Flashbacks:
The RNGC Caddyshackpocalypse
Bollards!
Not a smoggy glimpse of Reston's hellish, Blade Runner-like future, these illustrations instead show the two fancy residential buildings that Reston Excelsior LLC hopes to build on Oracle's campus near the intersection of Sunset Hills and Reston Parkway. Residential development on the Oracle campus has been on the books since 2006, but it's finally advancing. The Fairfax Planning Commission will consider the project this Thursday, though county staff is recommending the application be denied.
If approved, the two buildings would contain a maximum of 457 residential units and 830 parking spaces, 820 of which would be in an underground parking garage, as well as 1 acre of open space. A third office building has also already been approved in an unrelated process, but not yet built.
The planning commission approved a similar plan in 2006, but expressed concern "with the relationship or lack of relationship that would be established between the residential buildings and the office buildings, as well as the Plaza America development to the east." We'd suggest having some sort of mixer, maybe playing some Kei$ha or whatever noise the kids like today and maybe having a game of Twister to break the ice, but instead the developer promised to build "passive recreation areas" around the existing stormwater management ponds. We think "passive recreation" involves sitting inside and reading "web logs," but that's just us.
Other concerns cited by county planners include transportation noise, access for pedestrians and bicycles, and a lack of affordable workforce housing. They also dinged Excelsior for not providing a sufficient level of detail about the architecture of the residential buildings or any planned transportation improvements. Having seen the pictures above, though, we're not sure what they're talking about.
Update: The planning commission deferred a decision until its July 22 meeting.
So much for TOD.
ReplyDeleteOh good. Cause the Reston Parkway/Sunset Hills intersection wasn't quite enough of a PITA already.
ReplyDeleteI should be quiet. Sooner or later, someone's going to get ideas about the old Sallie Mae campus, and won't that just be a CF?
More affordable housing? Are they serious? God, increasing Cathy Hudgings' base is not what most of us want. The place will be filled with dirt, grafitti on the Oracle logo and vandalized almost daily.
ReplyDeleteAnon 12:49 -- Good question. What *is* going on with the old Sallie Mae campus?
ReplyDeleteWhere is the old Sallie Mae campus?
ReplyDeleteAnon 3:29. If you're coming out of Plaza America at the stoplight where the bank is, near the Starbucks side of the center, you'll see a road across Sunset Hills. That is the old Sallie Mae campus, which back at its inception, was the source of a Browns-Chapel-Juicery style controversy about its building. It was once the site of the old Bowman distillery.
ReplyDeleteIt's actually a very beautiful, if totally excessive, site. I daresay that had folks known in 1997 that Sallie Mae, who presented such an earnest case for its need of 400,000 sq. ft, would be bailing on the property in favor of a 240,000 sq. foot location less than 10 years later, I think things might have gone more like the Browns Chapel juicery.
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-29-2003/0001936291&EDATE=
I don't think anyone has occupied the property since 2004. Although my busy schedule as one of Cathy Hudgins' constituents is jam-packed full of graffiti-tagging and dirt spreading, so I cannot say I've investigated the building thoroughly (what up Anon 1:12!).
My Google-fu is weak today. Apparently Fannie Mae is there now:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.restonpaths.com/SallieMae/FannieMae.htm
"Other concerns cited by county planners include transportation noise"
ReplyDeleteYes, because with the 12 lane highway in the backyard, and a subway under construction, residents will need to tippy toe through the parking lot to make sure they don't disturb any of the Oracle workers.
"We'd suggest having some sort of mixer, maybe playing some Kei$ha or whatever noise the kids like today and maybe having a game of Twister to break the ice"
ReplyDeletethere's no chance any normal guy is playing Twister with fellow Plaza Americans, unless the organizers invite those waitresses at Champps who wear referee shirts
Not to worry -- none of those 830 cars will ever go anywhere. They will live in the residence, walk to work at Oracle, and buy their food at Whole Foods. Yaay, mixed use development!
ReplyDeleteSo, another apartment / condo complex? What is the vacancy rate in Reston now, anyway?
It's actually a very beautiful, if totally excessive, site. I daresay that had folks known in 1997 that Sallie Mae, who presented such an earnest case for its need of 400,000 sq.
ReplyDelete________
It's well worth a walk. It has sayings of Henry David Thoreau in stainless Steel planks through out the campus. I've often thought what Henry would of thought of it all or what if he would come to Reston and built one of his simple sheds to live in.
So, why haven't they thought about turning the Fannie Mae campus into a new Rec center, thus completing the full circle?
ReplyDeleteAnon 10:54: I have long thought that moving the rec center there was the answer. There's already parking, it has enough of a "park-like" setting, and let's face it, that section of Sunset Hills is already boned for traffic anyway. The Fake Downtown residents could walk there, and it's W&OD adjacent, so people could even bike there. Plus there is another entrance to the campus on Old Reston Ave. (currently blocked by a gate) that would provide another way to access the site other than Sunset Hills.
ReplyDeleteProblem is, it didn't have the sweet pricing deal that Browns Chapel had, since the land is held by someone other than one of the benevolent Reston governing groups. Any sale price for that campus would be beaucoup bucks.