Plans are brewing again to redevelop Lake Anne’s Crescent property

Over the next year, a major redevelopment project involving the Crescent Apartments at Lake Anne Plaza in Reston may be on the horizon.

The Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development will work with county partners for the next year to develop a process for the redevelopment of the Crescent property, according to Tom Fleetwood, the department’s director.

The news comes as work on a visioning study to determine the future of Lake Anne continues. Consultant Street Sense is formalizing a vision for the village center area after working with residents and other stakeholders.

“The redevelopment is anticipated to reflect the guidance from the economic visioning study and comport to the board’s intent when it purchased the property in 2006: to preserve and expand the affordable housing opportunities on this site, and to contribute to the economic vitality of historic Lake Anne Village,” Fleetwood wrote in a statement to FFXnow.

Both pieces — the economic visioning study and the development plan — will work in tandem to explore ways to reshape the area.

“The goal is to merge the local market’s pulse with the aspirations of the Lake Anne community and shape a prosperous future for everyone,” said Elizabeth Hagg, director of the community revitalization section in the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Development.

At a June 8 meeting on the economic visioning study, Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn emphasized that he wants to ensure the vision for Lake Anne aligns with the redevelopment of the Crescent site.

“I wanted to make sure if at all possible what happens with the Crescent is consistent with what else is happening at Lake Anne,” Alcorn said at the meeting.

Yesterday, Alcorn requested an additional $200,000 from the county for the third phase of the economic visioning project.

The current land use plan for the site was approved in March 2015.

But that December, a long-awaited, 1.7-million-square-foot revitalization plan for the area was pulled. The application covered land unit D of the village center, which includes the Crescent parcel and the gas station. It called for 935 new development units, 15,800 square feet of retail, and 30,000 square feet of office space.

Per the county’s comprehensive plan, there are two options for the site: a redevelopment option and a full consolidation option.

The redevelopment option limits the area to 902,000 square feet of development, with a cap on residential uses of up to 750 apartment units and a non-residential component of up to 2,000 square feet, not including the gas station.

Under the option of full consolidation of the area, the number of residential units is capped at 1.1 million square feet or 935 units and up to 48,000 square feet of non-residential space. The gas station would be consolidated and redeveloped.

The county is currently reviewing an update of its comprehensive plan for Reston, but since the economic visioning study is still underway, the language related to Lake Anne is largely unchanged from the existing plan.

In 2015, the county’s private partner — Lake Anne Development Partners (LADP) — said the development plan was not feasible at the time. LADP had originally intended to break ground later that same year.

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