Behold the Promise of Transit-Oriented Development: An Interim Retail Center

If you've driven by the future Wiehle Avenue Metro station in the past few weeks, you may have noticed that the project has completely filled the Sleestak pit "topped off," to use construction parlance, and now there's actually a building rising heavenwards above the future "civic plaza." Sadly, it appears that all of the edges of this first building intersect at disappointing 90-degree angles, but it's a start!

Our BFFs at the Reston Citizens Association recently gave a foreign delegation a tour of Reston Station, and were told that this impressive structure will house an "interim retail center" that will greet weary Metro commuters with, we dunno, an interim Starbucks or an interim Cheesecake Factory or maybe an interim Container Store for those who don't have time to drive across town to get a plastic laundry tub on the way home from work. Eventually, it's destined to become the lobby of a future hotel -- we're keeping our fingers crossed that it'll be one of these, but that seems unlikely, given that the first brushful of neon orange paint would cause klaxons to sound at DRB headquarters.

After all this time, it's sort of exciting to see this work come to fruition. Yet, something still seems missing…


Oh, right. Much better.