Fairfax County Rushed Reston Library Redevelopment Process: Developer

Update (12 p.m.): This story was updated with information about Norton Scott's 2019 PRC application to construct a 13-story building on its property located behind the Reston Regional Library.

RESTON, VA — One of the developers who submitted a competitive proposal for a new Reston Regional Library and adjacent affordable housing development is criticizing Fairfax County for its handling of the solicitation process for the project in the Reston Town Center North area.

"Our experience with this was that when the county opened up the process for competitive offers, there was virtually no information given about what was being proposed," Chelsea Rao, a senior vice president with Norton Scott, told Patch on Tuesday.

Roe plans to speak Thursday night during a public hearing about the project at the Fairfax County Government Center. Earlier this week, she shared a draft of her testimony with Patch, outlining Norton Scott's concerns about the county's handling of the solicitation process.

"We do not object to the County issuing an RFP for a project with specific guidelines that are transparent to both bidders and citizens which brings forth the most competitive proposals for this important project," Rao says, in the draft testimony. "But this process smacks of an attempt by the County to engineer a sole source award to rush a project through by skirting the rigors of its own procurement procedures. We encourage the Supervisors to reject this award and have the staff go back to the drawing board, to comply with the public procurement act and give full consideration to all competitive proposals. Reston and the County deserve nothing less and need to get the future of this vital area right."

Residents wishing to speak at Thursday's public hearing are encouraged to contact Avis Wiley by phone at 703-246-5152, TTY 711, or by email at Avis.Wiley@fairfaxcouty.gov to indicate their desire to participate. Additional information or questions about the public hearing may be directed to Marwan Mahmoud at 703-246-5017, TTY 711.

In October 2021, Fairfax County received an unsolicited proposal from Foulger-Pratt under the Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act to redevelop two county-owned properties to offer "a variety of educational, workforce development, and civic resources," according to the proposal.

Information about the PPEA proposal came to light at the end of March, when the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development issued a call for competing proposals with a 45-day deadline. At the time, few details were released about Foulger-Pratt's unsolicited proposal. In fact, the name of the developer was not made public until July.

The county was required to solicit competitive proposals in order to avoid the PPEA being a sole-source process, because that would preempt a public review.

The call for proposals in March sought competing plans to redevelop a 4.45-acre site at the intersection of Bowman Towne Drive and Town Center Parkway in Reston. The site was made up of two parcels of county-owned land.

The first parcel consisted of a 1.56-acre portion of the 8.44-acre property containing the North County Governmental Center and the Reston Police Station. The redevelopment area was the surface parking lot for the police station.

The second 2.89-acre parcel contained a 30-townhome rental assisted demonstration community owned by the county's Redevelopment and Housing Authority.

FCDHCD asked that the proposals include plans for the redevelopment of a new 40,000-square foot-regional library and 350 affordable dwelling units in two buildings with structured parking. The buildings could be no more than five stories in height.

Voters approved partial funding for a new regional library in a 2012 bond referendum. The new development project would provide the necessary funding to build the library, while keeping the old library open during construction.

On July 26, the county notified Foulger-Pratt that it had been selected as the developer for the project. An interim agreement was drawn up and a public hearing was scheduled for 7 p.m., on Thursday, at the Fairfax County Government Center.

"We submitted a competitive proposal under the guidelines within the timeframe," Rao said. "And the county basically came back and said, 'We're moving ahead with this other proposal and [Norton Scott's proposal] does not meet the requirements outlined in our proposal. There's no explanation of which guidelines it doesn't meet."

Related: New Reston Library, Shelter Master Plan Process Launched: Supervisors

Norton Scott's proposal included a 1.8-acre civic plaza; 39,000-square-foot LEED Gold-certified regional library; 582 total housing units, including 354 affordable units; a brand-new homeless shelter with additional supportive housing; a community-focused performing arts center; a consolidated county human services building; and more than 900 spaces of free public parking.

"The conceptual design for this project meets the goals outlined in the Fairfax County Housing Blueprint and Communitywide Housing Strategic Plan, the Countywide Strategic Plan, the One Fairfax Equity Policy, and the Environmental Vision," according to documents provided by Norton Scott.

Where Norton Scott's proposal differed from the one submitted by Foulger-Pratt was that it encompassed the current library site and an adjacent 1-acre lot owned by one of Norton Scott's subsidiaries that's located across Bowman Town Drive from the police station parking lot. The proposal uses none of the police station land and it preserves the existing 30 townhomes of affordable housing.

"They call for competitive proposals for affordable housing and a library and we said, 'You know what, we have a great proposal. It's not on the same site, but it's right next door,'" Rao said.

This is not the first time Norton Scott has come up short when trying to redevelop its corner of the Reston Town Center North District.

Related: New Reston Regional Library Gets Boost Thanks To Development Proposal

In 2015, Fairfax County put out a request for proposals to redevelop the library and the nearby Embry Rucker Community Shelter, which is a 70-bed facility offering support services for the county's homeless population. The county eventually cancelled the RFP for that project three years later, with Norton Scott as the only developer to submit a proposal for consideration.

"When we realized that the county wasn't going to work with us, we move forward with a PRC [planned residential community] plan for our parcel that was also denied by the county," Rao said. "Again, not our first choice in what we wanted to do, but something that just used our lot for residential."

In October 2019, the board of supervisors voted 9-0 to uphold an earlier decision by the Fairfax County Planning Commission to deny an appeal concerning Norton-Scott's conceptual plan to build a 13-story building with 58 condos on its property behind library.

At the time, county leaders were hoping that other developers would step up to redevelop 47 acres of land in the Reston Town Center North district but none did, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Although the 188-page unsolicited PPEA proposal Foulger-Pratt submitted last October to the county was available for other developers to review at the end of March, 75 pages of it were either partially or completely redacted. The redactions included information about the project's financing, as well as design drawings and specific details about the scope of the multifamily/mixed-use development Foulger-Pratt was proposing.

A handful of additional pages containing information or designs from similar projects completed by the developer were partially redacted where the information was deemed to "contain trade secrets and proprietary process of Foulger-Pratt that are derived based on our extensive experience and market position whereby releasing it would harm Foulger-Pratt's competitive position in the PPEA procurement process," according to the proposal.

"This particular offer was published in such a redacted fashion that it was almost indeterminable what the offer entailed that was being published for competition," Rao says in her testimony. "This would never have passed muster in a County-issued RFP. The elements seemed to be a new public library to be built on land owned by an instrumentality of Fairfax County on which a specified number of affordable units were to be built, which would displace certain affordable units presently existing on Bowman Towne Center Court, and would place the existing police garage in an underground parking structure."

The interim agreement between the county and Foulger-Pratt shows the developer's commitment to redevelop the 4.45-acre site with approximately 350 affordable housing units in two buildings with structured parking. But beyond that, there is no information about how many additional residential units the developer is proposing or what other amenities — restaurants, shops, public facilities, open space, etc. — its plan includes.

Foulger-Pratt did agree to delay the filing of a zoning application until after the community outreach and stakeholder engagement sessions had started. The application would likely provide more details about the project. Additionally, the developer agreed not to file a rezoning application until after the entire public engagement process was completed.

"People need to know that there are options that, at least for the library, that are more aligned with the comprehensive plan and what the county and the citizens of Reston are asking for," Rao said.

Residents wishing to speak at Thursday's public hearing are encouraged to contact Avis Wiley by phone at 703-246-5152, TTY 711, or by email at Avis.Wiley@fairfaxcouty.gov to indicate their desire to participate. Additional information or questions about the public hearing may be directed to Marwan Mahmoud at 703-246-5017, TTY 711.

Also see: Reston Town Center North: Nothing To See Here! Keep Moving