Around the Corner today;
The Connection has a valid point to make about infrastructure in Northern Virginia. The problem has become the complete lack of funding from ANY sources. Not only has Richmond cut off most of the funding that used to come to our area but alternative sources of funding such as the gas tax have remained stagnant and unrelated to inflationary changes. (Connection)
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After a weekend and first weekday blunder of a start to the 495 Express Lanes project, VDOT has made some sign corrections it hopes will stop the accidents, or atleast prevent people from putting the car in reverse on ramps. (Patch)
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Today on our look around town we noticed a survey balloon hanging around above the Capital One headquarters in Tysons. There doesn’t appear to be any events occurring today… which could explain an alternative use for the balloon. Another coincidence? The floating height of the balloon was very close to the proposed elevation of the new 392′ Capital One building design from the recently approved Rezoning plan. It could be that Capital One is planning on moving forward with Final Development Plans for their headquarters expansion earlier than previously anticipated.
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Fairfaxpedia has been launched, a local opensource online reference for all things Fairfax created by Frank Muraca, a student at GMU. We have taken sometime to populate the Tysons Corner page, but the true beauty of the system is the crowd sourcing capability to gather small bits of information from hundreds of different people. So if you have something to add, give it a shot. (Fairfaxpedia)
Urbanism Story of the Day
DC’s height limits have been a large point of contention between planners, urbanists, smart growthers, and others for nearly a decade (and to some extent well before that as well). The issue at hand? A historic city which on one part wants to retain its identity but on the other hand continues to see businesses move out of the city. Some, like myself, have pointed to the first step in development as the issue. When lease rates must be 50-80% higher than locations only 10 miles away because the developer has to charge that amount to get back the cost of construction from going low-rise to only marginally taller low-rise, that is an economic crisis.
In this article from The Atlantic Cities, Mr. Benfield make’s some great points about aesthetics, planning, and urban living. Unfortunately he completely drops the ball on the central premise of cities, commerce. Without jobs, and more importantly without the ability to grow jobs from small companies and startups, a city is stagnant and a one horse town. The Government business is a great single horse to be a part of; I doubt many sane people believe the US Government is going to disappear anytime soon, but it is not a good growth industry. For D.C. the government, lawyers, and lobbyists are some of the very few clients that can afford to pay the absurd and arbitrary lease rates currently the norm. The lack of diversity away from only these forms of commerce are what continue to hurt the districts economic viability.
What Kaid doesn’t realize is D.C.’s continued height regulation is their commercial loss, and Virginia’s commercial gain… so I guess thanks again D.C.