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.
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?
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 undergroundwould 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.
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.
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.
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.
My Post #360 is incorrect. At that time, it appeared that the Town was no longer posting recordings of work sessions for (e.g.) Town Council or Planning Commission. The Town has now posted all of the recent work session recordings, so what I wrote in Post #360 is not correct.
If you want to know what was said in a recent meeting or work session by the Town Council, Planning Commission, Board of Architectural Review, or Board of Zoning Appeals, you can look at the Town’s Granicus calendar page, at this URL.
In Post #358, I discussed what I saw as the single most important finding of the Town’s “Joint Maple Avenue Corridor Multimodal Transportation and Land Use Study“. This post discusses the rest of that study, as presented at the Town Council (and PC and TSC) joint work session on 8/19/2019.
To cut to the chase: There’s nothing (or almost nothing) useful in the rest of the report. Not just because much of the detailed analysis was just-plain-wacky. It was, as I hope to discuss in a later post. (Example: Let’s let people park on Maple.) But mostly, the basic approach was fundamentally wrong, in a way that prevents the Town from using the results to make rational decisions about Maple Avenue. At best, I guess you might call it a place to start. Or maybe a relatively inexpensive mistake, so that you know how to try to structure a usable study.
This posting is only about big-picture overview issues. It’s already too long as is. If I want to talk about the details, I’ll have to do yet another posting.
First, I’m posting my recording of this joint work session.
Why? See Post #260. Hope I’m wrong about that, but … just in case, my recording of the 7 PM 8/19/2019 work session is at this Google Drive link.
There’s no index, because it’s only 45 minutes. Audio is lousy because there was poor microphone discipline, so it’s a mix of amplified and unamplified sound. That requires a lot of post-processing (amplification, noise removal, compression) just to make it audible. The heavy post-processing and low original volumes left a lot of artifacts in the recording.
But if you want to know what was said, and you weren’t there — sadly, looks like this is your one and only opportunity to do so. See Post #260.
Looks like the Town of Vienna is no longer posting recordings of any Town work sessions, starting in August. And I think that’s a shame. Continue reading Post #360: RESCINDED
See Post #360. The important parts of this are wrong.
This text is Town of Vienna policy as posted on this webpage.
The table is from one of the Town’s Granicus web pages. This is where those recordings used to be posted. The forlorn little greyed-out right-most column is where Town recordings should be listed.
