning smoking in our protected open space? Apparently some unwoke anti-social element – perhaps a dissolute youth with the snarky screen name of “Nick O’Tine” – took exception to this diktat and pushed back with an in-your-face “LOL”. Such impudence of course could not go unanswered, so…Nanny State to the rescue!

Who was Nanny? We cannot help but think that a latter day Miss Emily Litella, as immortalized by Gilda Radner from the original Saturday Night Live cast, with her knickers all cattywampus and having a conniption fit (to use two phrases we say here Deep in the Heart of Dixie Reston, bless your heart), made the sincere if somewhat futile editorial reply to LOL.

So, as Nanny Litella might state in all her befuddled glory on the RA YouTube channel, “What’s all this fuss I keep hearing about that hell is no laughing matter? Of course it’s not! Who wants to get poked in the wazoo with a pitchfork for all eternity...”

(Alarmed RA functionary intervenes) “Nanny Litella, that’s health is no laughing matter, not hell.”

“Oh. Never mind”.

Health is other people.

Parallelograms Gettin' STUFFED: Google, CVS Coming to Reston Station in Hot Commercial Real Estate Action

V. v. exciting news for fans of transit-oriented development and glass parallelograms: After sitting all but vacant for more than a year, Google is reportedly in talks to become a tenant of the Helmut Jahn designed, neon bedecked parallelogram at Reston Station. Google "woonerf" on Bing dot com, y'all, because our favorite earth-toned community is on fire!

Give us some good commercial leasing blockquote, BFFs at Washington Business Journal:

The Mountain View, California-based company is in talks to lease about 100,000 square feet from Comstock Cos. at 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, a trophy, 365,000-square-foot office building designed by architect Helmut Jahn. It is not clear what the company has in mind for the space or how close it is to an executed lease.

The deal would be a significant coup for Comstock, which delivered the 16-story 1900 Reston Metro Plaza more than a year ago but has scored only one office lease, with coworking space provider Spaces. The developer was said to have been in contention for at least two major prospects, Leidos Holdings Inc. and Nestle's U.S. headquarters, but both ultimately landed elsewhere in Northern Virginia.

Guess that totally metal viral advertising campaign worked after all.

It's unusual for office towers of this scope to be built on spec, but it's also pretty unusual to have two major anchor tenants casting about for space at the same time, so maybe the decision to move forward with building the long boi office building currently going up next to the parallelogram makes sense after all.

Speaking of which, that building, slated to open in 2020, has announced its first retail tenant: faux urban-curious CVS, which also has a location at Reston Town Center. Give us some exciting press release-generated blockquote, BFFs at Reston Now:

Christopher Clemente, CEO of Comstock Holding Companies, Inc., said the tenant, which signed a twenty-year lease with three five-year options, will bring “virtually every item one needs for daily living” to residents, tenants, and commuters in the area.

Since CVS has been in the news of late for its absurdly long receipts, perhaps the company wanted a space near the walkway to the Metro station so their patrons can unroll their receipts to look for that one elusive 50-cent off coupon for their next purchase of off-brand Q-tips, the end.