On the YouTubes: Meat the RA Board Candidates

Andy Sigle is back, his dulcet tones apparently gently melting the piles of snow in the background during the opening shots of this month's fancy RA "video news" program. We get to “briefly” meet all of the candidates for the RA Board… and a snake. Also, be sure to sign up for the Nature Center’s “owl pellet pickings” program, the end.

Furtive Glimpse of Proposed Indoor Tennis Facility Shows Earth Tones, Disturbing Lack of Juicery

No, this isn't an aerial view of a new earth-toned mini mall, but a rendering of what the awesome proposed indoor tennis complex at Lake Newport might look like. We were hoping for the plexiglass dome, but beggars can't be choosers. In this fancy "news paper" article, it says the plan is to go from six outdoor courts to five indoor ones.

"One of the nicest things is it doesn't really change the use of the site," said Larry Butler, director of Parks and Recreation for the Reston Association.

Though still in the early stages of design, Butler said the footprint of the facility would likely fall in line with what is currently at Lake Newport. The six outdoor courts there -- about 36,000 square feet -- will be replaced with five courts at 46,000 square feet, he said.

"We're really just taking a seasonal facility and making it year-round. It makes the most sense to put it at the Lake Newport site," Butler said.

Previous plans for an indoor tennis facility lost momentum because of location and scale. In July 2009, the Reston Association voted to eliminate the choice of Brown's Chapel -- a 22-acre park with walking trails, baseball fields, basketball courts, tot lot, picnic pavilion and historic chapel. The 500,000-square-foot facility carried a $65 million price tag. The size of the project sparked debate in the community, including a campaign to "Save Brown's Chapel," which opposed having a large complex on a historic site.

"Brown's Chapel was an integrated complex. It had aquatics, tennis, fitness, community meeting areas," Butler said. "What we're talking about now is a different animal."

We're guessing that means no juicery. Nuts.

Some 48 outdoor courts serve 15,000 players a year, according to the RA. After the well-deserved debacle of the Brown's Chapel Rec Center, it would be nice, if finances permit and the planets align, for them to -- wait for it -- be served. (Get it?)

On the YouTubes: Reston's Wackiest Medical Blunders and Privacy Violations

For once, Fox News' dumpster-diving found something other than poorly doctored Kenyan birth certificates! A dumpster diver found unshredded medical records from Family Health Center on Town Center Parkway in Reston, which is run by Dr. Eric Havens. The obligatory statement:

"Dr. Havens wishes to express his deep regret that medical records of his patients were inadvertently included in the disposal of other non-medical records. This isolated incident is outside of the usual office procedures and protocols for the destruction of patients’ records."

The funny part? Officials made Fox give the records back to the doctor's office, where they will be destroyed, or maybe put up on eBay or something.

(Tip of the hat to the Peasant from Less Sought After South Reston and his wife, Daniela Boone.)

Wiehle Metro Development: Standing Room Only Crowd Listens to P&Z Consider ARBs, TIAs, and DRBs

Here's "citizen journalism" or "web logging" or whatever at its finest. No sooner than we sent out our call for information about yesterday's Reston Planning & Zoning committee meeting about the awesome Wiehle Metro station development than did the eyewitness accounts start rolling in. And here's what we heard. It was standing room only! Bob Simon, among others, called for even taller buildings -- which actually makes sense, as when you follow current county rules, you get the mind-numbing fugly sprawl of Tysons Corner. Someone else proposed revitalizing the DRB's long-lost, malformed sibling -- the ARB! The beginnings of an urban grid beyond the existing site were suggested, and it sounds like Comstock is setting whatever midscale retail chains might call the development home up for limited traffic.

Comstock began the presentation with changes to its previous proposal:

They submitted a TIA (Traffic Impact Analysis) that apparently showed that in spite of the 5000+ parking spaces of the final proposal--2300 public parking for the Metro, and 3000 some odd for private parking for the office and residential buildings--the peak traffic load would be about 1300 cars (additional to the current traffic). To me that was implausible in the extreme. Even so, their TIA showed a "Level of Service" (LOS) grade of F. That's F for failing, and that is after their traffic mitigation, which is mostly additional turn lanes and timed traffic signals. He said that there would be traffic demand management goals of 20-25 percent reduction in peak hour trips and penalties if they didn't make the goals. He didn't say what measures would be taken other than assuming that with high density living and some pedestrian amenities people will use cars less. I think they probably assume they will pay the penalty and build it in to their costs.

He talked about the Plaza which he tried to convince the P and Z members was actually large--about the size of the Town Center plaza with the skating rink: 100 feet wide and about 300 feet long. Part of the Comstock plaza will be a road. He said that cars will be necessary on the plaza to attract top level shops and the hotel. He showed the traffic flow around the plaza and it is two way traffic making a zigzagging route along the length of the plaza. Also there will be parking along the roadway and a two taxi stand in front of the hotel. Picture the Town Center plaza with a two lane road going from the fountain, along the Clydes outside area, cutting across the skating rink and returning along the side of the Hyatt, with cars parked in the Clydes and Hyatt areas.

Sadly, it sounds like the idea of making the tall buildings in the proposal even taller to create more open space is a non-starter.

There were also several calls from the committee & the floor to increase allowable building height and reduce minimum parking requirements, all with a view to making the site more attractive with a larger plaza and more sunlight. Even Bob Simon encouraged building higher to reduce the footprint and increase sunlight and open space!

The key downer was the engineering observation that the piers for the parking garage are designed to carry the weight of the buildings as they are currently configured and increasing building heights would be problematic, if not impossible. One Comstock partner suggested they could switch to steel from concrete to build taller buildings, but that didn't seem to get much traction, I presume because of cost considerations.

Also, the positioning of retail struck some observers as odd:

One thing that I hadn't thought of from an architectural viewpoint until last night's discussion was that the retail in the Comstock block focuses inward, not toward the street. This contrasts strongly with the "success" principles of TOD development that call for retail to face the street, making an easily accessible and open retail environment.... In contrast, Comstock is proposing an insular, hard to see, much less access, retail environment. As one P&Z committee member put it, it could easily become as dead a plaza as the one on the west side of the Reston International building.

Some hints of future development also emerged during the meeting:

One new development--or at least new to me--was that Chuck Veatch is preparing proposals for the small site just west of the large Comstock block as well as his much larger block northwest of the core Comstock site, according to his attorney. The only feature of the proposal the attorney presented was that Veatch intends to extend the street on the west side of the Comstock block north to Wiehle--a beginning of the "grid of streets" in this area. He expects to have those proposals done by the end of this month and Art Hill suggested that the proposal come to the P&Z committee in May.

And then there's that thing about the DRB-like ARB.

I think Art Hill's strategic recommendation to create a design review committee to look at the architecture of development in the RCIG--a la the now-defunct ARB--as an advisory group under the local supervisor may be the key long-term idea to come out of the meeting. I would note that he didn't suggest that the current DRB should take this on, but he didn't totally disabuse that notion either. He was looking for a supervisor-appointed group, I think.

According to one participant, parking seems to be the big bone of contention going forward:

There were lots of questions about the traffic and parking. It seemed to me that the DPZ and county transportation dept. doesn't think that was too important. Bob Simon chimed in and asked to request a study of Arlington traffic before and after metro--he guessed that there would be little difference in spite of the huge increase in population and density. I think that is probably right but only because Arlington did not supply parking. The county transportation guy said that he agreed and that parking was the biggest bone of contention between them and Comstock. But somehow, they are still allowing 5000+ parking spaces.

Probably the most encouraging thing to come out of this meeting was how well-attended it was. This project and JBG's Fairway redevelopment proposal are the two big harbingers for what development throughout the Silver Line corridor might look like, so it's important to keep tabs on it -- ARBs and P&Zs and DRBs and TIAs and all.

Calling Junior Reporters!

So the Reston Planning & Zoning committee reviewed the awesome proposed Wiehle Metro station development last night, and apparently there was much hilarity about one-way vs. two-way traffic and whatnot.

Did anyone actually attend this meeting? (Sadly, Restonian World Headquarters was in lockdown mode as we breathlessly anticipated the return of Jay Leno to the tevee.) If so, document the atrocities "action" in the comments below. And thanks.

Indoor Tennis, Not Swimming, Inches Forward

During its meeting last week, the RA Board voted to move forward with plans to build a massive plexiglass dome indoor tennis facility at Lake Newport. By April, the fancy structure will have been presented to both the fiscal committee and the DRB, so you know they're serious about putting this to a referendum of some sort by May, according to planning documents forwarded to covertly obtained by Restonian. Before all that happens, though, RA staff will "present the concept plan to the community and clusters located near Lake Newport Tennis Court complex" and then post the fancy plans on its "web site." We can't wait!

But here's the weird thing. The RA Parks & Planning Advisory Committee also proffered its recommendations about enclosing Lake Newport Pool to address the well-documented indoor swimming needs during the same meeting, but the RA Board took no action. Whazzup with that?

Two other recommendations were also made by the committee -- that the RA "ask that the provision of an indoor recreation center be included in the Comprehensive Plan, in consideration of development taking place at Wiehle or Town Center," and also that "the Fairfax County Park Authority, Reston Community Center and RA sit down and come up with a recreation plan for the next 20 years in terms of services to the community." Hopefully they won't meet in secret this time!

And that's not all the news for fans of sports and development controversy this month! This juicy nugget comes from the CEO report for February:

Fox Sports has contacted the Communications Department for video of Reston to be shown in a segment they will be airing featuring South Lakes High School alumni and professional basketball player, Grant Hill. The footage provided will include Lake Anne Village Center, various Reston Association neighborhoods and amenities of the community.

Sweet! We hope there's some "B-Roll" (as those of us in the industry call it) of Hill whazzitcalled, "dunking" a ball as he leaps over the statue of Dear Leader at Lake Anne, the end.

This Week in Crime: Purse Snatching Near Southgate, and a Toothless Bit of White-Collar Crime

It's been a slow week or so in Reston crime, with the only incident report approaching even vague menace being this purse snatching near Southgate in South Reston:

Two men robbed a 44-year-old woman of her purse in the 2200 block of Stone Wheel Drive on Tuesday, February 16 around 10:40 p.m. The suspects were described as black, about 25 years old. They were between 5 feet 7 and 5 feet 8 inches tall and 190 pounds, with short, black hair and brown eyes. One suspect wore a black jacket and black pants; the other wore a khaki jacket with black pants. The victim did not require medical attention.

Also, a "bag of toothbrushes" was stolen from a business in the 11100 block of Sunrise Valley Drive. Wouldn't that be a dentist's office? And don't they give those away for free, generally speaking?

More questions than answers this first Monday in March.