Fairfax County is deciding what happens to 119 acres. County planners have already said the proposals in front of them don’t work together. The deeds explain why they cannot — and the window to say something is open right now.
Links to all cited sources can be found at the end.
In July, Fairfax County held a community meeting about the proposed projects for Reston East — the office belt running along Sunrise Valley Drive from Makers Point in the west, east to Hunter Mill Road.
It was an open house. Six easels. Six different developers with six different pictures and no explanation of how any of them fit together. No presentation. Just “What do you think? Do you have any questions?”
I left early. I didn’t know what I was looking at, because there was no cohesion to the open house — promoted as a “meeting.”
I have since discovered that is the challenge. There is no cohesion to this project. There are six individual projects. Six individual owner / developers. Five different planning submissions.
On August 31st, county planning staff presented to the Reston Planning and Zoning Committee and said the quiet part out loud. The proposals were submitted individually, across two separate application cycles, many of them without the applicants even being aware of each other. Staff told the committee the concepts don’t relate to one another and do little to establish a street grid, a connected park network, or adequate open space.
And Makers Point, which sits between the Campus Commons project and this study area, added itself to the mix without ever filing a nomination. Staff confirmed at that meeting that Makers Point went on to submit a zoning application after the July open house — while the planning study that governs its land is still being written.
Then Clara Johnson of the Department of Planning and Development asked the room a question that should stop everyone cold: “Do we pick winners and losers?” Wait, What just happened?
Holy cow. The reality I have been sensing across the massive redevelopment of Reston solidified right in front of me.
She was asking because staff genuinely does not know how to decide which of these owners gets to build housing. I was dumbstruck, but it is genuinely the truth and it frightens me for the future of Reston and Fairfax County redevelopment.
WHY IT MATTERS
Reston is ground zero for a land grab. Secure entitlement fast. Convert the zoning, build high-dollar condominiums and townhomes now, before anyone puts the whole picture together. The time to slow down is now.
Reston was one of the first modern planned communities in America, and many of the constructs Fairfax County still uses were built around it. Balance. Cohesion. It is why commercial and industrial sits on the fringe, and why open space, schools and retail districts are so hard to invent after the fact. They were planned in from the beginning, or they were not planned at all.
Here is the single fact that answers Ms. Johnson’s question, and it is not in the record: the county counts 35 parcels. There are 70 separate deeds.
Approving this conversion parcel by parcel puts townhomes, condominiums and apartments in between operating commercial buildings inside an industrial zone. Let that sink in. We will no longer be talking about “Pocket Parks” but rather “Pocket Residential”. Really let that sink in.
- 41 of those 70 are individually owned professional offices, held by 28 different owners across two condominium regimes. They cannot be assembled by anyone, at any price, ever.
- The German Military and a national professional society each own and operate out of buildings in here — two examples among many individual owners who are not going anywhere.
- Staff’s own modeling puts the ceiling at roughly 2,500 homes, with 1,500 to 1,800 on the concepts already submitted — before counting others trying to get in on the action while the door is open.
- Staff is testing an intensity of 0.75 to 1.0 FAR against the 0.50 the adopted Plan allows — and confirmed this land sits outside the half-mile Metro walkshed entirely.
Testing FAR, roads and schools first is putting the cart before the horse. It assumes entitlement is imminent, and signals to every developer watching that the only remaining work is building some roads and a school to go with it.
The first questions should be:
- What is already approved and unbuilt in Reston, and how much of that housing is still coming?
- Does it make sense to rezone an I-3 industrial park into “pockets of residential” before deciding who wins a new entitlement?
- Why did Makers Point ask to be added without filing? Why are others so eager to be inside this boundary without a filing of their own?
- What do the tax records show about which buildings are appreciating, which are failing, and who holds the deeds?
- This area was planned for employment. Some of that employment is working. Is it the majority failing, or the minority — and what are the other options?
- What is the strategic plan for this corridor, and what is the best use of it, given that it is not all failing?
HUD’S TAKE:
Some of this land should convert. There are buildings in here the county assesses at ten dollars. That is not a market opinion, that is the tax roll. Those sites need a future.
But “empty office park” is a story, not a survey. A sovereign government, a national professional society, a bank, a construction headquarters and two buildings full of deeded medical and professional practices are all inside this boundary, current on their taxes, occupying buildings that are appreciating in value. This is not a dying industrial zone. It needs an updated, holistic plan that carries it forward. Inserting residential structures at random across 119 acres is not the governed growth that built the Reston studied in textbooks.
Fairfax already worried about this exact trade. In March 2025 the Board’s own Land Use Policy Committee was warned the county holds roughly 8,300 acres of industrial land — 3.4% of the county — running under 5% vacancy. Let that sink in. Under five percent vacancy. That is not a failing commercial zone.
Conversion from industrial to residential is a build, sell, depart strategy. The developers know it. It is a recurring pattern across redevelopment presentations countywide. If I can see it as a resident with an analyst’s background, they are certainly counting on it. It is a very visible pattern repeating itself across the county.
And every idea discussed on August 31st assumes 70 deeded owners can be brought to a single table. Shared green space. A connected street grid. Coordinated phasing. For more than half of these deeds, there is no table and no mechanism to build one.
Staff is writing guidance for developers right now. That guidance should start from what the deeds actually permit and how the area is zoned, not from what individual renderings suggest. “If we build it, they will come” is not a growth strategy.
Failing to start with a plan is a plan that starts out failing.
WHO IS ACTUALLY HERE?
Why are there working buildings sitting in between these proposed residences? I pulled all 70 tax records. This is what shows up on the roll.
The phrase that keeps getting used for Reston East is “vacant office.” It is doing a great deal of work without a whole lot of proof.
The Federal Republic of Germany owns 11150 Sunrise Valley Drive — 4.37 acres, 67,744 square feet, purchased in 1990. The building is assessed at $7,229,560 and pays $138,886 a year in county taxes.
The American Society of Civil Engineers owns its headquarters at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive — 5 acres, 113,430 square feet, assessed at $12,144,310, paying $207,042 a year.
Atlantic Union Bank owns 1800 Robert Fulton Drive, assessed at $4,463,510.
Hensel Phelps Construction took 1891 Preston White Drive as its headquarters. County staff told the committee in August that the company is renovating the building and intends to stay long term.
And then the two that change the math entirely.
Sunrise Oak Professional Park on Robert Fulton Drive and Preston White Professional Center are office and medical condominiums — 41 separately deeded suites held by 28 different owners. Together they carry $27.9 million in assessed value and pay $401,356 a year in county taxes.
They are not distressed. Values are rising. One Preston White suite assessed at $292,530 in 2004 is assessed at $390,040 today. A Sunrise Oak suite went from $1,246,370 in 2018 to $1,463,130.
That is the pattern you would expect, because medical office never emptied out the way conventional office did. These are functioning small practices — employers, in exactly the kind of space they were meant to occupy.
At the August meeting, a committee member made the point that being able to walk to your dentist is part of the Reston promise, and that pricing out small medical providers cuts against it. She is right. The trade on the table sacrifices successful businesses for high-margin “Pocket Residences” wedged in between them.
Who is buying those residences? What is the target market? Where is the strategic plan that identifies the buyer?
As of the August 2026 Compass:
- Reston condo inventory is back to 2017 levels, but buyer competition is at a ten-year low.
- Months of Supply is 3.2 — a straight climb, no seasonal reversal all year, month over month.
- Contract Ratio is 0.23. That is the demand side: 23 homes under contract for every 100 on the market.
- Against 2023, both sides of the equation moved by the same factor in opposite directions.
- Contract Ratio: 1.75 → 0.23 = demand down 7.6x
- Months of Supply: 0.43 → 3.2 = supply up 7.4x
This is not a 2026 phenomenon. The trend has been steady since 2023, through the development growth. Where is the market analysis showing demand for more condominiums? And these numbers describe condos that are not embedded in an industrially zoned office park.
Is Fairfax County prepared to overturn working commercial and industrial parcels that provide jobs because a handful of office buildings failed? That is the easy way out. There are other ways to convert an empty office building into something productive — the evidence is sitting on these same 119 acres.
What is crystal clear is that vacancy is currently more profitable to an owner than tenancy. Let that sink in. And nothing in the current Fairfax County process is correcting that behavior. The pattern repeats across the county.
Now put the two facts together. Twenty-eight owners. No common agent. No obligation to sell. Prospering businesses and rising values giving none of them a reason to leave Reston. There is no legal instrument in Fairfax County that assembles that. Not consolidation requirements, not plan guidance, not a developer with a checkbook.
So, when the conversation turns to a cohesive street grid or shared open space across 119 acres and 70 deeds, it is a conversation about a fraction of the land. The parcels that can move are the ones with a single owner. Everything else stays exactly where it is, and whatever gets built gets built around it.
Will Fairfax County hold these applicants to leaving 25 to 50 percent of their acreage as open space instead of developing all of it? We have not seen that trend.
That is not an argument against redevelopment. It is the governed growth constraint that should be shaping the guidance.
THE INDUSTRIAL QUESTION NO ONE IN RESTON IS ASKING
All 35 parcels are zoned I-3. The Board of Supervisors has already been warned about this.
County staff confirmed on August 31st that every parcel in the study area is zoned I-3, Industrial Light Intensity — developed with office, but industrially zoned. I confirmed it myself when I pulled the property records. Every single parcel. I-3.
On March 11, 2025, the Board’s Land Use Policy Committee took up industrial land countywide. Staff reported roughly 8,300 acres zoned industrial, about 3.4% of Fairfax, with vacancy under 5%. Compare that to office, which has been the county’s problem child for five straight years.
Franconia Supervisor Rodney Lusk put the risk in seven words: “Once it’s gone, you can’t get it back.” This is prized land, in high demand by small local businesses offering services the community is asking for and yet they are the ones being sacrificed for tear down, rebuild, sell, profit, exit.
We have proof that businesses can and do flourish on these 119 acres of light industrial land.
Chairman Jeff McKay said protecting industrial areas was essential. Hunter Mill’s Walter Alcorn — Reston’s supervisor — landed on a middle position, that some mix of uses probably makes sense. Fairfax County has only 3.4% of its land set aside for industrial and it enjoys a <5% vacancy rate and yet the pattern to eliminate it continues. Let those numbers resonate for a minute.
So, is the Board of Supervisors now prepared to create “Pocket Residential” inside a light industrial zone? Or worse, to sacrifice the businesses that call Reston home until they are squeezed out at a price? And push their constituency further out when seeking desired services?
I would encourage anyone following this to watch that March 2025 discussion. It is in the county’s Board committee video archive, and it is the clearest statement available of how Fairfax’s own leadership thinks about trading industrial land for housing. There is not much of that land left — which is precisely why the Land Rush for re-entitlement is on while it lasts.
Here is the thing about the two professional condominiums: that is the jobs base the I-3 designation was meant to hold. Not a factory. Small practices, service businesses, professional offices — the kind of employment and services a residential community uses. It is sitting there, successful, serving the community, appreciating, paying $401,356 a year.
The buildings that failed in Reston East failed as big single-tenant office space.
That is a business outcome, not a land use verdict on 119 acres.
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN BEFORE THE GUIDANCE GOES OUT
Staff told the committee they are at the point of packaging community feedback and sending developers back to redraw their concepts.
That means the most influential moment in this entire study is happening right now — before revised concepts exist, before a staff report, before any hearing. Guidance written now shapes what gets submitted later.
Four things belong in it:
- An ownership assembly analysis. Which of the 70 deeds can realistically consolidate and which cannot. Without it, any guidance about a connected grid or shared open space is aspirational across half the boundary.
- A strategic plan for the 119 acres as one corridor — one that protects the businesses already thriving here before granting residential entitlement and creating “Pocket Residential,” which would be a worse outcome than the “Pocket Parks” no one on the committee could defend. That plan needs a market analysis attached: who is the buyer, is there real demand for residences wedged into an industrial park, and what does success look like? Outgoing Hunter Mill Planning Commissioner John Carter asked for a version of this at the August 31st meeting — what are the national examples of suburban office park retrofits that actually worked? Nobody has answered him.
- A published count of approved but unbuilt housing in Reston. Staff confirmed on August 31st that Reston is the only place in Fairfax where the county tracks this, and that it is updated quarterly. That number exists. Nobody outside county offices has seen it. You cannot evaluate 2,500 more homes without knowing what is already approved and waiting.
- The cumulative schools number. Staff also confirmed that Fairfax County Public Schools now provides cumulative impact estimates, because clusters of applications hit the same schools. Sunrise Valley Elementary sits directly across from this boundary. That analysis has been run. Publish it.
Three of the four already exist inside the county. Only the strategic plan would be new work — and it is the one that should have come first. It is understood why it does not come first when there is a lot of land this size that has 70 deed holders not acting as a cohesive unit to create a plan.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Comment now, not at the hearing.
The county’s Reston East Planning Study page accepts input and lists the planning staff assigned to the study. Send it this month, while the guidance is being written. Comments that arrive after a staff report is published are commentary on a decision that has already been framed. Go to the above linked page and hit the Learn More button.
Ask for those four items by name. Specific requests get answered. General concern gets summarized.
Watch for the next community meeting. Staff confirmed another one is required and that it is not yet scheduled. When it is posted, it will come with revised developer concepts — which is exactly when the questions get harder to ask.
And if you own inside or near this boundary and want a clear read on what a conversion next door does to your position, that conversation is worth having while the study is still open rather than after it closes.
I track Fairfax County development filings parcel by parcel. If you own or lease near this area, I can tell you what’s actually pending on a specific address — not what’s rumored. Check out the analysis I’ve made with this same governed growth argument about the Reston National Golf Course.
Michele Hudnall
Real Estate of Northern Virginia | Equity-First Real Estate Strategy
Life Long Northern Virginia Native | 25-Year Reston Resident | HOA Board President, Whitney Park East | South Lakes Drive
[email protected] | 703.867.3436
RealEstateofNVA.com | @realestateofnva
I help Northern Virginia buyers and sellers make smarter decisions with local market analysis, strategic guidance, and real-world context, not hype headlines.
Disclosure: Michele Hudnall is a licensed real estate agent in Virginia. This post represents her personal analysis and good-faith opinion as a Reston resident and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Full disclosure at RealEstateofNVA.com. All analysis and opinion are my own and based upon local, real-time data. Please consult with a financial or legal professional as required.
Privacy Statement | Disclosure Notice
SOURCES
Based on a parcel-level review of 70 Fairfax County tax assessment records inside the Reston East study boundary, the county’s August 31, 2026 presentation to the Reston Planning and Zoning Committee, and the Board of Supervisors Land Use Policy Committee’s March 11, 2025 discussion of industrial land. Parcel counts differ from the county’s because this review counts every separately deeded tax record, including individually owned condominium offices; the county counts land parcels.
SOURCES: All Publicly Accessible — No Subscription Required
Fairfax County real estate assessment records: icare.fairfaxcounty.gov — 70 parcel records inside the study boundary: zoning, land use code, acreage, ownership, assessed value, value history, annual tax.
Fairfax County — Reston East Study (PA 2026-III-UP1): fairfaxcounty.gov/planning-development/plan-amendments/reston-east-study — Study scope, 35 parcels and approximately 119 acres, assigned staff contacts, and the input form.
Reston Planning and Zoning Committee, August 31, 2026 — county staff presentation and discussion: restonplanningandzoning.org and the meeting video — Staff statements on coordination between nominations, I-3 zoning across the study area, unit projections, intensity range studied, the Makers Point zoning application, approved-unit tracking, and cumulative school impact analysis.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors — Land Use Policy Committee, March 11, 2025: fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/land-use-policy-committee — Industrial land trends; approximately 8,300 acres countywide and vacancy under 5%. – https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/board-supervisors-land-use-policy-committee-meeting-march-11-2025
Fairfax County Board committee meeting video archive: video.fairfaxcounty.gov/viewpublisher.php?view_id=9 — Searchable archive; the March 11, 2025 Land Use Policy Committee meeting contains the industrial land discussion with the Agenda.
FFXnow, March 13, 2025: ffxnow.com/2025/03/13/fairfax-county-board-cautious-on-conversion-of-industrial-land-to-housing/ — Supervisor comments on protecting industrial land.
FFXnow, April 27, 2026: ffxnow.com/2026/04/27/county-planners-consider-future-of-development-in-office-heavy-reston-east/ — Study expansion to all 35 parcels and what each application proposes.
