Author: chogan@directresearch.com

Post #376: MAC-related public meetings this week.

There is one public meetings this week relevant to MAC zoning.

Monday, 9/9/2019 at 7:30 PM in Town Hall, the first item in the Town Council work session will be discussion of changing the proffers for the recently approved 380 Maple West (37 condos plus retail, corner of Wade Hampton and Maple) to allow the building to be used for some other purpose.     

The meeting materials for that portion of the meeting are here:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4124947&GUID=48E2E0E1-5C96-4D8E-8F20-7356781D9682&Options=&Search=

You can see my guesses as to what’s going on in Post #375.

At that meeting, they will also discuss draft changes to the commercial zoning and MAC zoning codes.  Materials for that are given here:

https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=4124946&GUID=E124EC89-7A23-4EE3-A207-328A8712F4AA&Options=&Search=

 

Post #375: Did I say condos? Just kidding. I meant assisted living.

Sometimes the goings-on in Vienna are just stranger than you can imagine.  So I don’t quite know what to call this one.  Musical chairs?  Bait and switch, the sequel?

Recall that the Town approved a building with 37 condos plus retail at 380 Maple West (corner of Wade Hampton and Maple).

Well, guess again.  Looks like the 380 Maple West developer may just flip the property, and hand it off to become an assisted living facility.  And as part of that, they’ll partially re-open the MAC zoning that had been approved, to allow the builder to “amend the proffers”.

I can’t make up stuff like that.  You can see the (somewhat cryptic) meeting materials here on the Town’s website, and you can see a more detailed writeup on Vienna Citizens for Responsible Development Facebook site.

This possibility isn’t even part of Town of Vienna code.  The Town had to cite a section of  Commonwealth of Virginia statute to justify it.

Say what?

I can only speculate as to what this is about.

Sunrise?  Plausibly, if the assisted living provider is Sunrise, this is Vienna’s way of getting rid of the lawsuit that Sunrise filed against it (Post #342).  As of yesterday, Sunrise’s lawyers may have been unaware of this development, so it is far from clear that Sunrise is, in fact, involved.

Edit:  In addition, this possibility was raised by the developer, to some of the neighbors, well before Sunrise was turned down.  Given Sunrise’s investment in its own proposal at Maple and Center, it seems unlikely that they would be hedging their bets.  Particularly as this property is almost directly across the street from  …

Kensington?  Alternatively, Kensington Assisted Living might be involved here.  Kensington was well underway in developing a proposal for an assisted living facility at the empty BB&T bank building property.  That is virtually across the street from 380 Maple West.  Because I have never seen two competing assisted living facilities across the street from one another, I believe that converting 380 Maple West to assisted living effectively bars Kensington from developing the BB&T bank property.

So … it’s hard to say.  If the assisted living provider in question is Sunrise, then this quashes the Sunrise lawsuit.  But that also materially harms Sunrise’s most direct local competitor, and the owner of the BB&T property.

On the other hand, if the assisted living provider is Kensington, then the Town should, at least in theory, have to explain why it allowed one competitor but denied another, as part of the Sunrise lawsuit.  (Or, possibly, the Town would use this in its defense.   They could claim that approval of this assisted living proves that they were not biased against having old people in the heart of the MAC zone.  So, possibly, this now becomes part of their lawsuit defense?)

On yet a third hand, dissing Sunrise might be intentional.  As an extra bonus for the Town, they effectively get to thumb their noses at Sunrise, as a punishment for Sunrise daring to sue.  And use the fact that they are allowing their competitors into Vienna in their defense against the Sunrise lawsuit.

Or possibly the Town is merely the passive player here, and this is just a by-product of the developer’s selling the right to build to the highest bidder.  Whatever the real motivator, the story has to be told such that, somehow, out of thin air, the developer wants to flip to the property to this new use.  If the Town of Vienna itself were shown to have acted with favoritism toward one of two competitors, they should rightly be sued by the other one.

As it stands, to do this, the Town is going to have to make up a whole bunch of nonsense about why Sunrise was completely inappropriate in the heart of downtown, but fill-in-the-blank is a great fit for a section of Maple where (e.g.) you have to walk a quarter-mile merely to be able to get to the restaurant across the street.

Trying to be an economist for a moment, consider the macroeconomic context. We are way overdue for a recession. The developer faces considerable uncertainty as to when, exactly, the project will be finished and the condos are on the market.  Condos are more sensitive to economic dips than other property. But health care is traditionally thought to be recession-proof. So this could be a way of transferring the right to build from weak hands (individual builder, condos) to strong hands (national chain, assisted living) in anticipation of a general economic slowdown.  And the current owner of those rights likely will make a profit for his trouble.

So, absent better information, either of two scenarios would fit.  This could be the Town’s way of sidestepping the Sunrise lawsuit.  (In which case, keep an eye out to see what favors the Town will use to repay the developer.)  Yet, Sunrise’s lawyers seemed to be unaware of this development.  Or, maybe it’s just business as usual, and the developer is selling the building rights to the highest bidder.  Kensington was definitely interested in that neighborhood.  In which case, I would think it would make it harder for the Town to defend the Sunrise denial in court.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Care to speak up again?

First, at the time the 380 development was passed, several citizens got up and testified in favor of it.   What a wonderful thing this was.  How this was exactly what the Town needed here.  How this new retail would revitalize this section of town.  How this building should be approved because Vienna desperately needs single-floor living for the elderly.  And so on.

Wonder if we’re going to hear back from them, now that the actual building will have nothing whatsoever to do with what they so strongly defended?  I bet not.

Second, when some Town council members wanted to rescind the original approval, many parties, including the local newspaper, loudly cried “foul”.  A deal’s a deal.  You can’t go back on that.  The very fabric of government would unravel if you could simply undo a deal at will.

Wonder if we’re going to hear from them again, now that the deal is going to change?  I’d bet not.

How can they do that (physically, I mean)?

And by this I mean, how can they take that physical building, as approved, and make an efficient assisted living out of it?  Honestly, for the life of me, I can’t see how they can do that.  So I have to wonder, how much is that building going to have to change, to do this?  Is the entire MAC process that much of a sham, that, after the fact, they can just completely reconfigure the agreed-upon building.  If so, what on earth are we actually going to get at 444 Maple West?

Just off the top of my head, and keeping in mind that Sunrise appears to be shooting for a roughly 100 bed facility as their minimum efficient scale (see Post #205), I’m going to discuss what Sunrise would probably want to do to the building to make it work as an assisted living facility.  So this is structured as if Sunrise were known to be the assisted living provider in question.

The 380 building has too much ground-floor space devoted to parking and retail, relative to what Sunrise needed. Sunrise needed that space for its own common areas, not for parking or retail. But I thought the parking was part of the specification of the building. Can Sunrise just cut that out, and reconfigure the ground floor, as they see fit? So totally change the amount of, location of, and access to the parking, with no public review? Just drop most of the retail? Really? Then what the heck was all that MAC nonsense about in the first place.

Ambulance access.  Recall all the discussion that went on w/r/t/ dedicated ambulance parking and loading at the Maple and Center facility? All the fuss and bother. Made them put in a dedicated space, got all up in their grille about not blocking Maple, and so on. Is that all just moot now? Whatever-the-heck Sunrise wants to do at this location, hey, that’s fair? That can’t be true.

Ambulance nuisance.  The original Sunrise location was not adjacent to a residential area.  Here, does this mean that ambulances would use Glen/Roland to access that building? If so, that’s a big deal to this neighborhood. (Shortest land route from VVFD to that building appears to be Center/Locust/Courthouse/Glenn/Wade Hampton, but the ambulances may be given instructions to stay on the main routes as long as possible.

Even if not, the noise of the siren alone is a big deal to the neighborhood. They’re going to put that here, with zero public comment? Again, what on earth were those MAC public hearings about, then?

Room size versus hallway width.  Assisted living facilities typically have tiny, hotel-sized rooms, linked by broad corridors, to large commons areas. Here, the rooms are too big, the corridors are (I would bet) far too narrow to pass building code for this sort of facility, and it has no common areas at all (other than the shops on the first floor, which are too small to be useful).

Dementia floor.  This building lacks a secure, internal green space for the dementia floor. It lacks all the dedicated common facilities that a dementia floor must have (e.g., its own dining room). I think the 380 building only has one elevator, but the Sunrise needs two, one of which is dedicated to the dementia floor.

Conditional use permit.  As I understand it, Sunrise got a conditional use permit (pending MAC approval) for the use of the land at Maple and Center.  But, the Town’s notice does not even mention the need to get a different conditional use permit, for use of the land at 380 Maple West.  Did they just not bother to mention that, or is the case that if you get such a permit for anywhere in Vienna, you can transfer it as you see fit?  That makes no sense.  So, doesn’t this have to go before the Board of Zoning Appeals?

I just can’t see how this can work, as described. The building as-is doesn’t work, as I see it.  Which means they pretty much have to design a new building.  Can they just do that?  I.e., once approved, can they just swap in a materially different building, for a completely different use, and say, eh, close enough?  If so, what’s the point of those MAC public hearings?

And I will just point, once again, to 444 Maple West.  If this flies, does anybody really know what we’re actually going to get at that location?  Seems like, if this is acceptable, what you actually get with MAC is the right to build … something.  To be determined.

 

Post #374: Behavioral modification for Maple Avenue traffic

 

(Photograph taken from the website of the Ohio Department of Transportation).

The gist of this post is the following:  Maybe we could reduce some of the peak-period congestion on Maple by changing driving behavior.  First, maybe  dynamic messaging signs could “push” the message to drivers that they might be better off going around Vienna rather than going through it, under certain traffic conditions.   Second, possibly, through use of traffic cams and dedicated smart phone apps, we could “push” a message to Town residents to avoid doing their shopping during peak weekend traffic periods.

This is such an oddball idea, and one with so little available data, and so little prior discussion that I have seen, that I’m just going to describe what I mean, and leave it at that for now.  Obviously, that Town would have to make the investment to implement either of these.

Continue reading Post #374: Behavioral modification for Maple Avenue traffic

Post #373: The 9/4/2019 Multimodal study community meeting

My wife attended this meeting, held last night at Town Hall.  I believe she left slightly before the meeting finally broke up.

The contractors talked for about the first half-hour, and then people were invited to get up and look over some maps.  And chat.  There did not seem to be much newsworthy to report, but I am providing a copy of an audio recording of the first 35 minutes at this Google Drive link (download “2019-09-04 …”).  The discussion of traffic begins about 22 minutes into the recording.

I have said everything I care to say about this study in a series of recent posts, ending with Post #364.

The only thing of particular interest to me is that one my my neighbors quietly let the contractor know that there is some long-standing interest in this neighborhood for closing Wade Hampton at Maple.  This would be one way of dealing with the cut-through traffic that will be generated by 444 Maple West, 380 Maple West, and all the rest of whatever-the-Town-approves for my end of Vienna.  Apparently the contractors had never heard of that and were taken somewhat aback by it.  So while this was a study about changes in land use and so on, there was no attempt to address the details of the actual near-term land use changes that have already been approved for my neighborhood.  Certainly not changes that are being suggested by the residents, as a way to keep the burden of MAC-generated traffic off their streets.

FWIW.

 

 

Post #372: Patrick Henry, power lines, parks, and value.

In my last post, I casually suggested that the Town spend about $1M of your tax dollars to create a third-of-an-acre park as part of the new Patrick Henry library.  And with that proposal, they would create a low-rise, low-key, light-and-airy library structure, instead of squashing the new library beneath a lot-filling parking garage.  But they’d end up with less total parking available.

While it may be fun to spend somebody else’s money, at some point, you have to ask about value.  Is it really worth it to spend that much money, voluntarily, just to have a “prettier” library site that includes a small park?

The answer to that is obviously a matter of opinion.  I.e., there is no one way to answer that question.

But I can make a comparison to another voluntary expenditure that probably is going to be made, solely to “pretty up” that location:  Burying the power lines.  It’s Town policy to get the power lines buried along Maple.  Presumably, that’s going to be part of this redevelopment.

In this brief post, I’m just going to point out that burying the power lines, at both edges of the Patrick Henry site, will almost certainly cost more than my $1M “Library Park” proposal.  Best guess, it will cost in excess of $1.2M, possibly substantially in excess of that.

So one way to look at the value question is by comparison to that.  If you only had $1M to spend, and could either bury the power lines or buy the “Library Park” proposal, which would you rather do?

Detail follows.

Continue reading Post #372: Patrick Henry, power lines, parks, and value.

Post #371: Library Park, Part 2

This post is a followup to my prior writeups of the new Patrick Henry library.  You can see my discussion of what the consulting firm proposed in Post #367, and you can see my “Library Park” alternative in Post #369.

The point here is to ask the following:  Sure, it costs more to put the parking garage underground, as in my “Library Park” proposal.  But in return, that buys the Town a one-third-acre park on Maple Avenue.  Is the tradeoff worth it?  And I mean that in a very narrow sense: Is this cheaper than simply buying a third of an acre of commercial land on Maple, given current prices?

The answer appears to be yes.  In round numbers, a $1M investment in putting the bulk of the parking underground would buy the Town a new one-third-acre park on Maple Avenue.  That works out to about $3M/acre.  As I understand it, commercial property on Maple is currently going for around $6M/acre.  So, think of this as a way to get park land at half-price.  (It’s actually slightly less than half-price, due to the foregone tax revenues that would result from buying commercial land outright and converting it to park land.)

To be clear, there’s no sleight-of-hand here.  This is just a consequence of what builders already know:  When land prices are high, it’s smarter to conserve land by build parking garages than to have surface parking lots.  In this case, I’m just using the land that would be saved by an underground parking garage as a park, instead of using it to make a larger building.

This approach has several other advantages beyond being a (comparatively) cheap source of park land.  The foremost of those is that this frees Fairfax County to build a showpiece of a library, instead of stuffing the new library under a parking garage.

I hope the Town will give this, or something like this (underground parking) all due consideration.

Continue reading Post #371: Library Park, Part 2

Post #370: MAC-related public meetings this week

There is one public meetings this week relevant to MAC zoning.

Wednesday, 9/4/2019 at 7 PM in Town Hall, there will be a presentation on the Town’s “Joint Maple Avenue Corridor Multimodal Transportation and Land use Study”   

The Town appears to be asking for citizen input at this meeting.

An overview of the study, including a link to materials presented at Town Council work session on 8/19/2019, maybe found at this page:

https://www.viennava.gov/index.aspx?NID=1327

You can read my writeup of this study in Post #359 and Post #362.

You can also read my analysis of what I consider to be the most important item in this study — a projection of likely MAC-generated increase in traffic on Maple — in Post #358, Post #361, and Post #364.  That may or may not be a subject of discussion at the Wednesday meeting.

The Town reserves the right to change or cancel meetings on short notice, so check the Town’s general calendar before you go, at this URL:
https://www.viennava.gov/Calendar.aspx?NID=1&FID=220week

Post #369: Library Park

This is a continuation of the writeup of the proposed replacement for the Patrick Henry library (Post #367: The Patrick Henry Library/parking garage).

After looking over the three options for the new Patrick Henry library, it seemed to me that we were missing an obvious opportunity.  This may be the best chance we’ll ever get to add a nice chunk of park land to the Maple Avenue corridor, at a reasonable cost.

Let me call that Option C:  Library Park.  In a nutshell, put in a floor of underground parking, cut the proposed surface parking in half, and use the resulting open space for a park that is about one-quarter the size of a football field. In essence, hide the parking garage, don’t make it the centerpiece of the Town.  And use the surface of the lot as much for park land as for parking.  Like so (blue = library, green = park, black = surface parking).

In a separate post, I’ll talk about the costs and the “vision” this embodies.  I’ll chastise the Town for not doing a needs assessment first, before they contracted to do the feasibility study.   (So we end up with three designs by the architect, but no clear idea of what we need or want.)

And I’ll suggest that if the Town can come up with a proper needs assessment — i.e., a thoughtful analysis of what we need or want to get out of this Patrick Henry library rebuild — then we ought to crowdsource the design.  I bet somebody in Vienna can come up with an even better design.

But for now, I’m just presenting Option C:  Library park.

If nothing else, we should not lock ourselves into thinking that the three designs presented by the architects are the limit of what we might consider. 

Detail follows.

Continue reading Post #369: Library Park

Post #368: Revising the commercial zoning regulations

At the 8/19/2019 Vienna Town Council meeting, there was a seemingly innocuous item listed on the agenda as “Directive to Town staff to research amending requirements related to commercial parking, parking lot landscaping, and streetscape.”

If you walk through the meeting materials for this item — which you can, as of this writing, access at this URL  — it still looks fairly cut-and-dried.  At issue were a handful of items such as the amount of parking required for commercial buildings, the nature and type of any required landscaping for parking lots, and the MAC “streetscape” requirements including broad brick sidewalks.

Although the language of the motion was not provided in advance, once you got to hear it, it still seemed fairly — eh — boring, for want of a better word.  Cut-and-dried.   Here’s Councilman Majdi’s motion, which I am pretty sure I transcribed word-for-word, from the tape:

“I move to direct town staff to draft amendments to the MAC as its top priority, and simultaneously to consider amendments to the regular commercial code: C1, C1A, C1B, and C2, in Chapter 18 of Town Code that affect the MAC.  I further move to direct staff to draft amendments to the regular commercial code that require the MAC streetscape, require landscaping for parking lots, and direct staff to consider changes to parking requirements or other incentives to encourage economic growth on Maple avenue, when drafting these amendments.”

In the end, that passed 4-3, with (what I characterize as) the remaining pro-MAC Town Council members (DiRocco, Noble, Colbert) voting against.

And yet, while I’m not seeing some fantastic controversy there, discussion lasted for an hour and a quarter.  I really don’t understand what went on.  There was an hour of discussion before they even heard the language of the motion.  At that point, the Mayor invited an audience member to get up and speak.  (This was not a public hearing, so how that was legal, I have no clue.)  Then immediately after that, they voted.

It just struck me as a strange session all around.   Like more was being not said than said.  So I’m just going to flag this one, putting a marker down in case, at some point, it becomes clear what happened.

At the end of this, I’ll give my best guess as to what is going on.  Let me emphasize that the final section here is pure guesswork.  Best guess, this was an attempt to focus the scope of (at least the initial) rewrite of the Town’s zoning ordinance to a handful of items that might be viewed as critical to Maple Avenue development.  And, as importantly, not to give Town Staff license to rewrite every aspect of the zoning ordinance. 

Continue reading Post #368: Revising the commercial zoning regulations

Post #367: The Patrick Henry Library/parking garage

At the 8/19/2019 Town Council meeting, consultants presented some drawings and other information for a replacement for the Patrick Henry Library.  You can find the meeting materials at this link, including the consultant’s initial report at this link (.pdf).   All drawings and analysis presented below are taken or summarized from the consultant’s report, architectural firm Grimm and Parker (G&P).

Patrick Henry Library has 61 parking places (G&P, page 6).  More-or-less everyone I have talked to says that’s inadequate, and that parking is a problem at peak periods or when the library holds some sort of event.  The library system would like to see 125 spaces at the new library.

There are currently three options on the table, labeled A, B1, and B2 in the report.  All include a new library that is about 50% larger than the current building, by floor area (21,000 square feet, compared to the current ~14,000 square feet).  The only functional difference among the options is the parking, which then drives the overall size of the entire structure.

Here’s an abbreviated version of the table showing proposed parking, for the three alternatives (A, B1, B2). (G&P, page 6):

Option A:  A narrow two-story building with surface parking

Option A would replace the current library with a two-story building on a smaller footprint.  You would end up with a narrower, two-story building.  This frees up enough ground space to expand surface parking to 90 slots.  The architects envision a “modern” building (G&P, page 11), but that’s just their stylistic choice.  You could as easily have a more traditional-looking building.  The only functional requirement is that it be a two-story building having roughly that footprint.

That picture doesn’t really provide the right perspective to see this building, relative to the existing library building.  Where the existing library ends about halfway across the lot, the new one would end about a third of the way across the lot.

Options B1 and B2:  One story-library building with parking garage on top.

Options B1 and B2 would replace the current library with a larger one-story building, then build a parking garage on top of that.  In both cases, the entire structure would more-or-less cover the lot.  The library itself would stretch about halfway across the current lot.  The rest of the lot would be some surface parking and access to the parking garage above.  B1 would add one floor of parking, B2 would add two floors of parking.  The B2 option would require a zoning variance to be allowed to exceed the 35′ height restriction for C2 zoning.

Here are the pictures, (G&P, page 13, G&P, page 14):

The look of the building is again merely the architect’s choice, and is not a necessary part of the design.  The library itself is made to look like a bunch of shops, and the building has the pseudo-many-separate-buildings facade that seems mandatory for MAC mixed-use construction.

Discussion

First, I have copied the Town’s recording of the discussion of this item and have posted that to Youtube.  You can access it below.

A few opinions:

Option A is probably dead in the water from the lack of parking, relative to the projected need for parking.  Fairfax could build that if they wished, without Town of Vienna participation.  Some Fairfax libraries have more parking per square foot than the 90 slots projected under Option A.  Some have less.  But given that Fairfax County’s own projected need is ~125 slots, my guess is, Option A, as described, is unlikely to be built.

Putting aside the looks of the buildings, I thought a few things were missing from the consultant’s discussion of options B1 and B2.

Underground parking is a way to reduce the impact of this new structure.  Absolutely every mixed-use MAC building proposed so far has underground parking.  My understanding is that this is modestly more expensive than above-ground parking.  But when you see every for-profit entity opting for that, you have to ask why that was not considered here.  You could have (e.g.) a two-story building with as much parking as option B2 if you put one floor underground.  You could have adequate total parking under option A by burying another level of parking under the surface parking.

Underground parking tends to be … well, creepy.  But above-ground parking garages are typically ugly.  In this case, we’d be erecting a parking garage, on the main street, in the center of Town.  A large municipal parking garage directly on the main street does not say “small town” to me.  So all other things equal, I’d work to minimize the impact of that.

Limited vertical clearance is another way to shrink the parking structure.  Some Fairfax County library parking garages were built with parking with limited vertical clearances.  For example, the City of Fairfax regional library has a 6’8″ limit on vehicle height in the parking garage.   I assume that was to allow the building to blend in with its surroundings and not dominate them.   So you might be able to have a lower three-story building with that option.

What parking need is there within a quarter-mile radius?  City planners often use a quarter-mile as the longest walk that customers are typically willing to make to get from parking to a store.  Below is the quarter-mile radius around the Patrick Henry library, from Calcmaps.com.  By eye, in terms of areas with scant parking, this would provide parking for a) the entire Church Street commercial district, b) the under-parked shopping center at Maple and Center (former Starbucks), and the under-parked shopping center at Maple and Park (Chipotle).

So I’d start with that an estimate of projected need.  And I’d also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of, in effect, bailing out those under-parked properties at taxpayer expense.

Is this part of a larger picture, or is it here solely to serve local-area parking needs?  For example, does the Town anticipate running a “circulator bus” out of this parking garage (See Post #362).  Could this be a “transit hub” for individuals transferring from cars to public transit during the AM and PM rush hours?  This would have to be added to the estimated local parking demand.

It would probably be quieter, possibly be nicer, and might be cheaper to put the library on top of the parking.  You probably lose some parking this way, but my experience is that vehicle noise transmits right through the arched pre-stressed concrete floors of parking garages.  (Thump-thump).  I note that the City of Fairfax library has the library on top, but that building is built into a hillside.   And with that design, only two floors would need to be built heavily enough to withstand the weight of the cars.

In this regard, I wonder about the extent to which the proposed designs for B1 and B2 are left-overs from when this was going to be built under MAC zoning.  I.e., is the library is at the bottom, disguised as shops, mostly to blend in with the rest of MAC mixed-use development?  If that’s the case, then it would be a shame to lock in this garage-over-library design without at least considering the alternative.  It would also be a shame to do it without finding some real-world examples of this construction (library under parking garage) and asking how that worked out.