Dozens more townhomes could soon boost Reston’s housing supply after two different projects received final approvals from the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in recent weeks.
At its meeting on Aug. 25, the board unanimously approved an amendment to the development plan for Isaac Newton Square that will allow 24 townhomes on a 1.5-acre site in the northeast corner of the office park in place of a previously anticipated 180-unit multifamily residential building.
“This is an important step in realizing a vision of a redeveloped Isaac Newton Square, implementing the original conceptual development plan,” Walsh Colucci land-use attorney Andrew Painter said as the representative for developer Tri Pointe Homes at the public hearing.
Located at 1925 Isaac Newton Square East, the newly approved townhomes on Block N3 are the last piece of a four-block first phase of redevelopment. Plans for two other blocks — N1 and W2 — were approved on June 29 by the Fairfax County Planning Commission with no need for the Board of Supervisors to weigh in.
The fourth block, labeled N2, was approved back in 2023 and will consist of a seven-story, 345-unit apartment building. With road and infrastructure work finishing, construction on the new development’s first residential building is expected to start later this year, Painter told the planning commission in June.
In total, the first phase of the redevelopment will deliver approximately 488 new homes across the northern portion of Isaac Newton Square, which was one of Reston’s first office complexes, dating back to 1964.
Spanning 36 acres north of Sunset Hills Road and west of Wiehle Avenue, the office park now features nine low-lying buildings that were all constructed between the 1960s and 1990s.
Then-landowner Peter Lawrence Companies and developer MRP Realty secured the county’s approval in 2019 to overhaul 32 acres with 2.8 million square feet of new construction across 10 blocks, including up to 2,100 homes, 260,000 square feet of office space, 69,000 square feet of retail and 300 hotel rooms.
“When ownership moved forward to try to figure out a way to develop the first phase of Isaac Newton Square, it started at the northern edge and was going to work its way down,” Painter told the Board of Supervisors. “The idea really was to not have one block here and one block there, but to have a catalyst, [a] critical set of blocks come out at the same time in terms of amenities, in terms of overall placemaking.”
According to Painter, the back-to-back townhouses on Block N3 will share the same architectural style as the other approved townhomes, since Tri Pointe “didn’t want to have a radical change.”
The shift from a multifamily building to townhomes allowed the developer to incorporate more park space, including an expanded Willow Oak Park along Isaac Newton Square North, a Nature’s Edge Park with a playground and open lawn areas, and a Wayside Park along Wiehle Avenue that will feature a 10-foot-wide trail, benches, a bicycle repair station and landscaping.
Totaling 0.57 acres, the park space on Block N3 will all be publicly accessible, Painter said.
No community members participated in the public hearing, but Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn complimented the proposed site design and thanked Tri Pointe and APA Properties, which now owns the site, for engaging with the public on the project.
“It does, as was mentioned, fit into the neighboring properties and will be a nice little community as it comes online,” said Alcorn, who represents Reston. “I appreciate the work with the community, going through the Reston [Planning and Zoning Committee] as well as obviously the planning commission and other groups you talked with to get to this point.”
Construction expected near Bowman House next year
Meanwhile, developer EYA announced on Monday (Aug. 31) that it anticipates breaking ground on a new, 57-unit townhome community at 1850 Old Reston Avenue in spring 2027.
Approved by the Board of Supervisors in July, the homes will be built on the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association’s office campus, which centers around the historic A. Smith Bowman House.
Constructed around 1899 and one of only a few remnants of the town of Wiehle that preceded Reston, the Bowman House and an accompanying gazebo will be preserved as part of the development plan, according to EYA. The house is currently expected to be converted into a single-family home, but the developer has retained the option to allow office uses in the future.
“Working alongside Armed Forces Mutual and Fairfax County, we’ve developed a plan that transforms an underutilized office campus into much-needed housing while preserving the site’s historic assets,” EYA Executive Vice President of Acquisition and Development Evan Goldman said in a press release. “The result is a community that honors Reston’s history while delivering the thoughtfully designed homes today’s buyers are looking for, all within the active, walkable setting EYA is known for.”
The planned townhouses — seven of which will be designated as affordable dwelling units — will feature rooftop terraces and come in a range of floor plans, EYA said. Assuming construction begins on schedule, sales are slated to begin in fall 2027.
