Anything that I have tested empirically, or explain with detailed calculations, or just generally bother to get all the facts straight.
The Town Council is in the process of imposing the “new MAC streetscape” on all new construction along Maple. In this posting, I want to make three simple points.
The recent dips in the stock market got me asking how the next recession might affect the Town of Vienna, including property values and tax revenues. This is my first look at how Vienna compared to the U.S. during the last recession. The question I am eventually working toward how the Town of Vienna revenues changed during and following the last recession.
In 2008, the US very nearly suffered a collapse of its financial system. And as time passes, we tend to for get that. Because, in the end, the various Federal rescue efforts — and deposit insurance — were successful. For now, at least, we still have a banking system, and housing prices have large recovered.
The first section briefly reviews the national impact of the 2008 financial collapse, the second section looks specifically at DC and Vienna housing prices. Continue reading Post #341: Recession
One oddity of Maple Avenue retail property is that little of it is advertised as being for sale. That’s an oddity, if you think there is some sort of crisis in retail. But not if you think that returns on current investments appear reasonably good. If the returns are adequate, sales should be infrequent, if only to take advantage of the tax-deferred nature of the investment: Capital gains taxes only have to be paid upon sale of the property.
In any case, my internet search turned up only three advertisements for Maple Avenue retail property for sale.
As noted in Post #319, the combined Starbucks drive-through and Just Tires properties are being offered for sale at $961 per retail square foot. (See this reference for the ad.) From that ad, you can infer something like a $60/sq ft/year rental on the retail space.
The two medical office buildings at Maple and Center (where the Sunrise assisted living was proposed): $7.5M, $682/retail square foot, at this link.
The Princess Jewelers shop, 527 Maple Avenue West, $1.7M, calculated as just over $500/square foot, at this link.
And that led me to thinking about what is and isn’t a feasible investment under existing C1 zoning.
And here, I’m not thinking of just rehabbing existing space. We know that buildings along Maple are being rehabbed and repurposed all the time. So that level of investment clearly appears profitable. A few recent examples finished or in the works include:
I could go on. The point is, there is no lack of examples for redoing existing space. (And this doesn’t even count the cosmetic make-overs of various shopping center fronts up and down Maple.)
But a more serious question is, how profitable might new construction be? We have seen some new construction (Sweet Leaf, 2010) in living memory. But not much. Is that because it’s sufficiently profitable to remake existing buildings, or is that because it’s just not profitable to build something new, along Maple, under existing zoning?
Obviously, I’m not a builder. But let me try a rough cut at a pro-forma calculation.
Continue reading Post #339: More on Maple Avenue valuations and investment
I’m certainly tired of hearing about what a crisis Maple Avenue retail is in. At the risk of caricature, the argument seems to be that We Must Act Now or risk having Maple become a ghost town.
Anyone who has tried to drive down Maple Avenue on a Saturday afternoon probably wishes for a little more”ghost town” now and then. By eye, the reality appears to be the opposite of crisis: Maple appears to be a busy, viable, profitable shopping district. Maybe a little too busy at times.
In this posting, I’m going to take my prior analyses of Maple Avenue retail a bit further and look at tax assessments along Maple, compared their trend and level ($/sq ft.) to assessments of similar properties outside of Vienna, but nearby. The bottom line is consistent with all my prior work: Tax assessments of the largest retail properties here are rising, and assessment per square foot of land is comparable to retail sites near (but not in) the Town of Vienna.
People who tell you there’s a crisis in Maple Avenue retail do not appear to have the facts on their side. Continue reading Post #337: Retail property assessments along Maple
Answer: About 40. Maybe a few more, because we’re wealthy, and assisted living is something that you have to be fairly wealthy to afford. Maybe a few less, because our resident population is a little younger than the US average. But, best guess, if we use assisted living at the US average rate, then 40 assisted living beds would serve the needs of the entire Town of Vienna.
I calculated that back in March, when Sunrise assisted living (proposed for Maple and Center) was a hot topic, but never got around to making that public. Here, I work through the arithmetic, then just line out the variety of options available for elderly who have various levels of need for assistance.
If you want information on assisted living, in general, in Northern Virginia, see Post #205.
Continue reading Post #328: How many assisted-living beds does Vienna need?
In Post #313, I came to the surprising conclusion that Maple Avenue, at Glyndon, is more “retail dense” than the Mosaic district. You have more retail square footage, and more establishments, within a quarter-mile walk of that intersection, than are in the Mosaic district. Although, obviously, the mix of establishments in Vienna is radically different from that in Mosaic..
This raises another question: How’s the “retail density” of the new MAC mixed-use projects working out? These are all at the west end of Maple. If you took the entire western half-mile of Maple (so, a quarter-mile walk in each direction) and built both sides of the road up at the observed MAC density (so, one mile of Maple Avenue frontage), would it equal equal the 350,000 square feet of retail found in the Mosaic District? Or even the nearly 440,000 square feet of retail at the “Glyndon Shopping District” on Maple?
Continue reading Post #316: MAC versus Mosaic, retail density is an issue
Post #302 made the case that you can’t expect the entire Maple Avenue corridor to become one big “vibrant, pedestrian-oriented” shopping district. Any such district would have to be smaller than the length of Maple. Post #310 pointed out that the Town has no plan for any area smaller than all of Maple.
In this post, I’m going to start to characterize what does and doesn’t appear to work, in this immediate area, in terms of getting that “vibrant, pedestrian-oriented” shopping experience. I focus on the Mosaic District, then turn to Maple.
And there I got a surprise. Define “retail density” as the number of retail establishments within a quarter-mile walk of some point. I figured that Maple Avenue, with those old-fashioned shopping centers, could not possibly be as “retail dense” as Mosaic. I figured, maybe the reason you don’t see people walking to the shops on Maple is that they are far too spread out.
But that’s wrong. The center of Mosaic (Strawberry Lane Park/Target) has 81 retail establishments within a quarter-mile walk. Mosaic claims 350,00 square feet of retail space. I assumed the sprawling Maple Avenue, with its old-fashioned shopping centers, would have nowhere near that density. Dead wrong. The corner of Maple and Glyndon has 107 retail establishments within that same quarter-mile walking distance. Using Fairfax County tax maps, I calculate just under 440,000 square feet of retail space in that area.
Within a quarter-mile walking distance of the intersection of Maple and Glyndon, there is more total retail space and there are more total establishments than within the Mosaic district.
Continue reading Post #313: Maple versus Mosaic, retail density is not the issue
The main point of this article is to show you a few graphics that I stumbled across. So let me get that out of the way up front. I’m not sure there’s a lot of point to this posting beyond that, other than quantifying what you already know: They sure are building a lot of big houses in Vienna. And, at the end, I suggest one possible change in zoning policy: Letting them cut those big houses in half — as duplexes — would provide a type of less-expensive family-oriented housing that is really getting scarce here in Vienna.
Per Redfin (with full attribution and acknowledgement of copyright), below is a map of single-family houses for sale in Vienna VA. I’ve followed that with equivalent maps for Oakton, Fairfax City, Falls Church, and McLean. These are followed by table showing relevant data for each location.
Take a minute to study the dollar values on the maps, or on the summary table following the maps. Scan for houses under $1M and under $500K. Do the dollar values for Vienna seem a bit “rich”, compared to your understanding of these communities?
Continue reading Post #308: The tear-down boom (again), and the McLeanification of Vienna
This is a brief follow Post #278, regarding the empty retail space next to the Leslie’s Pool store on Maple. I was curious as to why that storefront had been empty for such a long time. But, in fact, as outlined Post #278, Sandy Spring Bank (the former tenant) was still paying the rent and trying to sublet the space.
Now, a veterinary clinic/animal hospital would like to move into that space. This will be discussed at the 8 PM Wednesday June 12 meeting of the Planning Commission. Materials on that topic are posted at this link.
Oddly, while the advertisement for the space (see Post #278 above) says that it only has 10 parking places, as far as the Town of Vienna is concerned, the entire building is parked as a whole, without division between the two tenants. This, according to the materials posted at the link above. Thus, as far as the Town is concerned, the entire complex (Leslie’s Pool and the new veterinary clinic) have adequate parking for the proposed commercial use.
Presumably the space will not be vacant much longer.
I finally have a week without a MAC-oriented public meeting, and I’m going to take this opportunity to lay out my plan for stopping and reversing global warming, within our children’s lifetimes.
If you don’t believe that global warming is real, just don’t bother to read this one. If you have some sort of happy fantasy that global warming will be good for the U.S.A., again, just move along. And if you think this can be easily addressed with anything short of drastic measures, likewise.
Also, I’m going to do this one without citation as to source of information. If there’s sufficient interest I’ll go back and document everything I say in this posting. Continue reading Post #285: A break from MAC to talk about something even more depressing
