There are some great new townhomes being built in Arlington, Fairfax and Alexandria with move-in available in 2012. We have picked out our six favorites and are providing a brief description below. There are some other new townhome options available in Northern Virginia that you are welcome to ask me about offline or by posting a comment below.
Located on the corner of N. Veitch and Lee Highway – three blocks north of Courthouse Metro – 13 new townhomes are currently being constructed. This puts you within one metro stop or a few traffic lights of DC. Each townhouse includes generous outdoor space perfect for entertainment, gardening and grilling; on lots that range up to 3053 square feet. Each home also includes a 2-car garage. Another bonus is the view. The Court at Lyon Village sits on hill with vistas that reach parts of McLean, Georgetown and the National Cathedral.
Price: $$$$$ (starting in the low $900's)
Performance Rating: Energy Star
What will soon be a vibrant town center is now a massive construction site that spans for acres. The one major component already in place is Dunn Loring metro station. Based on artist renderings of Mosaic District Towhomes, they will have a modern / urban rowhouse type look to the exteriors. The floor plans are nice and open. The generous amount of windows and high ceilings will make the homes feel bright and bigger than they actually are. This particular developer has made their 4th level loft and terrace a signature feature of their homes.
Price: $$$ (starting in the upper $500's)
Performance Rating: LEED
Almost every home within MetroWest will be no more than one quarter mile (a five minute walk) to Vienna metro station. A quaint pedestrian access trail will make it especially easy to get from the doorstep of your townhome to the turnstile at Vienna metro station. In case you are not familiar – Vienna metro is the last stop along the popular Orange Line. MetroWest will not only be residential. It is designed to accommodate over 125,000 square feet of retail space and a plethora of green space. The vision for this space to include a grocery store, coffee shop, dry cleaning, day care, fitness center, restaurants and other personal services. The townhomes include a long list of premiere finishes that include granite counters, recessed lighting, high efficiency HVAC systems, etc. But, early purchasers can customize your home with an endless array of options.
Price: $$$ (starting in the low $500's)
Performance Rating: none
It's hard not to have a soft spot for old town Fairfax. It has a quaint feel to it and the vibe is anything but old. New construction in old town Fairfax is rare so this new townhouse neighborhood immediately caught my attention. Madison homes has impressed me before with their craftsmanship and attention to detail. Madison Mews is no exception. The floor plans are spacious ranging from 2200-3100 square feet. These are the largest townhomes on our list. There are a total of 26 homes and 5 different floor plans. Each homes comes with a 2-car garage.
Price: $$$ (starting in the low $600's)
Performance Rating: none
Old Town Commons provides a luxurious urban-living option in Old Town Alexandria. The Old Town Commons brand new townhomes with rooftop terraces occupy 5 city blocks. The exteriors are made of brick or the highly durable HardiPlank siding, and the colors are vibrant. These new townhomes set a new tone for homes in Old Town Alexandria while maintaining the local charm. You’ll love the rooftop terraces with views for miles. The location earns a Walk Score of 89 out of 100. This is likely to improve once Harris Teeter opens its doors as well as the other restaurants and shopping options on the way. Braddock Metro station is located only 3 blocks away. The Potomac River and all the heart of Old Town Alexandria are within easy walking distance.
Price: $$$$ (starting in the $700's)
Performance Rating: LEED
Potomac Yards has long been the bridge between Arlington and Old Town Alexandria. What was once a no-mans land is becoming one of the hottest strips of real estate in town. Beside the bustling shopping center is the construction of new homes, retail and parks. There is also always the underlying talk about the possibility of a Potomac Yard metro station one day. These homes will vary between three and four stories. Sizes range between 2,169 and 2,506 square feet. I really like the 10 foot ceilings on the main level and nine foot ceilings on all other levels. A few homes are available for immediate purchase and move-in. Others, can be customized to your tastes.
Price: $$$$ (starting in the upper $700's)
Performance Rating: none
Email me if you would like to keep up-to-date with information about any of the above neighborhoods.
On October 29th, NVAR will host "The Business of Green" conference at its new LEED certified headquarters in Fairfax VA. It is becoming apparent in the housing industry that it is no longer about whether you are green or not green. Home buyers are demanding healthier, more efficient homes and builders are answering that request. Green building now accounts for nearly one-third of new U.S. construction. Being a forward thinking association, NVAR is preparing a half-day conference where they are packing the stage with the most cutting edge builders in the Northern Virginia area. In attendance will be: Northern Virginia Realtors will be learning about the latest evolution in building and remodeling. They'll walk away with a deeper insight to the industry they serve and be prepared to add greater value to their clients. It is only a matter of time before a client wants to know what they can do to make their home stand out in a competitive real estate market. A different client may want to know what they can do to find a home with high performance features or what they can do to a home with room for improvement. The improvements we will be talking about provide predictable ROI and affect the health of home owners. Some things to think about: The conference will also include special guests to address lending options for home improvements, the marketing of green homes and how all of this is going to affect the appraisal. Whether you are a Realtor or not, we invite you to join us for a day you will not want to miss.
Last Thursday, August 29th was an all day EarthCraft Home training event for single family builders hosted by Arlington County Parks and Operations in their general very functional conference facility near Shirlington. Although the class was geared towards builders who were looking to green their building practices by learning from the professionals at EarthCraft Virginia, in attendance you could find award winning architects, insulation experts, home energy auditors, Arlington County inspectors, planners and then some. This seminar was really a way to bring together people who are interested in building a community in a sustainable way.
EarthCraft is originally based out of Atlanta, Georgia; the program was brought to Virginia through the help of the Home Depot Foundation in 2007. The idea behind EarthCraft Home is to help to educate builders about new and time tested techniques to build high performance and energy efficient homes. EarthCraft Virginia began in 2007 as the scion of Chuk Bowles and his business partner who saw a desperate need for sustainable building practices in their native Richmond area. Seeking a program that he could ultimately take state wide, Bowles looked to the Georgia based Southface Institute to help him put together a green building program modeled after some of the most successful programs in the nation such as Austin Energy's Green Building Program. The program seems to be catching on, as they branch out with more technical advisers (highly skilled construction experts who advise build
ers while taking their project through the certification process). They have 24 technical advisers working in Virgina at the present time, each of whom is very knowledgeable about their craft. So far, Earth Craft has been able to certify 525 single family homes and 2500 multifamily homes in Virginia.
What goes into an EarthCraft certified home? Well, the short, simple answer is 150+ points (green building techniques and resources) on a new construction that enable the home to be at least 15% more efficient than its regularly built counterpart. The long answer would mean that you need to sit through the basic building science class that is their EarthCraft Virginia training session. Seriously though, EarthCraft is only for new construction at this point, but they are working on a pilot program for remodels/retrofitted homes in the Virginia area. During the training they touch on the hundreds of things that go into building a green home. They discuss everything from the mandatory Manual J (the mathematical formula that ensures that your HVAC is properly sized to ensure proper pressurization, balances and comfort performed by the HVAC professional) to the importance of site orientation. Something that a lot of the folks in the seminar didn't know about is that there are energy efficient mortgages available to assist their clients in building a green home! They stress the importance of building a team that is on the same page from the get go. This reminded me of SEED Home's plans that I was so excited about. All the while, they remind the builders that the house is a system, the walls, the thermal envelope, etc and that a house must be breathable to have a healthy indoor air quality.
building field.
In a nutshell, EarthCraft Virginia is the only statewide program for certification of a green built home. Skilled and passionate technical advisers are assigned to builders specifically to help them liaise between the tradesmen and even the client to understand how a home should be properly constructed to ensure a healthy environment. The homes are "graded" with the points system and will ultimately achieve a rating through EarthCraft to certify that the home has been built to specific standards of sustainability. This is a wonderful program for Northern Virignia Buiders to become a part of. If you're looking for a green built home, find an EcoBroker that you trust to help you through your sustainable home search!
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Get the goods on what DC residents do in the summer!
You've moved here. You've gotten semi-settled in. Now, how do you figure out what to do for fun in the late summer evenings? All of the things they don't put in the tour guides are what you need to find out! But where do you look? Do you follow around your long time resident friends? No, you look right here, because we've got some great ideas for ways to enjoy the lingering twilight hours of the DC summertime.
Are you a foodie?! Well, with Top Chef DC currently on the air, people are starting to understand that the folks of Northern Virginia, DC and Maryland "get food." How about trying DC Restaurant week? Running from August 16-22, 2010, DC Restaurant week offers locals and visitors a taste of the town at a fraction of the cost! Hosted through OpenTable, this is a great way to get out and try some of the premiere restaurants that you've been dying to try.
Want a romantic evening under the stars, with the stars? Try one of the many open air movies around town. One great option is Screen on the Green hosted on DC's National Mall. Movies range from oldies but goodies to new blockbusters. Just look up the movie, grab a blanket- bring a snack and enjoy a movie under the stars with fellow DC movie buffs. Other Outdoor movie spots to look up: 
Thinking about a jazzy evening in the great outdoors?! There are plenty of places to go listen to some live music on Wednesday and Thursday evenings through out DC, Northern Virginia and Maryland. Look into listening to some live music on the National Mall, at National Harbor, even some meet-up groups can help you find some awesome jam sessions to make your DC summer evenings a little bit, well, jazzed up!
Keep your eyes and ears peeled for some other exiting things to do around DC and Northern Virginia in the summer time. If you find something fun to do that we haven't mentioned, be cool and leave us a comment, or post it on our Facebook Page- fellow residents will thank you for the great ideas to lighten up their Summertime blues...
-Genevieve Concannon
Arbour Realty
An exclusive look at GreenSpur Inc.'s new project: Value Driven Modular Homes and online green products catalog launches today
It seems that these days, every which way you turn you are being forced to listen to how this that or the other thing has gone green. How can you even keep track? Even better yet, how can you achieve the level of sustainability that most of us are striving for these days? Here in the DC Metro area, there are so many companies looking to make an impact on their community and their environment, it is hard to know who is for real, and who is just riding that ever present green wave. At long last, there is the semblance of an answer and in a nice neat online package- use it as your very own comprehensive product guide to green living! 
Mark Turner is in the green building business; as the 2010 National Green Project of the Year award winner, he wanted to take his high end products- which are already incredibly "green" and make them available to everyone. After many long months of conceptualization and research, McLean Virginia's own, GreenSpur Inc. in conjunction with award winning Cunningham Quill Architects, Mark Turner's GreenSpur is launching a new line of modular homes along with a green living product and services guide. These homes are the ultimate in sleek, sexy design, are environmentally friendly, and completely attainable. The added bonus is that you get to choose how your home is designed and laid out on your lot! Mark Turner, President and owner of GreenSpur, Inc. has been working on this line of eco-friendly modular homes for several reasons: he saw the need in his Northern Virginia Community and beyond for homes that are of the upper echelon in architectural design, home owner friendly so to speak, and above all, environmentally sustainable to produce.
One of the aspects that makes this project so intriguing is that each home can be tailored to the homeowners needs. What is the most important thing to you about where you live and how you use the space you live in? Think first about how you live in your home now. What would you change? What do you love? GreenSpur's Value Driven Modular homes are smart like that... you can take the pieces of your own personal lifestyle puzzle and make the home fit your needs in an environmentally friendly, sustainable, and architecturally stunning way. From the way that you work from home, or how you entertain, these new value driven modular homes are designed around the way you live. Think of the homes like this- they are as unique as you are. Created from custom, yet pre-fabricated SIPS panels- each home can be designed to simple specifications in an infinite amount of configurations . How awesome is that?! You can be living in your very own green built home in a fraction of the time it takes to do a full-scale regular green built home. We recently wrote an article about how far modular and pre-fabricated homes have come over the last 20 years... GreenSpur's product is anything but boxy...The lines of the homes are unique to the style of the home owner and the homes are, again, crafted to meet the needs of how the homeowner will actually live in their space.
Beyond the modular homes, the exclusive online catalog will offer environmentally friendly products and services collectively in one place. Local vendors, artisans, and service providers have teamed up with GreenSpur to encourage sustainable and healthy living by presenting their services through this catalog. To look at this online catalog is to reminisce over Sears and Robuck, from the day when you could find everything that you needed all in one place from the comfort of your own home and from a trusted brand, to boot. Greenspur took the time to understand what eco-friendly shoppers are looking for an d consolidated these items to their easy to use and peruse catalog. When Mark first described the catalog, he asked, "do you remember J. Peterman?" -internal monologue as an answer- of Seinfeld??? Well, the design is clean yet quirky through the occasional throw back to our friends Mr. J. Peterman and Elaine Benes - it is smartly laid out into categories which pertain to each element of how we live and described in an elegant way that draws you into the element. Each of the 12 categories include short, poetic vignettes and environmental statistics to keep things fresh and informative. All elements are available Earth, Sky, Air, Water, down to Community, you can find exactly what you are looking to buy for your healthy lifestyle. If you are an avid gardener and are looking for a good solution to roof run-off, check out "Water" and find Maryland's AquaBarrel. If you are in need of a home energy audit to see if your home is leaking air, find the "Air" category and look up Conway Green Construction. From yoga instructors for your health and longevity to au-pair services to keep your family organized, GreenSpurs' catalog has created a beautifully convenient, one-stop green living guide for those of us living in the DC Metro and Northern Virginia 
areas.
We can't always expect to know the answers when all of this "green" stuff is coming at us. Hearing "you should live this way, you should live that way.... " is not what we want to hear. It is about making our own choices, and with the GreenSpur's new line of Value Driven Modular homes and the ever growing roster of environmentally friendly vendors and services that are local to us here in the DC Metro Area, you have the choice to live your life as sustainably as you want to. It like a Choose Your Own Adventure for sustainable living.
Are you looking for a space to call your own and choose your own plan for a modular home? Get creative! Sketch up your dream home in an awesome "raw sketch" - not some crazy auto-cad thing- and enter GreenSpur and Cunningham Quill's sketch contest for a free iPad by emailing it in to Mark! "Like" us on Facebook for information about the catalog, contest and more!
-Genevieve Concannon
Arbour Realty
Northern Virginia's first green real estate company... we operate as an eco-responsible business and provide a consultative approach to real estate, arming our clients with valuable information.
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