TYSONS (Virginia) | Development Thread

[jonesrmj]

Here's an image of the street grid that Tysons has proposed in an effort to become more city like and pedestrian friendly.



https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons...xisting-system

[202_Cyclist]

A major Tysons development project was approved on the smallest lot yet

By Libby Solomon
October 21, 2020
Greater Greater Washington


Image courtesy of Greater Greater Washington

"The plan to transform Tysons into a walkable urban center has a size problem.

In pursuit of a dense, walkable street grid, Fairfax County encourages large, consolidated development projects of more than 10 acres in Tysons (zoning ordinance article 6-506) — 20 acres in some areas. The idea is that these projects are large enough to contribute to a new grid of smaller streets giving pedestrians an alternative to Tysons’ wide, car-centric roads..."

https://ggwash.org/view/79381/a-majo...allest-lot-yet

[202_Cyclist]

Greater Greater Washington has a good overview of many of the developments planned or under construction at Tysons.

Tysons is growing. What’s under construction?


By Libby Solomon
November 9, 2020


Image courtesy of Greater Greater Washington.

"Even in the midst of a pandemic and a nation-defining election, Tysons is still chugging along in its goal to morph from an edge city to “a walkable, sustainable urban center.” That effort involves encouraging dense, mixed-use development near the area’s four metro stations.

Fairfax County recently released an annual report marking the tenth year since the county passed the Tysons Comprehensive Plan. The report outlines progress on development in the growing urban area through July 2020."

https://ggwash.org/view/79553/tysons...r-construction

[PillowTalk4]

I just had brunch in Tysons this past Sunday at Agora which is on Westpark Drive off of Jones Branch Dr. While it's a nice area, it still has the feeling of an office park with residential buildings dispersed through out. We walked around a bit, but quite honestly in my opinion they have a long ways to go to make it truly a walkable area in terms of creating a city feel. Yes, there are sidewalks and walking paths all over. Which is good for exercise. But, to me it still feels more like an overgrown suburban area than anything else. The core of Reston Town Center actually has more of a city feel than Tysons. The Tysons area to me is like some of the areas in the Dallas metroplex. The Dallas area has several communities like Tysons. None of them are walkable in the sense of easily walking across the street to another building, going from one dining spot to another, etc.

I know the plan is to make it more walkable. I just think it's going to take a boat load of infill to make that happen in Tysons. And, certain streets like Chain Bridge Road, International Drive and Leesburg Pike will need to become far more pedestrian and bike friendly than they are now.

[shakman]

I agree. There are different land owners throughout Tysons. Trying to get them to connect their new developments will be an undertaking.

[TimmyG]

Here are three pictures I took from the McLean Metro Station on February 15, 2021. The first shows the start of an apartment building. I think it is going to be the Heming Building and will have 28 floors. The second is of a building under construction near Capital One's headquarters. I think that one is an office building, maybe for Capital One. The final picture is of the building with Wegman's grocery store and Capital One Hall to the left.

[cozy]

slow & steady wins the race

[shakman]

The second pic will be a 31 story, 410ft office tower for Capital One.

[TimmyG]

Here is one more picture, taken February 21, 2021, that shows the foundation for the Heming apartment building. The building under construction in the background on the left is the Archer Hotel, and the Capital One development is in the background to the right.

Shakman, thank you for the info about the Capital One building under construction.

[202_Cyclist]

TimmyG: Thank you for posting the photos.

I understand the budget constraints at the time but it is really unfortunate that more of the Silver line was not built below ground through Tysons.

[202_Cyclist]

Developer Proposes Townhouses to Replace Leesburg Pike Office Building

Angela Woolsey
March 10, 2021
Tysons Reporter


Image courtesy of Tysons Reporter.

"A luxury townhome developer wants to supplant an office complex on Leesburg Pike in Tysons with more than 100 units of housing.

EYA Development has submitted a rezoning application and development plan to Fairfax County seeking to build 104 single-family, attached dwellings on a 6.7-acre site at 7700 Leesburg Pike that is now occupied by a 150,000 square-foot commercial building that was constructed in 1976. The property owner, S.C. Herman & Associates, is also listed as an applicant.

Existing tenants include the Ismaili Cultural Center, the weight loss service SimplySlim Medical, the accounting firm Gilliland & Associates, a telecommunications contractor called McEnroe Voice and Data, and the private Standard College of Nursing."

https://www.tysonsreporter.com/2021/...fice-building/

[jonesrmj]

Capital One’s own on-site hotel opens in September

Capital One Center, the large mixed-use development that is part of the company’s Tysons headquarters campus, will open its on-site hotel, The Watermark, this September.

Bethesda, Maryland-based B.F. Saul Company Hospitality Group will operate the 300-suite hotel and, while owned by Capital One, the hotel will operate as an independent property with no big hotel brand name on it.

Capital One will use the hotel both for its employees traveling to Tysons for meetings as well as open to the public for room bookings.

The hotel includes studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom suites that are similar to apartments, with small kitchens and large work areas, designed for long stays. The hotel will also have a full, self-service breakfast, a market, business center, fitness center and a full-service bar. There is also an outdoor patio with direct access to Capital One Center’s elevated 1.2 acre park, The Perch.

https://wtop.com/business-finance/20...-in-september/

[202_Cyclist]

I rode my bike on the W & OD trail out to Reston on Monday. It has been a couple of years since I have been on the W & OD trail and there are great improvements (a pedestrian bridge, widening and straightening the trail in locations, etc...). There is also a lot of new development along the trail, especially in Fall Church.

This building is located south of the Reston Town Center. As an added bonus, you can see the Reston Town Center Silver Line station in the lower left corner of this photo.

[jonesrmj]

Dulles Airport’s Ambitious Expansion Continues With New United Concourse

Travelers have long derided the facilities at United Airlines’ Washington Dulles hub. The center of its hub, Concourse C/D, opened as “temporary” facilities in the mid-1980s and have improved little in the decades since.

That may be about to change if a proposal for a new regional facility at Dulles airport moves forward. Airport operator the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) is seeking environmental approval for a potential new three-storey, roughly 535,000-sq.-ft. concourse connected to the existing AeroTrain station for Concourse C. While the proposed facility would not replace Concourse C/D, it would replace the Concourse A regional gates that opened in 1999.

“The proposed [concourse] is needed to accommodate the changing fleet mix at the airport and to address the operational and passenger level of service concerns in the Concourse A regional aircraft gates,” MWAA said in a letter to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on June 8. “The existing Concourse A regional aircraft gates … are functionally obsolete.”

The plan remains is conceptual at this point. MWAA spokesperson Robert Yingling said the operator is “studying potential concepts for future facilities” at Dulles.

However, the project is far enough along for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality to review its possible environmental impacts. The agency lists the project as under review on its website with a public comment period that ended on July 7. The final environmental report is due by August 6.

A new concourse at Dulles is the latest in a slew of airport improvement projects in Washington and around the U.S. A 14-gate regional concourse for American Airlines at Washington Reagan National Airport opened in April and replaced ground-level bus gate Gate 35X — among the most hated gate in the country. And new facilities have opened in Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Seattle since the pandemic began in March 2020.

In some cases, airlines and airport operators were able to use the drop in air travel to accelerate projects. For example, Delta Air Lines has shaved as much as a year off the timeline for its new “Delta Sky Way” redevelopment of Terminals 2 and 3 at Los Angeles International Airport. The carrier hopes to fully open the facility in late 2022 or early 2023, instead of 2024 as previously planned.

One concern with any project at Washington Dulles is cost. Following the construction of the AeroTrain and a new international arrivals facility that both opened in 2010, the airport saw the cost per passenger skyrocket along with debt service obligations as carriers — particularly United — cut flights in the wake of the great recession. Cost per enplanement, or CPE, peaked at $26.47 per passenger in 2013, according to MWAA data. That is more than double the rates at nearby Baltimore/Washington International Airport and nearly double those at Washington National.

“This hub also disproportionately bears a lot of debt service compared to other airports inside of MWAA, which is a terrible competitive burden and inappropriate burden on this hub,” United’s then-CEO Jeff Smisek told Flightglobal in 2013. He added that that made it “more difficult to do business here compared to other hubs”.

MWAA and Virginia authorities heeded Smisek’s thinly veiled threat to the future of United’s hub and cut costs. Virginia provided $50 million in funds to defray debt service expenses, and a new airline agreement allowed some of the revenues from booming National airport to be shared with Dulles. United recommitted to its Dulles hub in 2016. CPE at the airport is forecast at $18.63 in 2021; an increase from the year before due to the pandemic drop in passengers.

Prior to the Covid-19 crisis, United was growing its Dulles hub by increasing connectivity north-south along the U.S. East Coast. From 2016 — when United’s then-president and now CEO Scott Kirby joined the airline — through 2019, the airline grew seats at Dulles by nearly 14 percent compared to 13 percent systemwide, according to Cirium schedule data. In 2018, Kirby said the growth strategy was proving successful and added that United could grow the hub by half as part of its larger domestic push.

United spokesperson Kimberly Gibbs said the airline looks forward to working with MWAA throughout the concourse development process but declined to give any specific plans.

A new regional concourse suited for large regional jets, like the Embraer E175s that dominate the United Express fleet, would fit plans to grow the hub. While the environmental letter does not say how many gates are planned, the existing Concourse A regional facility can only handle 50-seat regional jets or smaller aircraft at six ground-level gates. Increasing the number of gates and building a new, modern concourse could go a long way to improving both operations and customer satisfaction.

Work on the new concourse could begin by October 2023 and take 18 months, or open by March 2025, according to the environmental review letter.

https://airlineweekly.com/2021/07/un...in-washington/

[202_Cyclist]

Developer to bring more apartments and retail to Scotts Run

By Angela Woolsey
August 2, 2021
Tysons Reporter


Image courtesy of the Tysons Reporter.

"Another piece of the massive Scotts Run development taking shape near the McLean Metro station has fallen into place.

The real estate developer LMC announced on Thursday (July 29) that it has closed on land for a new mixed-use building called Paxton that will add 447 apartment units and 14,713 square feet of retail space to the 40-acre development in Tysons.

“Paxton will provide well-appointed apartment homes in Tysons close to a variety of dining, entertainment, and transit options,” Stuart Cain, vice president of development of LMC’s D.C. Metro office, said. “Paxton will offer a broad range of apartment types, with spacious floor plans and ample, modern indoor and outdoor amenities and workspaces in a growing urban community.”

https://www.tysonsreporter.com/2021/...to-scotts-run/

[jonesrmj]

Just happened to come across these old renderings from what the potential new permanent C/D concourse at Dulles could look like if it ever gets built. I think they look really cool!

















https://www.cannonarchitecturestudio...ort-expansion/

Hopefully the permanent C/D concourse can get built sometime soon!

[TimmyG]

Here are some update pictures of construction around Tysons. I got all of the high-rise construction that I know of and one of the three low-rise construction sites that I know about. I missed a low-rise condo building under construction on Old Meadow Road and a low-rise apartment building at the corner of Westbranch Drive and Jones Branch Drive.

The first picture is of the Monarch, which I think is going to be a very expensive condo building.


The second is of the Mather, which will be an age-restricted building.


Third is an apartment building under construction along Westbranch drive.


Fourth is an office building near the Greensboro metro station on Leesburg Pike (Route 7). This picture is from the side away from Leesburg Pike.


Fifth is the Heming, which will be a 28-floor apartment building on Chain Bridge Road near the McLean metro station.


Finally, sixth is the new Capital One office building, also near the McLean metro station.

[jonesrmj]

For those that want all the details of the ongoing plan to transform Tysons into an urban center, here is the document with the masterplan!

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planni...ea2/tysons.pdf

It's very ambitious!

[202_Cyclist]

This article has extensive coverage of Capital One's Tysons' campus.

After Urban Flight, Corporate Campuses Add a Taste of the City
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/b...-campuses.html

[towerpower123]

Does anyone know why large sections of Tysons is blurred out in Google Maps?