A Vision For Maple Avenue

As plans for Tysons Corner redevelopment move forward, the Vienna Town Council took another step toward realizing its own mixed-use corridor last week, picking up a decade-long discussion about its vision for Maple Avenue and authorizing the town to start the process of finding a consultant to move it forward.

A draft of a request for proposals could be in the council's hands by Dec. 12, Public Information Officer Kirstyn Barr said. Councilwoman Laurie DiRocco said she'd like a consultant plan to be set in motion by this June.

The town completed a similar project for Historic Church Street called the Church Street Vision, a five-year process with the first set of ordinances approved in April 1996, Barr said.

Plans for a revitalized, more developed Maple Avenue began about a decade ago with a committee of seven members who spent years compiling early ideas about what Vienna's main strip should look like. But after they presented those concepts in 2005, "things sat on idle," Planning and Zoning Director Greg Hembree said at a work session last Monday.

A feasibility study was conducted around 2009, and the town contracted local engineering firm Wiley Wilson to complete renderings based on some of those findings, presented to Town Council this past June. At that point, the "talking [began] in earnest" again, he said.

Now, "the question is to what extent do we want to do this, what do we want to look like and how will we accommodate local businesses?" he said.

"We need to define this first box and move forward with that concept knowing full well that we don’t lose the soul of the town," Hembree said.

Though it has several larger plazas, Maple Avenue is littered with many small lots, controlled by different owners and sometimes home to several different businesses over the course of a few years. Developers who want to build under the new zoning laws would have to develop a minimum one acre of land, Hembree said, which means many of those lots would have to be consolidated. Because of some challenges associated with the road's layout, only about half of the stretch could be redeveloped under the new guidelines, Hembree said.

The Wiley Wilson renderings show how various Vienna intersections would look from street level against a backdrop of buildings 35, 50 and 54 feet tall. The town's current height limit is 35 feet.

Council members, based on those drawings, generally agreed on 15 foot setbacks from the Maple Avenue right of way and a maximum building height of 54 feet, which Hembree said offers more of a 'premium' space to businesses and developers.

"To accommodate 21st century kind of communications you need greater height between floors, there's a lot of conduit and wiring between there," Hembree said. "On the first floor ... 12 feet isn't going to cut it. You're going to need 15 to 17 feet."

Council members said they want to avoid a "canyon affect" when driving down the road, something they hope to avoid with the smaller 15-foot setback. Maple Avenue's five lanes creates an actual setback of 26 or 27 feet from the curb, Hembree said, so part of the vision would have to include things like pedestrian seating, small sitting areas and other greenery to offset that space.

A number of questions — parking, whether there should be "East" "Central" and "West" zones with different limits and regulations, which jurisdictions could provide "real life" inspiration, how to include bike lanes and what to preserve, among them — remain.

The Mayor and three council members — Laurie DiRocco, Edythe Kelleher and Carey Sienicki — provided written feedback to several of those questions. Their responses can be viewed in the PDF from the Nov. 14 worksession.

Hembree also presented a timeline he hoped the vision would follow (taken from council documents)

Phase 1 (10 to 20 percent of project cost):

• Explore: Existing features in Vienna
• Explore: Examples to draw from around the country/world.
• Create: A visual and verbal resource document for the Council.
• Create: A Vision.
• Define: The physical and programmatic limits of the project.

Phase 2 (20 to 30 percent of project cost)

• Explore: Look at an extensive array of conceptual graphic concept.
• Explore: A series of zoning and code provisions to support the above possibilities.
• Identify the various options, such height, bulk plane, incentives/proffers, setbacks, uses, parking, FAR, and
• overlay districts.
• Create: The final concept graphics incorporating the above refined preliminary concepts.
• Create: The final codification supporting the agreed-upon design direction.

Phase 3 (30 to 40 percent of the cost of the project)

• Discussion: Open up the project to the various Town boards and commissions, and the citizens.
• Refine: The graphic and verbal elements of the project by incorporating the various input garnered above
• Perform final objective quality control effort.
• Create: Final document/Code.

Phase 4 (10 to 20 percent of the cost of the project)

• Present: To the public and the various boards and commission.
• Vote: Town Council Approval.

At Monday's regular meeting, Councilwoman Laurie Cole said she hoped the town website would serve as one avenue for the council to collect resident feedback as it continues to navigate the process.