Tall Oaks Owners to Show Tweaked Plans June 22

Tall Oaks Village Center owners Jefferson Apartment Group (JAG) will present a revised look at plans for the space on June 22.

JAG, along with Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins, is hosting and open house at 7 p.m. at Reston Community Center at Lake Anne, 1609-A Washington Plaza.

JAG, which purchased Tall Oaks for $14 million last December, held two community meetings in Reston in April. Representatives showed plans to replace the increasingly vacant shopping center with 154 residential units (townhomes and condos) and a small amount of retail.

The proposal was not well received by Tall Oaks-area residents, who would prefer the village center be preserved as a retail center, including a grocery store anchor. There is an online petition asking JAG to keep Tall Oaks retail.

The 25,000-square-foot grocery store space — formerly a Giant and then two different international groceries — has been vacant for nearly five years.

Land use attorney Mark Looney said at the previous meetings that there was almost no interest in Tall Oaks among retailers.

Looney predicts Tall Oaks, which had a nearly 90-percent occupancy rate in 2007 and currently has a 13-percent occupancy rate, will be 6 percent occupied by early 2016.

Meanwhile, Reston Master Plan Phase 2, recently approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, says developers do not have to get a Comprehensive Plan Amendment in order to redevelop Tall Oaks as residential.

Rendering of new Tall Oaks residences/Courtesy Jefferson Apartment Group