Wegmans opened at Halley Rise in 2023, and from the street not much has happened since. The parking lots stayed parking lots. Part of the reason is that the original developer sold, and this month the new owner filed a plan for everything that comes next.

WS Development, a Massachusetts company, paid $42.7 million in July 2025 for the undeveloped parcels and the existing office buildings at Halley Rise. Their revised application keeps the approved 4.1 million square feet intact and moves the pieces around: more housing pushed toward the Reston Town Center Metro station, a large share of the office space shifted south, two office towers on Block D, a 1,504 space garage placed entirely underground, 841 residential units across Blocks G and H, a hotel of up to 200 rooms, and roughly five acres of open space anchored by a green with a performance stage and a food and beverage pavilion.

We go through it block by block, including which existing things disappear to make room.

Before that, Kathy and Graham dig into the July numbers for Reston, and they run opposite to what people expect from a slow market. Detached homes are going under contract in 9 days at a median of $1.1 million. Townhouses take 13 days at $709,000. Condos take 26 days at $391,000 and Reston condo inventory has climbed to three months of supply, a level this area has not seen in years. Rising condo fees and a homebuyer whose average age is now 40 are both part of the explanation.

Also in this episode: a penthouse at the JW Marriott Residences at Reston Station sold for $10.9 million, breaking the Virginia record that the same building set in April, and Kathy finished the Public Art Reston scavenger hunt.

Get the weekly Reston Insider newsletter for local news, development updates, and events across Reston and Herndon:

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LINKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE

Our previous episode on Reston Crossing, the neighboring development:

https://youtu.be/tlwRKlZ17_I

Halley Rise revised plan coverage from FFXnow:

https://www.ffxnow.com/2026/08/12/halley-rise-developer-proposes-tweaks-to-office-park-plans-for-reston-neighborhood/

Reston penthouse sets the Virginia condo sales record:

https://www.ffxnow.com/2026/08/06/reston-penthouse-breaks-virginias-record-for-a-condo-sale-price-with-10-9m-deal/

Public Art Reston 2026 Scavenger Hunt, cards due August 23:

https://publicartreston.org/scavenger_hunt_2026/

Halley Rise official site:

https://halleyrise.com/

Dulles has been running mobile lounges since 1962. They were supposed to be temporary. Sixty-four years later, a $22.5 billion plan finally retires them, along with most of the rest of the airport, and the ripple effects land squarely on Reston, Herndon, and the Dulles Corridor.

Graham and Kathy break down the Dulles transformation plan: more than five million square feet of new or renovated space, the replacement of Concourses C and D, Concourse E opening later this year with fourteen new United gates, an extended AeroTrain, a new central walking tunnel, a much larger customs facility, and a proposed parking garage of roughly 32,000 spaces. The Saarinen terminal facade survives. The two-year timeline that got announced does not survive contact with the construction schedule, and we explain why most of this work does not start until 2027.

We also get into the underlying master plan math: Dulles moving from about 27 million annual passengers today to roughly 45 million by 2045, using the existing runways, with gate counts climbing from 130 toward 154 by 2040. Then the local question. What does doubling an airport do to Route 28 and Innovation Station, to the Herndon-Monroe corridor north of the toll road, and to Reston, which has already been absorbing a decade of this pressure?

Before that, Fairfax County Public Schools is rolling out new student ID cards for the 2026-27 year. Every student wears one through the school day. Bus riders tap on and tap off. The cards carry a photo, name, school, a QR code, and the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. We talk about the friction it adds, the independence it takes away, and the case for it that changed how we were thinking about it.

Plus, the Cardboard Boat Regatta returns to Lake Anne Plaza on Saturday August 8, and you told us which Reston and Herndon intersections you hate most.

Get the weekly Reston and Herndon newsletter, with every event large and small, the news of the week, and what is actually being built near you:
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Reston is a planned community, so it is easy to assume the street names were invented along with everything else in 1964. Most of them were. A surprising number were not.

In this episode we work through the road names locals ask about most. Temporary Road, which was never supposed to be permanent and stayed anyway. Wiehle Avenue, named for a Philadelphia doctor who retired at 41, bought 3,228 acres, and tried to build a live-work town on this exact land seventy years before Bob Simon did. Sunset Hills Road, which takes its name from the Bowman family farm rather than from any hill or sunset. Lawyers Road, which is exactly what it sounds like: the route attorneys rode to reach the old Fairfax County Courthouse near present-day Tysons. Jester Court, which got its name through a chain of logic involving four lots, the fourth month, and April Fools Day. And the cluster of equestrian names across South Reston, which traces back to the fox hunt the Bowman family founded on Sunset Hills Farm in 1928.

We also start with an 1879 map of the area so you can see what was here before any of it: the rail line that became the W&OD, Hunter Mill, Lawyers Road already in place, and no Reston at all.

Before the history, we cover the week. Kathy and Graham got into Clarity's soft opening at Reston Town Center ahead of Friday's public opening and give a full review of the crispy burrata, the pork belly, the halibut, and the short rib. We walk through the Public Art Reston Scavenger Hunt, the Fairfax County Carnival and Fair coming to Frying Pan Farm Park July 30 through August 2, and the Ken Thompson Reston Century ride on August 23.

One thread we did not expect to be so timely: the Robert Wiehle House on Old Reston Avenue took a tree through the roof in the July 5 storm. It is one of only three structures left from the Town of Wiehle, and its future is genuinely uncertain right now.

Get the weekly Reston Insider newsletter for local openings, events, and neighborhood news:
https://kathyandgraham.greaterrestonliving.com/?modal=signup

Links referenced in this episode

Public Art Reston Scavenger Hunt:
https://publicartreston.org/scavenger_hunt_2026/

Fairfax County Carnival and Fair at Frying Pan Farm Park:
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/frying-pan-park/fairfax-fair

Ken Thompson Reston Century:
https://restonbikeclub.org/RestonCentury

Clarity:
https://clarityvienna.com

Reston Museum:
https://www.restonmuseum.org

Reporting on the Wiehle House storm damage:
https://www.ffxnow.com/2026/07/23/owner-seeks-help-to-save-restons-historic-wiehle-house-after-storm-damage/