This page gives a brief discussion of the cost of burying the power and phone lines along Maple Avenue. Best guess, this is going to cost $25M, or roughly the same as the cost of the new community center and the new police station, combined. It is not clear, yet, what portion of that we are going to pay for.
Continue reading Post #210: The cost of putting utilities underground
This week there is one Town of Vienna public meeting regarding changes to Maple Avenue Commercial (MAC) zoning.
On Wednesday 3/27/2019 at 8:00 PM in Town Hall, the Planning Commission will have a public hearing to discuss 380 Maple West (40 condos plus retail at the intersection of Maple and Wade Hampton).
PUBLIC COMMENT IS INVITED. You may speak for up to three minutes regarding the 380 Maple West proposal.
Materials for this meeting can be found at this URL:
https://vienna-va.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=3893999&GUID=7A08988A-C1C5-4E34-8BD2-3CF06EB9EF5A&Options=&Search=
In addition, at this meeting, the Planning Commission is expected to discuss and pass new by-laws. Among other things, these by-laws may require disclosure of any meetings between members of the Planning Commission and developers who have business before the Planning Commission.
On Friday and Saturday, 3/29/2019 and 3/30/2019, the Town will host Maple Avenue Community Workshops at the Vienna Community Center, to educate citizens about the benefits of Maple Avenue Commercial Zoning and to get feedback from citizens. More about these events can be found at these links:https://www.viennava.gov/Calendar.aspx?EID=4899&month=3&year=2019&day=29&calType=0
https://www.viennava.gov/Calendar.aspx?EID=4900&month=3&year=2019&day=30&calType=0
My skepticism toward these workshops is expressed here, and here.
I did a rough survey of Maple Avenue retail, just a quick count of establishments by type, following up on my prior estimate of the retail vacancy rate. The mix of Maple Avenue retail was mentioned at the Town’s 3/20/2019 joint work session, with the basic idea being that service-oriented retail is required to make retail work in Vienna.
In this brief posting, I’m going to give my characterization of Vienna retail. I don’t think a simple goods-versus-service cut is adequate to understand what we have now.
Continue reading Post #208: Maple Avenue retail, goods versus services
I attended last week’s joint work session of the Town Council, Planning Commission, and Board of Architectural Review. But I only caught the first few hours of it, and left around 11:45. As it turns out, the last half hour or so was probably the best part. I downloaded the Town’s audio, and here’s a minute-by-minute summary of what happened in the last half hour of that meeting. Continue reading Post #207: The last half hour of the 3/20/2019 joint work session
Edited to correct a significant error 3/23/2019. The front face of the building is nearly as tall as it will get (except for the largest tower, still to be built). They still need to add another 7′ to the front corners of the building.
I hate to keep re-using that title. I used that phrase here, and here.
But today, as I was driving into town from Oakton, I noticed a big HVAC unit installed on top of the Chick-fil-A car wash — in plain sight. This was as I was driving down the hill from Emanuel Lutheran church.
I didn’t understand that, because a) I thought those walls were as tall as they were going to get, and b) I doubt they would have made a mistake like that. So one of those two things must be wrong. Either the walls are going to get taller, or we will be treated to the sight of their HVAC every time we come into town. Continue reading Post #206: Chick-fil-A-car-wash: You still ain’t seen nothing yet, again.
Edited 3/22/2019 to soften my conclusions about Sunrise and 100 beds. Edited late 3/22/2019 to explain what all those eight-bed assisted living facilities are.
On this page, I assemble, map, and tabulate some fairly hard-to-find data on a) location of all licensed assisted living facilities in Fairfax County, and b) the base monthly rates charged by most of them (2017 data).
Surprisingly, the table of monthly rates goes a long way toward explaining Sunrise’s behavior at the last Planning Commission meeting. When questioned about five floors in their building, they were prepared. They whipped out several other sets of building plans, all of which had more-or-less the same number of beds as their original plan. And now I see that the Sunrise buildings in Fairfax (or, at least, for which I could find monthly price data) mostly cluster tightly between 100 and 120 beds. It looks like they build these for a standard operating model. So, one way or the other, I would guess, they’re going to get their 100 beds.
My audio recording and Excel “index” to the audio recording are located at this location on Google Drive. I left the meeting at 11:30 PM, so I do not have the last 45 minutes here. You would have to check the Town’s recording for that, which should be posted on this page no later than 3/22/2019, under “Media”.
And the Excel spreadsheet that is the “index” will (or will not) pop up if you click here.
The Town Council, Planning Commission, and Board of Architectural Review met jointly last night. I believe that’s a first for Vienna. The meeting started at 7:30. I gave up around 11:30 or so and went home. My understanding is that they went until just past midnight, so I’ll have to listen to the Town’s audio recording to catch the last of it.
I’ll post my recording of the audio on a separate page, once I have cleaned up the noise and such. The Town should have its audio recording up no later than tomorrow, so if you want to listen to it, you might do better by waiting. I have no doubt that the Town’s recording will be better than mine. Continue reading Post #203: A summary of the 3/20/2019 public meeting.
Today, Wednesday, 3/20/2019, at 7:30 PM in Town Hall, in what will probably be the first and last time ever, all three Town of Vienna governing bodies will meet in a joint work session. The Town Council, Planning Commission and Board of Architectural Review will sit in the same room and look over proposed changes to MAC zoning regulation. You can find the meeting materials on this web page. Continue reading Post #202: MAConomics 101
The Historic Mattress District is my son’s name for Maple Avenue just west of the Sunoco (Maple and Center, see map below). For his entire life, there has always been a mattress store in that space. Not the same mattress store. Just some mattress store. At this point, I’d guess three, maybe four different mattress stores.
In its glory days, the Historic Mattress District also had a mattress store directly across the street. But I fear those heady days are gone forever. The sole survivor no longer even has a name — Google simply labels it “Mattress Firm Vienna“. And that’s what it is — it’s the current occupant of the location that must, by long-standing Vienna tradition, remain a mattress store.
I’m actually going somewhere useful with this. Continue reading Post #201: A survey of Vienna retail.