Residents of the Vantage Hill Condominiums in Reston might not have access to air-conditioning this summer after the central cooling system that served the neighborhood shut down last year.
Abaris Real Estate Management, which manages the 152-unit complex, informed residents last Tuesday (March 31) that individual AC units are still prohibited for now because the property currently doesn’t have the electrical capacity to support them.
“The current electrical system cannot safely support the additional load,” Abaris Director of Property Management Sarah Helander wrote in the notice. “Use of such units may result in system overload, power outages, electrical fires, or other safety hazards.”
According to the notice, unit owners can submit a formal request to the Vantage Hill Condominium Association board for an exception based on their personal circumstances, but the state of the electrical infrastructure means there are “significant” limits on what can be approved.
The board has been preparing to make extensive upgrades to its electrical, HVAC and plumbing systems for months, sharing plans with Reston Association’s (RA) Design Review Board on Nov. 18 for units that would require exterior condensing equipment either on a pad or hanging on the side of building.
“We want to try to make it as least impactful on everyone as possible, especially the lower-level owners, who have patios outside,” consultant Anette Tower told the DRB, acknowledging that the condensing units will be a new sight for residents.
However, that project currently isn’t expected to be completed until spring 2027, Abaris said in the March 31 notice.
“The Board is nearing completion of the design and permitting phase and has initiated work on upcoming phases,” Helander wrote. “These include formal review and approval by the Design Review Board (DRB), completion of the Fairfax County permitting process, coordination with Dominion Energy, and finally initiation of the construction work. The Board has been actively working to advance the project as efficiently as possible.”
In the meantime, the condo board has been working with engineers and contractors in the hopes of identifying potential temporary solutions, but no viable options have emerged so far, according to the notice.
With temperatures already starting to creep into the low 80s this spring, one condo owner told FFXnow that he and his wife are considering finding an alternate living arrangement for the summer, since they have an infant.
Helander noted that Vantage Hill had originally hoped to implement the system upgrades “in a more phased manner,” but the project took on a new level of urgency after the Reston Lake Anne Air Conditioning Corporation (RELAC) announced in October that it will permanently cease operations.
The centralized, geothermal air-conditioning utility had served more than 600 homes and businesses in the Lake Anne area, including the Vantage Hill Condominiums, for 60 years. Though it was considered innovative when it was established in the 1960s, RELAC encountered challenges in recent years due to its age, rising maintenance costs and complaints of inefficiency from some customers.
A suspension of RELAC announced after the 2023 summer season was staved off by a community effort to take ownership of the utility through a new nonprofit entity, led by Reston resident Simon McKeown.
McKeown’s death in December 2024, however, created new uncertainty. RELAC’s owners attempted to keep the system alive by hiring a contractor to maintain it and potentially assume ownership, but after a difficult summer that saw multiple system failures, the contractor backed out, and they determined that the utility was unsustainable.
With RELAC no longer functioning, the RA Board of Directors voted on Dec. 11 to cease enforcement of a provision in its Reston Deed that prohibited property owners with access to a central cooling system from installing individual air-conditioning units.
As of last Wednesday (April 1), RA has received 74 applications so far this year from residents seeking the DRB’s approval of new AC units, with “one or two” coming in every day, RA communications director Cara O’Donnell says.
The Vantage Hill Condominium Association is next slated to present its application for the planned electrical upgrades to the DRB on April 21.
At that meeting, the Design Review Board will also consider AC units proposed by the Lake Anne of Reston Condominium Association (LARCA), which owns five buildings around Lake Anne Plaza, including the Heron House, Chimney House townhomes and commercial plaza, and Quayside condominiums.
According to a presentation that the DRB previously discussed in a Feb. 17 work session, LARCA hopes to provide a “community-wide solution” instead of having every homeowner apply separately to install their own unit.
For Quayside and Chimney House, the association has proposed rooftop unit or heat pump fixtures that will have “minimal to none at all” impact on the view of the buildings from the plaza, Kenneth Kosteva, an associate principal for LARCA’s engineering consulting firm WJE Associates, told the DRB.
A feasibility study found that Heron House has mechanical and electrical limitations that would preclude installing rooftop units, so LARCA is instead seeking to allow mini split-system units on balconies paired with interior air handling systems.
LARCA didn’t respond by press time to a request for comment from FFXnow, including on a potential timeline for its project.
