Hubris, Thy Name is Tysons

So how are things going in "Fairfax County's downtown," the amalgamation of shopping malls, car dealerships and boxy office buildings that will be transformed into a vibrant urban streetscape in which tourists and locals alike will stroll, froyo in hand, as they are serenaded by strolling musicians and panhandlers job creators trying to sell wilting single roses under the moonlight blocked by the giant concrete monorail pilings of the above-ground Metro, which has already won rave reviews for its aesthetic appeal? Let's ask Gerald L. Gordon, president of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, shall we?

“Fairfax County is now the downtown. D.C. just became our suburb.”

Good to see they're maintaining a sense of perspective.

The argument goes like this: Fairfax County has far more Fortune 500 companies (nine vs. four), enjoys a much lower unemployment rate (4 percent vs. 8.7 percent), is bookended by two airports and, with Metro arriving, is slated to add dozens of buildings taller than anything in the District. And, the Virginia community is a battleground in the presidential election.

When the Tysons projects that have been submitted for approval are complete, Tysons alone will have 50 million square feet of office space, 35 million square feet of residences and 5.5 million square feet of hotels. By those measures, it will become a major U.S. city.

Some District leaders consider Tysons a threat. The Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District, a group funded by commercial property owners, ranked the arrival of Metro to Tysons as one of its top concerns in its 2011 annual report. Office space in Tysons is available at a huge discount — about $25 a square foot less — compared with the average downtown.

Of course, there's a reason why office space in Tysons is cheaper. Downtown, you can have a fancy "power lunch" in which you can describe the comparative merits of your system to strap bombs to dolphins with lobbyists and lawmakers somewhere fancy, like the Palm or maybe one of the dozens of Potbelly Sandwich Works popping up along M Street without anyone having to get into a car. Tysons recently took a hit in that regard, and its upcoming signature destination leaves a little to be desired in terms of elite cachet. (Although Tysons does have retail options you'd more likely expect to see in a seedy downtown, not next to a cloverleaf intersection.)

Needless to say, D.C. officials aren't losing a lot of sleep over this.

Pedro Ribeiro, spokesman for D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, scoffed at talk of a rivalry. “We don’t consider Fairfax County to be our competition,” he said. “New York City is our competitor. San Francisco is our competitor. They’re not even in the same league.”

Ribeiro was not even aware that four Silver Line stations were coming to Tysons; he thought there would only be one. (The District has 40.)

AWWWWW HELL NO! Guess he'll be eating his words when he gets off at the Springhill/Greensboro East/Tysons West stop, or whatever it's going to be called, to cash in his Groupon at the Sunglass Hut.

“I think somebody really needs to go look up in a dictionary what the definitions of suburban and urban are,” Ribeiro said. “And then maybe we can have a discussion.”

And as we all know, Reston's own fake downtown Gritty Urban Core has got that definition all wrapped up. All Tysons has in terms of grit and bad-assness is a bunch of suicidal deer. Case closed!

Frankenstormpocalypse Now: Sandy Bears Down on Reston (and the Rest of Virginia, and 12 Other States)

V. v., exciting news! Reston was cited as an example of the wisdom of burying utility lines in a respected national forum discussing the policy implications of severe weather. Okay, it was just a series of comments on a New York Times "news paper" article, but not once did anyone mention a local politician in the least vaguely tangible contexts or suggest that dissenters engorge themselves in all-you-can-eat breadsticks at a local chain eatery, so we were impressed by the level of discourse.

(earlier "coverage" follows)

Okay, here's our CONTINUING STORM TEAM COVERAGE (or at least a link to our Twitter feed, which we might be able to update from our ca. 1996 Motorola flip phone until its battery cuts ou

Tweets by @Restonian

(Scroll down the Twitter feed for older storm-related posts.)


Here we go again! So far, it's just moderate rain and some light wind at Restonian World Headquarters, so we're not sure what the big deal is. What's that, Confidential Twitter Operatives "John" and "Dan"?

PANIC. To comfort ourselves, we're just going to watch this YouTubes video over and over until the power goes out and crashing tree limbs sever our Internet connection to the outside world. STORM TEAM COVERAGE updates later, assuming we still have power and our neighbors don't resort to cannibalism when they realize their electric can opener doesn't work. Apocalicious!

Caddyshackpocalypse Now: The Waiting Game

Hey, golf fans! Time to put on the green jacket and see what's happening in everyone's favorite sport of kings and inappropriate land use. Just because the "quiet company" postponed its meeting with the Fairfax County Board of Zoning Appeals until January doesn't mean that we can all head to the 19th hole for an earth-toned cocktail (we're partial to a Harvey Eggshell White Wallbanger ourselves).

Our BFFs at Rescue Reston have set up a fancy online petition, which they plan to present to the Board of Zoning Appeals. As of this morning, they had 380 signatures, so good on them.

Meanwhile, in a column, Rescue Reston alleges that the someday-to-be Macaroni Grill-razing owners of Reston Spectrum and the lead-blowing Nationals, the Lerner Co., is in cahoots with Northwestern Mutual Life to bring bollardy goodness to the golf course.

Several sources have indicated the golf course developer to be The Lerner Company, owner of the Nationals baseball team. Lerner has not publicly announced its involvement. But how perverse would it be that a premier sports entertainment company in the metro area is complicit in applying leverage to close down one of the premier golf courses and recreational amenities in Northern Virginia to construct medium to high-density housing?

John Lovaas argues that the delay is most likely a stalling tactic:

My suspicion is that they are taking a course of action often used by developers or a friendly supervisor when a proposal has caused considerable upset in the community. The idea is to delay for a few months, trusting that the intensity of the upset will dissipate. With luck, folks in the community will barely notice it when the deed is finally done. This was exactly the course taken recently by Supervisor Hudgins when she delayed a final decision on the proposed 23-story building on Reston Parkway, a project vehemently opposed by Town Center residents and three major community organizations. As in that case, there is a presumption here that the outcome favoring the large-scale development will not be well received in the community.

There is another, perhaps more wishful-thinking line of thought that contends Reston National’s case for a BZA reversal of the zoning official’s ruling is so weak that the corporates decided to delay in order to work further on the case or possibly even to rethink their position….

If they are only delaying in order to dissipate the tremendous community energy created by well-organized Rescue Reston with firm support from an increasingly effective Reston Citizens Association and the Reston Association, showing more independence under new leadership, that is a credit to all three organizations. But, as we saw with the RTC 23-story building proposal, delay can be effective, too.

Meanwhile, the Reston Association has produced a fancy memorandum discussing the potential impact of redevelopment of Reston National, assuming that development would yield 1,110 new units and 2,775 new residents. In a nutshell, the memorandum says that such development would be Bad for wildlife habitat, stormwater management, and demands on RA facilities, including pools and tennis courts.

One Fun Fact: much like Lake Anne is at the mercy of Hidden Creek Golf Course, which has land-use rights to drain water from the lake for irrigation even at the expense of users of the jet-age air conditioning system, Reston National can dip a bendy straw into Lake Audubon whenever it likes:

The water is used by the golf course to fill an irrigation pond. Under a different land use scenario, this right could be exercised to fill aesthetic features such as an ornamental fountain.

We can only imagine what such a "water feature" might look like:



Frankly, we'd be more concerned about swimming in Lake Audubon water.

At Lake Anne, It's Not Easy Being Green

The unseasonably warm weather appears to be taking its toll on Lake Anne. On the plus side, an entrepreneur could try bottling this stuff and selling it as "green tea." As for us, we think we found the perfect location to shoot the opening scene of our soon-to-be-released feature film, The Creature from the Earth-Toned Lagoon.

We're thinking of matting and framing this one and selling it as art. Or, we should probably say, "art."

Flashback Monday: The Military-Industrial Complex, Reston, and Representational Art, All in One Photograph

Sometimes even the most mundane minutiae of daily life can hint at the occult forces that ordinarily hide behind the curtains. In this exciting and clearly unstaged photograph from way back in 1968, we see various middle-aged white men smiling as they hold a framed painting for our perusal. It, of course, is a rendition of our beloved earth-toned community, with a sylvan scene of pristine boaters out for an afternoon jaunt on Lake Anne serving as a highly evocative representation of clean living out in the rapidly-being-tamed suburbs of Virginia. Check it, as the kids today haven't said for decades:

All in all, a lovely, almost pastoral scene, although as part-time semioticians and full-time "web loggers," we'd argue the larger scene around the painting is the one crying out to be "unpacked." Who are these men holding the painting to the camera? Some are representatives of Gulf Reston, the real-estate arm of the oil giant which, at the time of this photo, had full control over Reston after casting Bob Simon aside. The others are from General Electric, who had "commissioned the painting for a calendar," presumably to go alongside equally representative images of happy nuclear power plant workers and missile silo technicians. Behind them is a tableau of maps and plans for Reston -- many of which show much larger buildings than what eventually came to pass. The overall effect is one of a war room, a war room in which members of the Military-Industrial Complex are hungrily carving up the spoils of victory. Pay no attention to the men behind the fancy painting, they seemingly say with their unspoken fixed smiles, and carry on.

Or maybe it's just a cheesy PR shot for a company newsletter. Hard to say.

Reston Spectrum Redevelopment: The Day The Pasta Dies?

At first glance, it looks like another sunny day at Reston's big box nirvana, the Spectrum Center. But that unassuming yellow placard in front of the Macaroni Grill signals big ch-ch-ch-changes a-comin': the long-delayed, recently reactivated plans to level most of the Spectrum and replace it with more than 1,400 residential units, 255 hotel rooms, 172,000 square feet of office space and 245,000 square feet of retail are back on track, with a Fairfax County Planning Commission public hearing scheduled for Nov. 1.

We knew this day would come, but seeing that placard of Sad in front of Reston's signature midscale chain eatery makes it real in a very painful, artery-clogging way. So, it is with a heavy heart that we move the minute hand on the Macaroni Grill Doomsday Clock a minute closer to midnight:

TICK.

We don't know about you, but we feel an emotion-fueled carbohydrate binge coming on. Time to go eat our feelings, the end.

Update: Our favorite correspondent and Reston's Poet Laureate, the Peasant from Less Sought After South Reston, has done it again.

Metro Silver Line: Earning $1.5 Million, The Hard Way

Five companies, including new Reston-based buddies Bechtel, have been selected to submit bids to build Phase 2 of the Metro Silver Line, (someday) extending everyone's favorite E-ticket ride from Wiehle Avenue to Dulles and the particleboard Valhallas beyond. The competitively bid contract will be awarded next May, but never fear, everyone will be a winner!

Even if they don’t win the contract to build the second phase of the Dulles Rail extension, the five firms selected Wednesday to bid on the project could each be eligible for a $1.5 million check from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.

“It’s considered to be the standard in industry,” said Eric Carey, contracting officer for the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project. “We need to offer a stipend in order to get competitive bids. Otherwise, we won’t get the response we want or won’t get competitive pricing.”

We couldn't agree more. And in the spirit of competition, respectfully attached is our own carefully crafted proposal for Phase 2:

You're welcome. Airports authority, feel free to just Paypal us the $1.5 million when you get a chance. Thx!