Reston’s Tall Oaks Village Center has a new owner.
The 64,000-square-foot shopping center near Lake Anne was sold by Boston-based CRP-2 Holdings Tall Oaks LLC to Tall Oaks Development Company on Dec. 17, Fairfax County records show.
The sales price was $14.3 million. The shopping center last sold for $10.8 in 2006. The prior sale was for $8.4 million in 2002, tax records show.
Tall Oaks Development Company is based in McLean, and records show it shares an address with the Jefferson Apartment Group, a local company that has developed more than 18,000 rental units with a value of more than $3 billion in 10 east coast states, including Virginia.
Locally, the Jefferson Apartment Group has developed, among others, the Residences at the Fairfax County Government Center, Tellus in Arlington, The Asher in Alexandria and the Jefferson at 14W, a seven-story, mixed-use luxury development in Northwest DC.
Jefferson representatives did not immediately return phone calls.
Tall Oaks is zoned industrial/commercial, so turning the 7.6-acre parcel into residential would involve rezoning.
However, flagging businesses at Tall Oaks over the last decade has made its future as a retail destination in doubt.
The anchor space, which housed a Giant Foods and later two international grocery stores, has been empty for four years. The stand-alone former Burger King space has been vacant for nearly a decade. Other recent departures include El Manantial restaurant, Curves, 7-Eleven and Total Rehab Chiropractic.
At recent meetings on Phase 2 of Reston’s Master Plan, which will plan for the future of Reston’s village centers and neighborhoods, many citizens and local leaders suggested that it may be time to repurpose the Tall Oaks space as something other than a major retail center.
It was suggested by many, including Reston Association, that Tall Oaks could survive as a convenience center with limited retail and the remaining space could be used for a variety of other purposes.
Fairfax County planners encouraged Restonians to dream big last week when it came to a new vision for Tall Oaks Village Center.
At the third of three community meetings on Phase II of the Reston Master Plan, the discussion focused on pedestrian connectivity, possible changes with the Baron Cameron retail, and more talk on what the future holds for the more-than-half-empty Tall Oaks Village Center.
Phase I of the Master Plan — which outlines development around Reston’s transit centers — took about four years to formulate but was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors earlier this year.
Phase II is on the fast track under a new system called Fairfax Forward. The process kicked off in June, has held three community meetings and hopes to have formal plan in 2015.
A new comprehensive plan is necessary, planners say, because Reston’s plan has not been updated in 25 years. Much has changed since then and there will be a lot more changes in population and development as Reston moves towards becoming a transit-oriented community.
Whatever changes are incorporated into the plan will not be a regulatory document and any structural changes will have to eventually go through the Reston Association’s Design Review Board, as well as county planning and zoning and the Board of Supervisors.
A September meeting discussed what, if any, rules should be in place should an entire cluster be considered for redevelopment (this would likely be apartment complexes and not solo-owned properties).
Read the entire Phase II draft plan here.
October’s meeting, featuring small-group discussions, concentrated on the pros and cons of Reston’s Village Centers.
One theme ran through the October meeting — that it may be time to consider Tall Oaks a “convenience center” and redevelop the rest of the space, which has been without an anchor tenant for nearly four years.
Heidi Merkel, the county’s Reston Master Plan Phase IIÂ Project Manager, asked last week’s atendees to “think out of the box when it came to Tall Oaks.” Visitors were given stickers to “vote” for different concepts at Baron Cameron and Tall Oaks.
Among some of the most popular ideas for Tall Oaks: Wide Variety of Retail Shops; Grocery, Food and a Beverage Stores; Â Other “Local Businesses; and Restaurants, Bars and Fast Food.
Those are actually “inside the box” ideas since that was what mainly was at Tall Oaks until stores closed at a fast clip over the last few years.
Other ideas: residential, mixed-use, a rec center, a boutique hotel, outdoor amphitheater or children’s play area, among others.
The Reston community continues to chime in on what to do with the largely empty Tall Oaks Village Center. One answer pops up often: “I’d love to see a Wegmans there.”
Ah, Wegmans. It’s a happy place. With 11 kinds of salmon, a coffee bar, cheese so rare it’s kept in a locked case and a chef custom-making your lunchtime stir-fry. Restonians are clearly fans — but must travel to Sterling or Fair Lakes to get an $18 artisan fruit tart.
Could it be that the mostly available space at Wiehle Avenue and North Shore Drive would make gourmet grocery dreams come true?
Sorry, no.
“We are not considering this location,” Jo Natale, Wegmans Director of Media Relations for the Rochester, N.Y., based chain wrote in an email.
Wegmans didn’t become Wegmans by squeezing the stores into any old space. The company has requirements of 150,000 square feet for the store alone, along with 800 surface parking spots, says a local land use attorney.
That means Wegmans needs about 15 acres to be Wegmans. The Tall Oaks site is about seven acres — and the anchor store, which used to house a Giant Food, is only about 38,000 square feet.
And that’s before the discussion would even begin on the traffic pattern and access from Wiehle Avenue.
So to review — Wegmans is not interested and the site is not appropriate.
You’re still going to have to head to Loudoun County or Fair Lakes for the hand-silced Nova lox or a wine selection curated by someone who knows a Syrah from a Cabernet.
Photo: Wegmans/Credit: Wegmans
As stores at Tall Oaks Village Center have shut their doors one after another, it has been hard to predict the future for the plaza.
Will any tenants sign leases there? Will the property eventually be rezoned so homes or a community center can be built there? Or will it just remain a near-ghost town for years?
It is speculation that took hold nearly three years ago, when Compare Foods closed in the center’s large anchor spot. Compare Foods was the second international supermarket in five years to occupy the space after longtime tenant Giant Foods left in 2007.
Since then, it has been one closure after another. Even some new tenants that signed in that time have since closed. Among the departures: 7-Eleven, El Manantial restaurant, Curves, Burger King, Total Rehab Chiropractic and Dominoes Pizza.
Some mainstays remain. Paradise Nails,  Vocelli Pizza, Paisano’s Pizza, Mama Wok and Pho 75, all of which have a loyal customer base.
The vacancies are still there despite active marketing by Lincoln Property Management.
“Tall Oaks Village Center is located in Fairfax County, one of the fastest growing suburban locations in the Washington, D.C. metro area,” reads the Tall Oaks listing on Lincoln’s website. “The county enjoys one of the most affluent and educated consumer bases in the country.”
Lincoln reps did not return requests for an interview and asking prices for the spaces were not available.
Lincoln’s site shows more than 46,000 square feet of space in four storefronts up for rent. That includes the anchor site, which is more than 38,000 square feet. The anchor site is listed as “will not divide,” meaning it will take a big tenant such as a grocery store to seek the space.
Meanwhile, Lincoln’s somewhat dated marketing brochure for Tall Oaks shows the demographics of the area (“Excellent demographics with 87,181 people with an average household income of $160,145 within 3 miles”).
A longtime tenant of Tall Oaks Village Center has departed the mostly empty shopping center.
El Manantial Restaurant has cleared out its space and moved to 790 Station St. in Herndon, where it will reopen as “Europa.”
El Manantial owner Humberto Fuentes told Reston Now last spring that he would be closing in the next few months. The high-end Mediterranean restaurant, a 2003 Washingtonian Top 100 restaurant pick, had been a mainstay at Tall Oaks for 11 years.
Fuentes said he signed a five-year lease, rather than a 10-year lease, in 2009, knowing that Tall Oaks had lost much of its vibrancy.
“I realized this center is not going to get any better,” he said last March. “I want to operate in a better location.”
Fuentes will also rename the restaurant Europa, which better describes the menu, he said.
The departure of the popular restaurant is one of many businesses to recently close at Tall Oaks.
The stand-alone Burger King and the 25,000-square-foot anchor space have been empty for years. Curves gym, Total Care Chiropractic and Dominos Pizza have also closed in the last 18 months and no new tenants have taken their place.
Tall Oaks is just up Wiehle Avenue from the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station, but there are no current plans to rezone or redevelop the site.
Reston residents and community leaders came to United Christian Parish on Saturday to see what Fairfax County planners may have in store for Reston as the community undertakes Phase II of the Reston Master Plan Special Study.
What they found: mostly information about the process, which will rely heavily on input from the people who live or own businesses here.
As Reston embarks on its second 50 years, there needs to be a plan in place for redevelopment, whether that happens next year or in 30 years, says Hunter Mill Supervisor Cathy Hudgins.
“Whether we develop today or in the future, we need to determine what the county’s role will be in that plan and what the plan should be,” she said. “Phase I changed the rules. Here, we are not changing the rules.”
Fairfax County officials say the the current comprehensive plan, last updated in 1989, requires revision because Reston no longer has a master developer to update the plan for Reston; the plan for Reston has outdated elements; and with population expected to grow with the arrival of Metro later this year, Reston is evolving as a community.
After four years of task force meetings, Phase I of the Reston Master Plan Special Study was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors earlier this year. Phase I maps out how development should proceed in the area surrounding Reston’s eventual three Silver Line Metro stations. Much of that area, particularly Wiehle-Reston East (scheduled to open this summer), previously had little residential development.
Phase II will mainly look at Reston’s village and convenience centers. It will also be done under Fairfax County’s new “Fairfax Forward” method of comprehensive plan review, which will rely on greater community engagement.
Reston founder Bob Simon, for one, says Reston could have fewer village centers. When Reston was planned in the early 1960s, supermarkets were about 15,000 square feet, he said. Today, they are more than 100,000 square feet.
“Since we were planning for 80,000 people, we planned for seven village centers and one town center,” said Simon. “We don’t need all of them. But I do think each village center should have a plaza.” Read More
Now that El Manantial is the latest business to announce its departure from Tall Oaks Village Center, it is time to play Fill This Space.
This has been a common game in the last few years as many businesses, including anchor Compare Foods, have left the shopping center. Among them: Curves gym, Dominos Pizza, a hair salon, Total Rehab Chiropractic.
El Manantial in 2011 received Reston Association Design Review approval to build a 40-seat, three-season patio, but never started the project. Owner Humberto Fuentes says he will move his high-end restaurant to Old Town Herndon this summer when his lease expires. He said he chose not to renew his lease partially due to the number of vacancies at the center.
In March, Total Rehab Chiropractic closed and moved to 1760 Town Center Parkway.
What do do about Tall Oaks, where some stores have sat empty for years, has been a hot topic among Restonians. Reston Citizens Association President Colin Mills wrote about his ideas in 2013.
The landlord and owner of Tall Oaks did not return calls.
The El Manantial space has empty stores on either side, and is one empty storefront from the 25,000-square-foot empty grocery store space. That means some interested retailer could put together a very large space.
What do you think should open there? Tell us in the comments.
Another longtime tenant of Tall Oaks Village Center is departing the mostly empty shopping center.
El Manantial Restaurant will close at Tall Oaks in the next few months and reopen in Old Town Herndon, the restaurant’s owner says.
El Manantial, a high-end Mediterranean restaurant, has been a mainstay at Tall Oaks for 11 years, even as other stores closed, leaving more vacancies at the center than occupied spaces. Owner Humberto Fuentes said he signed a five-year lease, rather than a 10-year lease, in 2009, knowing that Tall Oaks had lost much of its vibrancy.
That lease is up in July. More than half the Tall Oaks space is now vacant, including the anchor grocery store space.
“I realized this center is not going to get any better,” he said. “I want to operate in a better location.”
Fuentes will also rename the restaurant Europa, which better describes the menu, he said.
The departure of the popular restaurant is one of many businesses to close at Tall Oaks recently. Earlier this month, Total Rehab Chiropractic moved from Tall Oaks to 1760 Reston Parkway.
The stand-alone Burger King and the 25,000-square-foot anchor space have been empty for years. Curves gym and Dominos Pizza have also closed in the last 18 months and no new tenants have taken their place.
Tall Oaks is just up Wiehle Avenue from the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station set to open this year, but there are no current plans to rezone or redevelop the site.
El Manantial was a 2003 Washingtonian Top 100 restaurant pick.
What does the future hold for Tall Oaks Village Center? Join in the conversation on our forums page or in the comments below.
File photo of El Manantial
There is a new vacancy among the many empty storefronts at Reston’s Tall Oaks Village Center.
Total Rehab Chiropractic office has moved to 1760 Reston Parkway.
The clinic’s departure leaves another empty space at Tall Oaks, which now has more vacancies than it does tenants.
Relatively recent departures include Curves gym and Dominos Pizza. The former Burger King and the 25,000-square-foot anchor spot that has housed three different grocery stores have been empty for years.
Some mainstays remain: Paradise Nails, El Manantial, Vocelli Pizza, Mama Wok and Pho 75, all of which have a loyal customer base.
Reston development-watchers have talked for years about how to revitalize Tall Oaks. The site owners recently told Reston Community Center, which inquired about investigating the space as a future site for an indoor pool and recreation center, that it is not interested in selling.
It has been many years since the village center has been a thriving spot. Competition from Reston Town Center and Plaza America, beginning in the 1990s, made it hard to keep tenants. It also is relatively hidden from traffic on Wiehle Avenue.
There are revitalization plans in the works for the area around nearby Lake Anne Plaza, but no such plans for Tall Oaks. Phase 2 of the Master Plan Special Study Task Force, which should begin later this year, will discuss what to do, if anything, with the areas around Reston’s village centers.
The shopping center owners could not be reached for comment.
What to do with Tall Oaks has been a lively local discussion recently. Visit our forum to add your opinion or offer it in the comments below this article.
