In 2011, when Comstock Holding Cos. first broke ground on a 3-million-sq-ft, mixed-use development near a future Metro stop in Reston, Va., it took a measured approach, designing and constructing multiple buildings over nearly a decade that ultimately became Reston Station. With its first efforts completed and leased, Comstock decided to ramp up its efforts and go all in on its next 3-million-sq-ft phase of development—Reston Row.

The plan called for a 1.3-million-sq-ft, below-grade parking garage, a 28-story, 530,000-sq-ft hotel and condo building, a 28-story, 500,000-sq-ft residential building and two office buildings sized at 320,000 sq ft and 300,000 sq ft. Adding to the challenge, Comstock decided to design and construct all of the projects simultaneously, using one general contractor—Davis Construction. Early on, the buildings were developed largely without tenants in place, meaning that the design and construction teams would have to remain flexible while staying on target to deliver the entire project in roughly four years. The first project broke ground in 2021, with completion of the final building by fall 2025.

The project is positioned near Metro’s Silver Line, which links to Dulles International Airport, Loudoun County and the greater Washington, D.C., metro area.
Photos and Renderings courtesy Comstock Cos.

A New Neighborhood

Constructed adjacent to Reston Station, Reston Row was envisioned to compliment Comstock’s first development and create a neighborhood feel, says Tim Steffan, chief operating officer of Comstock.

“We needed to increase the footprint of what we’re trying to create here, which is really the beginning of a small city,” he says. “We needed to create a greater common area with a highly amenitized common theme, which we didn’t necessarily have at the time at Reston Station.”

The resulting design of Reston Row called for pushing the buildings to the perimeter of the 8.5-acre site and creating more public space in the center, says Steve Radke, principal at HKS.

“Comstock really wanted to create a sense of place that would be active,” he explains. “Activating the ground level and linking it to Reston Station were really important considerations in the early design and massing.”

Each building would also have its own unique design that complimented the development without strictly adhering to a uniform aesthetic. Although HKS designed the two office buildings and the residential building, Radke says different designers within the firm were used “so each had a different look and feel.” The hotel and condo building, which will be the first JW Marriott in Virginia when completed in September, was originally designed by Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects of Dallas with WDG now serving as the architect-of-record.

Meanwhile, Davis sought consistency where possible in order to streamline means and methods. “We needed to make sure it wasn’t overly complicated,” says Dan Preston, director at Davis Construction.

Among the consistent choices, all of the structures are post-tensioned concrete. Davis also used only one firm, Schuster Concrete, to handle all of the concrete scope on the project. Although a megaproject could potentially be overwhelming for one general contractor or a single main subcontractor, Preston says it worked to the team’s benefit. Because designs were somewhat dynamic as the needs of newly signed tenants arose, Preston says his team was able to strategically use manpower across the entire campus.

“On singular projects, the impact of changes can be huge from the standpoint of tower crane rental time to manpower leaving and coming back,” he says. “We have an entire campus here, so we can move manpower around the site, work on the priority list of things and mitigate some of those impacts to Comstock. That allows [Comstock’s] vision to still happen without having huge financial or schedule implications.”

Reston Row is being built adjacent to Reston Station, creating a combined 6 million sq ft of space.
Photos and Renderings courtesy Comstock Cos.

Staying Flexible

Although each building came with its own set of challenges, one of the most daunting aspects was the parking garage.

Crews excavated roughly 70 ft below grade to make room for the five-level garage. As work was about to begin, Comstock requested to delay construction of one half of the garage. Davis accommodated the change with the compromise that the entire site would be excavated at once. Crews ultimately removed about 600,000 cu yd of dirt from the site.

The garage sits directly beneath all of the buildings, so the design had to account for the structural demands of each. Each building sits on mass footings that are typically 8 ft deep. Some reach almost 100 ft at the longest dimension. Carrying the load through the garage proved tricky, particularly at the loading docks for the hotel. The docks are located within the garage and have open spans as wide as 70 ft to allow tractor trailers to turn and back up in the space. Massive steel members, imported from Germany, were used for the long spans, with members of up to 25 ft long spliced together.

The 243-room hotel will feature fine dining venues and approximately 25,000 sq ft of event and meeting space.
Photos and Renderings courtesy Comstock Cos.

Another change during construction was the decision to alter portions of the structure within the hotel. The largest condo spaces are located at the top of the building, and Comstock decided it needed to be customizable for tenants.

“We changed the structure from post-tensioned concrete to conventional post and beam concrete to allow for greater flexibility in creating new openings and relocating shafts,” says Doug James, senior project architect at WDG.

In another change, a tenant request led to adding a pool to the top of one of the office buildings. Radke says the design was easily able to accommodate the change. “We build in flexibility to our designs,” he says. “In this case, the building was designed to support additional floors [in the future], so we said it could have a pool but no additional floors.”

Even with completion on the near horizon, changes are being considered. Preston says Comstock is looking at ways to link the hotel’s ballroom to a neighboring four-story structure called the jewel box.

“We’re entertaining outdoor terraces or other connectivity to extend that ballroom,” he says.

The residences will consist of 94 condominium homes.
Photo by Bruce Buckley for ENR

Efficiency Efforts

Throughout the project, Davis looked for innovative efficiencies. On one of the office buildings, Davis worked with the design team to create precast panels with large single-pane windows that would be glazed in the precaster’s yard, transported to the site, picked from trucks and set in place.

Each bay was roughly 10 ft tall by 10 ft wide and the panel design could accommodate up to three bays in each. Based on sun studies, each panel uses one of three different shading designs that are cast into the panel. The largest panels weigh about 22,000 lb.

“We were scared about breaking glass on the trip from the precaster’s yard to the site,” Preston recalls. “So we created a mock-up, loaded it onto a truck and paid someone to drive it around the Beltway two or three times. It did fine.”

Ultimately 613 glazing pieces were installed in 240 precast panels. Only one panel experienced any damage in transit. Panels were installed at night, when the team was allowed to take a lane of traffic and cranes were more available.

“Once the job hit its stride, we were doing eight to 10 panels a night,” Preston says. “We were wrapping a floor of a building in just under a week’s time.”

Although Davis has several large subcontractors, each building has sets of smaller contractors that are also in the mix. Preston says that, when considering how to manage repetitive tasks, the team adopted the Takt planning system for scheduling and tracking. In the Takt system, work packages are broken into set chunks of time that are consistent regardless of the task or the size of the contractor.

Comstock is considering connecting the hotel’s ballroom with a neighboring building, one of several changes made on the dynamic project.
Rendering courtesy Comstock Cos.

“We would take a floor plate and come up with a Takt time that everyone had to meet before moving on to the next area,” he says. “We chose five days. If a sub says they need seven days, we tell them they need to staff appropriately to get all work done in only five days. If someone says they can do it in two days, that’s fine, they just need to move on after five days.”

Preston says the system has reduced the hassle of subs finishing early or late and causing scheduling issues for the subs that follow.

With completion of the final core and shell contracts by fall, the team is now looking toward future fit-out packages as new tenants sign on.

One office building completed in May 2024, and the other is scheduled for September, when the hotel and garage should also be complete. First occupancy of the residential building is anticipated in October.