Three proposals for future development in Reston were mostly greeted with varying degrees of skepticism by community members who crowded into the cafeteria at Langston Hughes Middle School (11401 Ridge Heights Road) last Monday (April 7).
Drawing an estimated 350 to 400 attendees, the meeting was one of three held by Fairfax County planning staff over the past two weeks to gather feedback on 11 different pitches for changes to land use guidance in the Reston Comprehensive Plan.
Of 53 nominations submitted countywide earlier this year, 43 made it to the screening phase of the county’s 2025 Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) process, which will determine which proposals should be added to a work program for formal study.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will vote on which nominations to advance to the work program on June 10 after receiving recommendations from the county’s planning commission.
Sunrise Valley Drive
The first presenter at the April 7 meeting, DLA Piper commercial real estate attorney Brian Winterhalter, survived the encounter relatively unscathed, as he proposed allowing residential development to replace the office building at 11600 Sunrise Valley Drive.
Constructed in 1972 and expanded in 1998, the existing building has, like other older office properties, seen demand decline after COVID-19 accelerated an embrace of remote work, according to Winterhalter, whose firm is representing the site owner, an affiliate of the Bernstein Management Corporation.
“We’re not seeking to remove the office option, but we think there’s a better opportunity to move forward in the near-term with housing,” he said.
In its nomination, DLA Piper proposed two development concepts:
- Option A — 125 total units, including 71 townhouses and 54 triplexes
- Option B — 396 total units, including a multi-family building with 348 units and 48 triplexes
In both cases, the developer — which will likely not be the current property owner — would designate 12% or 13% of the housing as affordable or workforce dwelling units (ADUs or WDUs) in accordance with county requirements, Winterhalter said, noting the rare opportunity to add for-sale workforce housing.
Space would be provided on the 9.92-acre parcel to accommodate the long-planned Soapstone Connector, which will extend Soapstone Drive from Sunrise Valley to Sunset Hills Road with a bridge over the Dulles Toll Road. The Virginia Department of Transportation anticipates holding a public hearing on the project’s location and design later this year.
A woman who said she’s lived in Reston for 50 years sought more open or green space than what’s visible in the presented concept plans and asked about the potential impact on schools, roads and other public infrastructure.
Winterhalter responded that those details will be worked out and evaluated during the rezoning process, which would begin after the proposal is accepted for the SSPA work program.
Reston Station expansion
Grumbles and at least one shout declaring “We don’t want Comstock” erupted when county staff introduced Comstock Companies’ proposal to expand its Reston Station development west, potentially all the way to Plaza America.
Encompassing 17 parcels totaling approximately 35 acres of land, the nomination would consolidate two sub-districts in the Wiehle-Reston East Transit Station Area to set the stage for additional mixed-use development, including housing, offices, hotel, retail, medical uses and senior living facilities.
With an even split between residential and non-residential uses, Comstock proposes organizing the development into four districts:
- Neighborhood Center: the existing and already-approved development closest to the Metro station, this district would be the most intense
- Residential and Park District: four blocks with both residential and non-residential space and a 3.5-acre central park
- Shopping District: two mixed-use blocks replacing office buildings just east of Plaza America
- Office District: the existing Plaza America Office Park
Hunton Andrews Kurth land use attorney Jill Parks described the nomination as a “visioning exercise.” The scope could evolve as Comstock continues discussions with neighboring property owners, and the broad language is intended to enable future developers to “entertain new ideas and respond to the market.”
“We’re just planning” for the future, she said, highlighting the central park and a new linear park system that would replace some commuter parking lots along Sunset Hills Road as possible benefits.
The consolidation could also open the door for the Soapstone Connector, with Comstock getting three property owners on board to dedicate land for the future road, according to Parks. Other transportation improvements could include an extension of Reston Station Blvd to Plaza America.
“It could accommodate a trolley,” Parks said, attributing the suggestion to Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn. “… We think it’s a good idea.”
Alcorn later clarified to FFXnow that there are no specific plans for a “trolley” at Reston Station, but he believes the county needs to explore additional transit options to close gaps between Metro stations.
“Metrorail is not enough. Eventually … we need to start thinking more long-term about what other transit options should be built toward in our Metro station areas. The trolley’s one idea,” he said, adding that another possibility could involve expanding Reston Town Center’s free shuttle service.
The packed room’s reception of Comstock was colored by the developer’s recent withdrawal from Herndon’s downtown redevelopment project as well as its lobbying for a casino in Tysons — to the chagrin of Reston’s elected officials and many community groups.
“I think this process is very premature,” Rescue Reston Board of Directors member John Pinkman said. “You have so far to go to win back the trust from people in this room.”
Reston National Golf Course
Most attendees, many in flourescent yellow T-shirts provided by Rescue Reston, had gathered for what the meeting moderator acknowledged was the evening’s “main event”: property owner War Horse Cities’ bid to build housing on Reston National Golf Course (11875 Sunrise Valley Drive).
After previous attempts to redevelop the 168-acre property were blocked, including an SSPA nomination in 2022, War Horse Cities — now without former partner Weller Development — is pursuing two possible paths forward:
- A PRC Plan amendment that would allow 288 stacked townhouses on 14 acres and golf course renovations, including a reconfiguration of nine holes, clubhouse updates, a “Back 9 Grill” eatery, and a lighted, multi-story driving range, putting course and training area
- An SSPA nomination from developer NVR that would open 86 acres to residential development, while setting aside the remaining 80 acres for open space, parkland or “other public uses”
Representing War Horse, a Baltimore-based investment firm, Cooley partner Mark Looney argued that “change has to occur” at the golf course, which hasn’t seen significant renovations since it was built nearly 60 years ago.
According to Looney, the golf course needs technological and design updates to compete with other sites, including ones run by the Fairfax County Park Authority, but facility updates alone still wouldn’t be enough to recoup the $23.57 million that War Horse and Weller paid to acquire the property in 2019 — a price that county land records note reflected expectations of future redevelopment.
“They have a right to achieve financial return on their investment,” Looney said when asked whether a renovation could be done without also adding townhouses. “Fixing the sprinkler doesn’t make it an economic success. They need to bring more patrons in.”
However, several community members accused War Horse Cities of neglecting the golf course to justify its redevelopment plans. One woman claimed the current manager, Kemper Sports, doesn’t implement frost delays to prevent damage to the course, and another resident alleged that trees were cleared from a resource protection area.
“What it sounds like is you’re running it into the ground and threatening us with development,” one man said, noting that he lives next to the property and sees “golfers going by all the time.”
With Alcorn maintaining that he’ll oppose any amendment to the comprehensive plan’s designation of the site as a golf course unless it gets community support, a full-scale redevelopment appears unlikely to advance.
According to Cooley, the PRC plan can be implemented without any zoning revisions — and therefore, no public hearings — because the townhouses would be built on 14 acres already zoned for housing under a development plan approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1966. Even that assertion has been met with skepticism, though.
“They have made that claim to me. I am not convinced,” Alcorn said to applause during the meeting.
In addition to serving as president of Rescue Reston, a volunteer organization that advocates for preserving Reston’s private golf courses, Connie Hartke told FFXnow that she’s a “small” real estate developer, so she understands from experience that it “hurts” for an investment not to pan out.
“But you don’t invest money that you can’t afford to lose,” she said. “… I think it’s time for [War Horse Cities] to stop harassing this community and fold it, and let someone buy the golf course at a golf course price that wants to run a golf course, because there are such investors.”
As for the other proposals, Hartke indicated she could be open to the Sunrise Valley redevelopment.
“Perhaps that is one that should move forward to the next level of conversation. I’m not sure. [County] staff will decide,” Hartke said. “… There are areas that need to be redeveloped, and perhaps that’s one of them, and it could provide some housing.”
Housing advocates speak up
Though the meeting was dominated by opponents to the proposed Reston National development, a couple of noticeably younger community members spoke in favor of building more housing — if not on that site, then elsewhere in Reston.
During the Comstock presentation, one speaker who said he grew up in Reston questioned whether the mostly older, overwhelmingly white crowd is representative of the full community.
Though it was founded as an integrated community, Reston is now nearly 60% white, and its two largest demographics by age are people between 25 and 34 years old, and people 65 and older, according to county data.
Karl Nielsen, a chapter lead for the center-left advocacy group D.C. New Liberals, noted that a lot of people in their 20s like him can’t afford to live in Reston, arguing that expanding the county’s housing supply will reduce costs, as some studies have shown.
Nielsen says he had to move from an apartment in the Reston Station area last year to another place in the Hunter Mill District, just outside Reston, after the landlord raised his rent by 23%. During the meeting, he said he hopes to someday buy a house in Reston, but afterwards, he told FFXnow he found the reaction to his comments less-than-welcoming.
“You cannot be progressive and be exclusionary at the same time. Those are inherently antithetical, and you do not see a bigger divide about that than when it comes to issues of housing,” Nielsen said. “So, if nothing happens on the golf course, but we do get that nice development at the Wiehle Metro, that’s still a huge net positive for Reston and for Fairfax County, and I would be totally happy with that. But events like this really show people’s true colors, and I think that that’s something that is worth taking note of.”
The need for more housing is also personal for Evan Ramee, a lead for the YIMBYs of Northern Virginia and undergraduate student studying civil engineering at George Mason University.
“Part of it is selfish, honestly, because I do want to live in this community for the next 59 years, and the fact that I might not be able [to stay] here is something that I want to fix, because it affects me directly,” Ramee said.
He lauded the Sunrise Valley Drive and Reston Station proposals as “excellent examples of infill development,” singling out the former for potentially revitalizing a site mostly taken up by an asphalt parking lot.
As for Reston National, Ramee says “it would be great” to see the golf course turned into a county park or to see it split between open space and housing, as proposed by the SSPA, but he predicted that the PRC plan renovation will likely prevail.
“As an organization, we have to pick our battles, and the first two [SSPAs], there was a lot less aggressive NIMBYism,” he said.
Boosting the county’s affordable housing supply has been a priority for the Board of Supervisors, which set a goal in 2022 of adding 10,000 more ADUs and WDUs by 2034. While he agrees more affordable housing is needed, Alcorn says Reston already has 11,000 residential units that have been approved but not yet built.
“It’s not like we are holding back regulatory approvals for new residential in Reston,” Alcorn said. “We have so much that is already allowed, but this is currently not, and that’s what these nominators are trying to change. I think it’s healthy for the community to weigh all that whenever providing input.”
