From atop a new glass office tower about 40 minutes outside Washington, D.C., locals lounge around an outdoor pool on a late summer day. Their perch overlooks a luxury hotel-condominium, another office high-rise and several street-level cafes, all completed in the past year.
The properties are part of a minicity called Reston Station that's taking shape around a rail transit hub in Northern Virginia. This mixed-used development seeks to change the geography of a place that already had a town center in the planned community of Reston proper, and that represents its chief promise and challenge.
On one hand, developer Comstock Holding Cos. seeks to show that building new is a compelling proposition for companies and people looking to relocate. On the other hand, the community is competing against not just the original Reston town center but a string of other minicities cropping up at stations along the new rail line linking Washington to Dulles International Airport to the west.
The ambitious project is off to a promising start. Not far from Tysons, Virginia, Reston Station is emerging with its own commercial core fed by a growing number of residents, tenants and patrons.
Comstock completed its first office property, commonly known as the Google Building because of its anchor tenant, in the area right before the pandemic. The developer has nearly wrapped up the construction of at least five office towers, a pair of multifamily buildings, several retail spaces and a hotel property, projects encompassing two of its five planned phases.
Pre-sales at a condominium at the project were exceeding expectations as of March, Comstock said, adding that over the summer they generated about $78 million. The neighborhood is the type of development outside major cities that Comstock bets can attract long-term, revenue-generating tenants to effectively fill desks. Comstock also is developing another mixed-use transit-oriented project in Northern Virginia called Loudoun Station.
"When I've met with the principals of the companies that have moved here or come and toured here for office space, they have all said, 'This is what I need to get my people back to work,'” Comstock CEO Chris Clemente said in an interview. “We have leased office space every year since we delivered the first office building at Reston Station Phase One.”
Comstock has developed buildings totaling about 3.5 million square feet within a 90-acre neighborhood, he said, with another almost 800,000 square feet of older buildings the company built or bought in the area. Reston Station at full buildout will include about 10 million square feet of space, with about 8 million square feet being buildings that Comstock will have built or bought, including office towers, multifamily buildings, retail spaces and hotel properties, Clemente added.
The project, with multiple distinct districts, doesn't come without financial risk. Newer parts of the project aren't leased as uncertainty lingers from the pandemic and the economy remains somewhat sluggish. As a result, the greater D.C. office market and others across the country still face challenges as a result of lingering hybrid work schedules and shifting tenant preferences for new, high-quality office space that could benefit Comstock.
“It’s a risky time to be involved in developing office space,” Victor Hoskins, president and CEO of Fairfax County Economic Development Authority, told CoStar News during an interview.
Drawing tenants back to the office
Even so, Comstock executives say Reston Station not only can give its office workers a place to live, dine and shop. The development near D.C.'s mass transit rail system with high-end architecture, and amenities including destination restaurants and wellness facilities are aimed at helping tenants bring employees back to the office.
Unlike other suburban developments, Reston Station surrounds a Metro subway station, linking it to the rest of D.C. The neighborhood is programmed year-round with concerts, outdoor movies and events to try to create an identity as a vibrant community.
“It’s the scale of Reston Town Center, but it’s all new and highly amenitized with destination retail," Clemente said.
Hoskins said the scope of Reston Town Center is getting noticed. “It really is the largest single project underway right now in the county," he said.
Comstock has completed Reston Town Center's first phase, known as Metro Plaza. It includes a trio of office buildings known as 1900, 1902 and 1906 Reston Metro Plaza. The nearly 371,000-square-foot 1900 Reston Metro Plaza is home to Google, while the 221,000-square-foot office at 1902 Reston Metro Plaza is home to technology group ICF, and the 212,957-square-foot 1906 Reston Metro Plaza is slated to house vehicle data company Carfax this fall.
A Founding Farmers restaurant opened in 2018 at 1904 Reston Metro Plaza. The section of Reston Station also features the 448-unit apartment building BLVD Reston Station at 1908 Reston Metro Plaza. The second phase of the project, an area known as Reston Row, is almost completely built out with the recent completion of a luxury joint apartment-condominium complex. The more than 520,000-square-foot JW Marriott property contains nearly 250 hotel rooms that opened in September and is topped by nearly 100 condo units. About half of the condos have sold, Comstock CEO Clemente said.
The JW Marriott's managing director, Dewayne Wright, said the hotel aims to “set a new benchmark in luxury." It has achieved a 4.7 rating on TripAdvisor. Corporate and social event bookings are already strong into next year, another hotel representative said.
The venue includes a French-inspired restaurant, a cocktail longue and a cafe with baked goods and artisan sandwiches and offers more than 40,000 square feet of meeting and event space. Just outside the hotel, an art installation featuring six sculptures of interlocking hands decorates the head of the public plaza.
A pair of ground-up office buildings in the district, located at 1800 and 1870 Reston Row Plaza, could host a “big whale” tenant, something Steffan said Comstock is working on, but he declined to identify the prospect.
Tous Les Jours, a French-Asian bakery café chain, opened in August on the ground floor of the 1800 property. That building, where the locals can use the rooftop pool, also features a VIDA Fitness on the ground floor. The 1870 property is set to feature indoor minigolf.
Location, design
Comstock’s balance sheet and access to capital allows the developer to build entire phases at once and give tenants confidence in completion timelines and neighborhood continuity. As a publicly traded company, Comstock can leverage its ability to use a "debt-free" business model that it says differentiates it from its peers that might have to borrowing money to find major projects. It also runs an operating portfolio of 82 projects including Reston Station, with at least five projects under construction and 11 in its pipeline as of the end of June.
“It’s strategic. It’s design driven. It’s amenity driven. It’s location driven," Chief Operating Officer Tim Steffan said in an interview. "So, if you’re going to be in the office world, you need to have all those ingredients.”
That may be particularly important when the broader office market continues to struggle with an elevated vacancy rate and slow demand. As of mid-2025, the D.C. region’s vacancy rate sits at a record high of 17.4%, and more space is being vacated than occupied. But the story is more nuanced beneath the surface. According to CoStar data, the time it takes to lease well-located, high-quality space is actually decreasing, while older, less competitive buildings, particularly four-star properties built between 1970 and 1990, remain on the market for years.
While the Washington, D.C., region has over 100 million square feet of available office space, only 10 buildings in the region meet the criteria of being four- or five-star quality built after 2020 and having more than 50,000 square feet available, according to CoStar. Two of those are at Reston Station. With only about 1.3 million square feet of office under construction across the Washington region, a total lower than at any time since 1993 when CoStar began tracking the office market, high-performing spots could be positioned to stay in demand.
Other Northern Virginia office areas near Reston Station are showing mixed results. The Tysons Corner market saw nearly 79,000 square feet more go empty than the total for tenants moving in as of August, with no new completions or construction underway, according to CoStar Market Analytics. The market's vacancy rate remains about 20%, and asking rents have declined slightly to $39 per square foot.
The town of Herndon also has struggled, posting a 24% vacancy rate with nearly 96,000 square feet of negative net absorption, or more space moved out of then into over the past 12 months, though it managed modest rent growth of 1.7%, according to CoStar data.
In contrast, the National Landing district that includes parts of Virginia’s Arlington County and the city of Alexandria is undergoing a major transformation. Fueled by Amazon's second headquarters, or HQ2, and Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus, the market is seeing strong multifamily rent growth at 1.7% year-over-year. National Landing’s repositioning as a walkable innovation district is attracting office tenants and residents alike.
As of August, the Reston market saw nearly 75,000 square feet more occupied office space than the amount given up by tenants over the past 12 months, according to CoStar, ranking it as one of the region's leaders on this basis. Asking rents rose 2%, to $36 per square foot, and while vacancy remains elevated at 22%, the leasing momentum signals strong tenant interest in new, high-quality space. As the Comstock space is leased and occupied, the vacancy rate should come down in the Reston area.
Construction headway
While Reston Station is taking shape, it's far from complete, with two office towers it recently built sitting vacant. Average weekday rail entries at the area’s Metro station are on the rise but have not yet reached pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. On an early fall morning, few people aside from various construction teams roamed the area.
Employers that want to be in the nearby Northern Virginia district known as the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, or similar hubs, can be adamant that they want to stay in those areas so they can be close to certain clients or due to commute times of their leadership, Steffan said. Comstock is counting on the trend of businesses heavily preferring high-quality offices since the pandemic could help push potential tenants locally and nationally to choose Reston Station.
What's coming
Comstock is working with several confidential prospects for what the developer calls its 11,786-square-foot “Jewel Box” retail spot at 1850 Reston Row Plaza in the Reston Row district.
A 420-unit, 427,000-square-foot multifamily property in Reston Row known as BLVD Haley is expected to open soon. The section is also set to house the restaurant Ebbitt House that Clemente said is expected to open by the holiday season. It’s the first expansion of Clyde’s Restaurant Group’s Old Ebbitt Grill, an establishment considered the oldest saloon in Washington.
Reston Station’s future is expected to have three more sections.
The planned Midline District would contain 1.2 million square feet of retail and multifamily space with approximately 1,100 residential units, according to Comstock's midyear investor presentation.
Across the Dulles Toll Road via a pedestrian bridge that connects to the Metro station is the planned Commerce District. That is set to include at least three new office buildings, Clemente said, estimating that completion is five years away.
The West District could see a new apartment building. That 237,000-square-foot, 227-unit apartment building is tentatively scheduled for completion in 2030, according to the midyear investor presentation.
Looking ahead, Comstock CEO Clemente said Reston Station's uniqueness will continue to attract office tenants.
"There’s not anything like it in the suburbs right now, and so that’s why they’re coming here," he said.