Former API Building May Become New Residential Development

The former American Press Institute headquarters may be a future housing development.

Vienna-based Sekas Homes has submitted a Fairfax County rezoning application for the property located at 11690 Sunrise Valley Drive. The company seeks to change the parcel from industrial to Planned Residential  to construct 37 urban-style single family attached dwelling units, as well as parking and recreational amenities, the application says.

The existing office building and surface parking will be removed, the application said.

Access will be provided via a single full movement access point off of Roland Clarke Place and the development will be served by private streets and alleyways, the applications said.

The building was occupied by API from 1972 until 2012, when the organization merged with the Newspaper Association of America. The modernist building designed by architect Marcel Breuer was sold for $5 million in 2013.

The building site is adjacent to JBG’s Reston Heights, which contains two hotels, the Mercer Condos and offices. Further expansion of Reston Heights is set to begin soon for the parcel that formerly contained Chili’s Bar & Grill.

The expansion, approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2013, will have a six-story residential building, a 15-story residential building, a five-story building that incorporates a parking garage with residences and retail space; and a 10-story building that mixes office space, parking and retail space.

JBG recently announced that 24-Hour Fitness will be an anchor tenant.

Meanwhile, there also may a big new development in the works for the south access point of the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station.

CESC Commerce Executive Park, L.L.C. has filed a rezoning application for 1850 Centennial Park Drive, 11400 Commerce Park Drive and 11440 Commerce Park Drive  to rezone from Industrial District to Planned Development Commercial (PDC).

Those office buildings are located on the south side of the Dulles Toll Road from the metro station. There is direct access from a stairway between the office buildings and the toll road.

The applications calls for approximately 500 new dwelling units, a hotel with approximately 175 rooms, a new office building of approximately 400,000 square feet, and “complementary retail/active uses integrated into the ground floor to enrich the pedestrian experience.”

The property owners say two existing office buildings will be retained (totaling 356,496 square feet of office space). The application also includes an option to convert the proposed hotel to multifamily residential, and the proposed new office building to multifamily residential and/or hotel.

That development would be one of several in the immediate vicinity of the Metro station. Comstock’s 528-unit BLVD apartments at Reston Station will begin leasing later this year. Construction has recently begun on a project by The Bozzuto Group and Chuck Veatch at Sunset Hills Road and Reston Station Boulevard that will bring 421 units. Developer JBG has also filed a rezoning application to turn an office building at 1831 Wiehle Av. (Sunset Hills and Wiehle Avenue) into 504 residential units.

API building/Credit: Showcase.com