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byline: Stephenie Overman

‘Smart city’ touted as a bright idea for businesses

Minh Le, managing partner of  22 CityLink, sees lots of advantages for businesses — retailers, not just tech companies — that set up shop in a smart city with state-of-the-art facilities.

He would. His company is made up of engineers, architects, technologists and entrepreneurs dedicated to developing “smart cities,” which integrate various technologies to manage the logistics for everyone there. The team’s big project is Gramercy District, a 2.5-million-square-foot, built-from-the ground-up development in Loudoun County.

Gramercy District, adjacent to the future Ashburn Metro station, is expected to open next year. So far, JKH Holdings has announced it will move its global headquarters to the site.

Le envisions a development that includes retail, residential, co-working and training-oriented space plus apartments, a hotel, high-rise offices and a startup accelerator. With Metro and Washington Dulles International Airport nearby, he sees it as a transportation hub that will attract plenty of foot traffic for businesses.

Le admits that marrying technology and real estate is a big challenge, but he believes the key to success is that 22 CityLink controls the whole development process. That will allow the company to sell a “turnkey” package, including Wi-Fi access and a secure network, to tenants throughout the district.

Allowing small businesses to make group purchases of back-of-the-house items can help reduce the cost of their operations, he says. And in an interconnected smart city, businesses can send notifications and push offers, deals and discounts directly to potential customers’ smart phones as they pass by their shops.

“We’re taking away the complexity and confusion,” Le says. “It’s got to be easy, not intrusive. Why should a merchant have to think about all these confusing things? We can drive business to them and reduce cost so they can focus on what they do best.”

Businesses will have access to training on topics such as cybersecurity through the district’s partnership with the Center for Innovative Technology and George Washington University’s Virginia Science and Technology Campus.

For budding tech businesses, Gramercy District will offer the Concept Foundry, a co-working business accelerator where they can build, test and implement their products, Le says. “It takes an enormous amount of capital to build a tool set. They can avoid spending millions of dollars building their own tools.”

Paid parking pushes Reston’s hot button

Reston Town Center landlord Boston Properties found out just how much of a hot button paid parking can be for retailers and customers.
In January Boston Properties, which bought out Beacon Capital Partners in 2015 to make it the center’s sole landlord, instituted a $2 an hour fee for street parking and for all six garages. Parking had been free since the town center opened in 1990.

Several hundred people marched in protest, not on Town Center property but on streets nearby. Complaints focused not just on the cost of parking but on the imposition of what protesters called an overly complicated mobile pay  phone app.

Retailers responded by forming the Reston Merchants Association and issuing an open letter stating that “Most of the retailers have indicated that paid parking has been a disaster for business and projected sales are down dramatically.”

And Jackson’s Mighty Fine Food & Lucky Lounge, part of the Great American Restaurants group, filed suit in Fairfax County Circuit Court alleging breach of contract. The suit sought an end to paid parking as well as damages.

The Reston Merchants Association has been con­sidering joining Jackson’s lawsuit or filing its own suit, says association head Aaron Gordon, whose restaurant group owns the Red Velvet Cupcakery.

“The landlord seems to be standing pretty firm. We’ve asked them to provide customers with three to four hours of free parking. That would give people time to have dinner, ice cream, a cupcake,” Gordon says, while addressing concerns about commuter parkers taking up spaces.

In response, he says, “we’ve had zero help from these guys.”

In a statement issued at the end of April Boston Properties noted that paid parking has only been in effect for a few months and that it “has worked with retailers and office tenants to provide customer support, parking validations and other assistance as the Reston Town Center complex adjusts to paid parking.”

Garage usage by non-office tenants have steadily increased, week over week, according to the company, and more than 143,000 users have downloaded the app.

But Gordon says shops continue to lose revenue.

“For people like me who are restaurant or shop owners looking to go into a certain area, I’d say be very cautious. If you are on the fence about going into a property that’s going to become paid parking – don’t do it,” Gordon says. For landlords: “Whatever system you implement make it as user friendly as possible. It’s a simple thing. Ease people into the idea.”