What's Coming to Reston: Data Centers and Toned Abs, Among Other Things

Lots of exciting news on the development front -- assuming you find data centers and workout places exciting.

Core Site has filed a request to build a second data center building on its property across from USGS on Sunrise Valley Drive. The second building, which will be built behind the existing data center/office building, will be 158,399 square feet, no more than 60 feet high, and connected to the original building by a skywalk. That's right -- a skywalk. If we play our cards right, Reston could become as exciting and cutting edge as downtown Minneapolis!

Meanwhile, Lifetime Fitness has filed an application to build a health club on an 11-acre site at the end of Business Center Drive off Sunset Hills near the post office. It might not be just any ordinary fitness center -- in other places, their centers have been as large as 100,000 square feet and included rad amenities as rock climbing walls and whatnot. We can only hope that they offer something like this:

Meanwhile, many of the larger projects in the works have been in a holding pattern of late, including the Macaroni Grill-razing Spectrum redevelopment, the Reston Heights redevelopment, and the 23-story Town Center office building redevelopment, which Robert Goudie, co-chair of the Town Center Committee of the Reston Master Plan Task Force With an Unpronounceable Acronym (¥) recently testified lacks the residential component that the task force has pushed for in its recommendations.

But the longstanding Fairway Apartments redevelopment proposal is slated to go before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors for a public hearing on January 10, and Parc Reston won conceptual approval from the DRB for its two 14-story residential towers last month after shifting parking to a below-ground configuration -- a great example of the DRB doing what it's supposed to do, grumbling and threatened legal challenges notwithstanding.