Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 19: Like Office Space, only without Milton, his red stapler, or anyone else for that matter

It sounds like there's a lot of empty office space out there:

In the first quarter of 2008, developers delivered about 3.2 million square feet of office space in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region but managed to lease only 1.3 million square feet.

Further out in the I-270 corridor, Prince George’s County, Reston Herndon, and along Route 28 south, tenant demand has slowed. “It’s still growing, but more slowly,” Hartley said. “And competition for tenants is rising.”

Reston Town Center just brought three buildings on line and has another on the way, Hartley added. Those buildings are 70 percent leased. Six new buildings are going up in the Dulles Corridor. Hartley believes competition will heat up in this area.

If by competition, you mean "lots of fluttering banners saying "FOR LEASE," that's probably true.

But don't worry about those empty tall buildings. Worry about the foreclosed mauve townhouse down the street because.... it could kill you.

The phrase “bloodsucker” is being bandied about in some conversations about the foreclosure crisis in Fairfax County, but not in the way that one might suspect.

According to the Fairfax-based National Pest Management Association, an unexpected consequence of the rising number of foreclosures in Fairfax County is the number of unoccupied, unkempt properties and their potential for breeding mosquito populations that could heighten the risk of West Nile virus cases this summer.

Alarmist? Perhaps, but no more so than the annual spate of "the iced tea you drink at a restaurant could kill you" stories you get on the news every night.