On the afternoon of Sunday, Jan 29 Sameer Patel, one of three developers of the Bristow Commons and proprietor of the Bristow Montessori School, sat down with Bristow business leaders and community members to discuss their vision for retail growth in Bristow Commons and by extension Bristow.
“You’re creating a community,” Patel told the group.
The entrepreneur has always taken a grass-root approach to the development of Bristow Commons from talking with community members on their front porches to reaching out to HOA board members.
Patel explains that community is the reason he named the retail center Bristow Commons and designed it as a courtyard “esplanade,” rather than a strip mall. Patel hopes Bristow Commons will become a place for families to congregate.
Attending the meeting was real estate agent Bill Denny; Smart Markets founder, Jean Janssen; "mom" blogger “Beltway Bargain Mom” Laura Harders, Om Unlimited yoga teacher, Danielle Watson; and Kristy Harris of Sheffield Manor. Patel had also reached out to HOA board members and school representatives.
The members expressed a desire for upscale family friendly shops in the space, such as a spa, café, family-friendly restaurant, bakery, brunch shop, toy-store, dress boutique and upscale restaurant, such as a tapas bar.
Patel also suggested the inclusion of a doctor’s office and dry cleaner as practical resources for the community.
While the emphasis was on health-conscious retail, group members also said they would not mind some “sinful” stores such as bakery, wine bar or even cigar shop. They defined healthy as fresh food with less-preservatives, and they said they would prefer mom and pop main-street style offerings of tasty, authentic food.
Patel expressed concern that larger retailers tended to underestimate the potential for profitability in Bristow. Despite a high concentration of young upper-middle class families, Bristow lacks businesses and thus also lacks a lunch crowd.
Jean Janssen shed some light on the philosophy behind development in Bristow. In the 1970s, when Bristow was very much a part of Prince William's “Rural Crescent,” landowners and local politicians feared the urbanization that came with business and retail development and opted for only residential development.
Today, the county was quick to approve Patel’s retail plan, believing it would be a great revenue builder for the county. Prince William County is the number one county in the country that "export its workers," and Bristow Commons would net the county $1.2 million per year.
Moreover the community members would prefer retail as new upscale shops could bolster home values.
While Bristow residents may be living in planned communities, many expressed they had sacrificed the authenticity of older communities closer to D.C. to afford newer houses and a quality education for their children. Now they want to remake Bristow in the image of those suburbs nearer to the Beltway.
Without a mix of sleeping, working and playing, Patel said a neighborhood could “implode.”
Patel’s vision for Bristow Commons has always been a place people could, “live, work and shop,” connecting the Bristow as one community by creating, “a binding nucleus of disparate neighborhoods.”
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