Fairfax county have officially begun work today on the second of two projects that developers hope will constitute a monumental remake of the beltway suburb. Together, the real estate megaprojects will add two metro stations, millions of square feet of office, reshape the streets, and build untold condominiums and apartments on over 50 acres of land in central Tysons. County planners today "officially accepted" the Capital One application for study, and will now begin the long process evaluating the
" project that will transform 28 acres over 3 sites in central Tysons. The two projects have more potential to change the face of
Tysons than the sum of all other proposed projects combined, and County officials acknowledge that today they can move the process from the minutia of filing requirements to public consideration of its merits.
The Georgelas project was the first - possibly of many - accepted for consideration by the county under the auspices of the newly minted
Comprehensive Plan, a restructured set of guidelines designed to move Tysons from its suburban inception to an urban grid. Tysons Planners have been meeting regularly with Capital One and Georgelas executives to hammer out a workable proposal, and today's technical acceptance of the Capital One plan moves the project to a full staff review with public comment periods. The staff will ultimately forward their recommendations for the two projects to the Board of Supervisors for judgment. The turning point, albeit a technical one, was welcomed not just by the sponsoring developers but by a county that has struggled for years
to craft a metamorphic plan in what has been an urban planner's nightmare - wide, high-speed streets that isolate buildings and kill meaningful retail.
"Its a big deal in the sense that Capital One [and Georgelas] are the first projects that will begin to transform Tysons" said
Brian Worthy,
Public Information Officer for Fairfax. "Its very exciting that these proposals are taking advantage of the new plan," said Worthy. "Capital One’s application helps to advance the transformation of Tysons Corner into a walkable, livable urban center because it proposes high-density, mixed-used development near the Metro. This is exactly the kind of transit-oriented development that the plan to transform Tysons calls for." Capital One officials were unresponsive, but other participants in the process made it clear they thought the proposal had strong transformative potential. The site plan calls for 5 millions square feet in total development - 2.1 million s.f. of office space rising as high as 392 feet, a thousand or so residential units rising 20 stories, as well as hotels, parks, plazas and retail, all connected to what will be a brand new
Tysons East Metro station. The design team includes
Bonstra Haresign as Urban Planner and Architect and
William H. Gordon Associates as Civil Engineer and Landscape Architect.
The Georgelas Group
plans to redevelop 28 acres on three sites throughout central Tysons, with 14 buildings totaling more than 6 million square feet designed by
WDG Architecture and
Parker Rodriquez landscape architects. The plan includes
office buildings that rise up to 360 feet, a Metro station and surrounding plaza, central "civic park", apartment buildings, and retail incorporated into parking garages at street level to mask their street presence topped with "sky parks."
Development will be balanced with civic areas and hotels that planners gauge will result in an overall presence of 65% office space and 20% residential usage. All office buildings will be designed for a LEED Silver ranking and for residences to earn general LEED certification, all designed to achieve "the urban aesthetic vision for Tysons."
Still, the proposal's impact is theoretical, as the plan must meander through the approval process, and Capital One has little inclination to start building right away, or even committing to a time frame for its first building. While it tentatively calls its 15-story office building adjacent to the current headquarters "the most likely to be constructed in the near term," it only promises to keep the plan as "an option
...should the need arise." Similarly, attorneys for the Georgelas Group note that a full build-out "will take years perhaps decades" to complete even under the most optimistic scenario. Work will begin first around the new Tysons West Metro station with its tallest office building and possibly a condominium and retail element at the same time, but no timeframe is even hinted at in the planning documents.
Cityline Partners and
Mitre will likely precede the two with plans for a 340,000 s.f. office building likely to move more quickly through approval and into construction.
"We're at the start of a 40 year process," says Worthy, cautioning against expectations of a sudden transformation for Tysons. In fact some involved
in the process see significant technical and practical hurdles in a vision that ties in Metro stations and extends streets while attempting a more cosmopolitan texture. "These guys will be guinea pigs for a brand new process," says one source familiar with negotiations, "all of this is too new to make any bets on how quickly it will proceed."
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Cityline Partners has filed a petition with Fairfax County to rezone Scotts Run Station into a 40-acre mixed use office, residential, hotel, and retail 
area as part of the Tysons Corner Comprehensive Plan, which incorporates a redesign of a low density project dominated by surface parking. The application was accepted by the county, indicating county planners have given the project an initial review, though numerous intensive public and administrative steps remain before final approval of the plan.
"We dont want to turn this area into a concrete canyon," said Tom Fleury, Executive Vice President of Cityline Partners. "We're looking to develop the property into a transit-oriented, walkable, sustainable, mixed-use development with Scotts Run Stream Valley park as the focal point and natural amenity." The project will house eleven office buildings, nine residential buildings, one hotel, and ground level retail space. The entire project encompasses 8.5 million gross s.f. And while several other developers in Tysons Corner have projects nearly as large - 23 acres planned by Capital One and 28 acres planned by the Georgelas Group - each of the sites represents a only a potential for build out and none of the developers have plans to assemble anything close to the approved development in the near future. Once approved, the land could be sold along with the plans, or developed over years since the approvals do not expire. In this case spokesmen for the developer say the project will remain in the planning stage for the next few years, with initial construction forecast in 2013 when the Metro station is operable. Architects for the project have not yet been selected.
