Brookfield Breaks Ground On Reston Development

The massive mixed-use development that will bring a Wegmans and Pinstripes near the future Reston Town Center Metro station is underway.  Bisnow/Jon Banister Brookfield executives, partners and local leaders celebrating the Halley Rise groundbreaking Brookfield Properties celebrated the groundbreaking Monday for Halley Rise, a $1.4B project on the site of a 36-acre Reston office park.  The development’s first phase, scheduled to deliver in 2022, will feature 640 residential units, 450K SF of office and 200K SF of retail. The retail will be anchored by Wegmans, which is bringing its smaller urban grocery store concept to the project, and Pinstripes, a restaurant with a bowling alley and bocce court. The developer says the project will also feature a movie theater, a fitness retailer, and more food and beverage and entertainment users. Additionally, the project will create new public streets and two new parks. Arts Brookfield will curate cultural programming.  Bisnow/Jon Banister The Optimus Ride demonstration during the Halley Rise groundbreaking In February, Brookfield announced a partnership with Optimus Ride to bring its self-driving vehicles to the project. Optimus Ride has already begun giving rides to the tenants of the property’s two existing office buildings. Brookfield Executive Vice President Greg Meyer said Optimus Ride has given 15,000 rides in its first five weeks of service.  “It’s going to be not only something that distinguishes this project from our competitors, but something that helps address the issue of how do you move from space to space,” Meyer said. “The answer can’t just be cars. It has to be a lot of different things, and we think Optimus Ride and their autonomous vehicles are a really important part of that.” Brookfield Properties A rendering of Brookfield’s Halley Rise development in Reston The development of the 36-acre office park had previously been branded as Reston Crescent and had called for three new office buildings totaling 1M SF surrounded by surface parking. But with the Silver Line Phase 2 bringing a new Metro station 500 feet from the property, Brookfield decided to instead pursue mixed-use development.  “The plan is now to build a community, and a community means a lot more than one use,” Meyer said.  At full build-out, Halley Rise is slated to include 1.5M SF of offices, 250K SF of retail and 1,500 residential units, 15% of which would be set aside as affordable. Brookfield is working with several architects on the project, including Morris Adjmi Architects, MV+A, Eric Colbert & Associates, Hacker, Allied Works, Fox Architects and KPF.  Halley Rise is not the only major mixed-use development moving forward near the Reston Town Center Metro station. Boston Properties, the developer behind Reston Town Center, is also building Reston Gateway, a 1M SF office project anchored by Fannie Mae. JBG Smith is building the second phase of RTC West, a 1.3M SF development with a mix of office, residential and retail.