Carfax filed for occupancy at its new Reston Station headquarters on Thursday, August 20. Fairfax County publishes every building permit application it receives, and the record for 1906 Reston Metro Plaza now carries three certificate of occupancy filings under the project name “Carfax HQ,” one for each floor the company leased. All three sit in “Waiting for Payment” status.
A certificate of occupancy is the last document a tenant needs before employees can legally work in a space. The county issues it once the mechanical, electrical and life safety systems clear final inspection. “Waiting for Payment” means Carfax has submitted the applications and the county has not yet collected the fee, which is a billing step rather than a construction one.
Three of these landing on the same day means the buildout is done.
The permit trail behind the filing
Carfax pulled commercial mechanical permits on three floors of the tower on August 16 under the project name “Carfax Reston,” and a commercial electrical permit two weeks before that. Mechanical permits cover the HVAC work that closes out a tenant fit-out. A company does not file for occupancy unless the systems on those floors are ready to inspect.
Eight months behind the original schedule
Comstock announced the lease on January 6, 2025. Carfax signed for 87,000 square feet across three floors and said it expected its 450 headquarters employees out of Centreville by the end of 2025. That deadline passed without a move. The occupancy filings put the relocation weeks away instead of quarters.
The building went up in 2020. It runs 14 stories and roughly 215,000 square feet, and the Carfax lease filled the last of it. Google, ICF International and Spotify all operate in the same Reston Station complex, which sits directly on top of the Wiehle-Reston East Silver Line platform.
What 450 relocated commuters do to Reston housing
Carfax has worked out of Centreville since 2006. Those 450 households have spent two decades driving to a Route 29 office park, and in a few weeks they start reporting to a tower with a Metro entrance at its base.
Some of them will move. Not all, and not at once. A commute change of this size works through a household over a year or two, usually at a lease renewal or the end of a school year. The demand shows up first in rentals and then in entry-level purchases, and in Reston that means the condo and townhouse stock within about a mile of the station: the buildings inside Reston Station itself, the corridor along Sunset Hills Road and Sunrise Valley Drive, and the older mid-rises off Wiehle Avenue.
That demand arrives at a specific moment. Reston finished July with 187 active listings across all home types against a five-year July average of 109. Condos accounted for 108 of them, up from 71 last July, with 90 of those priced between $200,000 and $499,999. Months of supply in the condo segment reached 3.09, more than double the 1.45 reading in August of last year, and it has climbed every month since December.
That is the exact slice of the Reston market a relocating Carfax employee shops. Three permit filings do not change a condo seller’s July comparable sales. They do change the case for waiting. A seller weighing a second price reduction on a two-bedroom near the station now has a checkable reason to hold: a named employer, a filed occupancy application, and 450 households whose commute math flips this fall.
What to watch next
Three signals will confirm the timeline. The county is moving those occupancy filings from “Waiting for Payment” to “Issued,” which shows up in the same public record. An announcement from Comstock or Carfax putting a date on the opening. And moving trucks on Reston Metro Plaza, which is the least official signal and the most obvious one.
Buying or selling near Wiehle-Reston East
We live and work in Reston, and we watch the county permit record the same way we watch the MLS, because in a market this segmented the two tell different halves of the same story. If you own a condo or townhouse near the Silver Line and you are weighing a fall listing against waiting for spring, we can walk you through what your specific building has done over the last six months and what the Carfax timeline realistically adds to it. Reach out any time.
