The cold winter has not appeared to drastically slow down the rate of construction in Tysons. I visited Lerner’s 1775 Office Building on Tysons Boulevard in January when the construction effort had shifted from the structure to window glazing.
The look of the final building is taking shape. A dual story ground level with a cantilevered overhang will be home to a future restaurant joining near by Founding Farmers, America Eats, and the Palm along Tysons Boulevard. The window pattern is better than what I thought would be the case and I think the pattern plays well with VITA Tower across Route 123 in it’s brick pattern underlay.
I do think the monstrous parking garage located behind the building detracts from the quality and urbanism of the tower itself which is well positioned in terms of setback, has good mixed use possibilities, and of course is TOD located directly adjacent to metro. The garage looks absurdly out of scale and really disconnects the property from the future Arbor Row development, perhaps on purpose. There is, of course, always the possibility that in the future Lerner may choose to develop the garage similar to what JBGR was able to create with an existing parking garage at Tysons West. That would likely not occur anytime in the short term however.
Across the street from 1775, Lerner has put up new signs indicating they are moving forward with their dual 31-story residential buildings, the initiation of which would assist in creating a 24-7 atmosphere at the neighborhood around the two malls. The exterior of 1775 likely will look complete by early summer, but may not begin occupancy until late 2015 and early 2016 in order to complete any future tenant fit outs. One thing that should be celebrated about the construction of 1775, unlike other projects around Tysons, this tower was able to maintain the existing pedestrian pathways all the way around the construction site. This should be a goal of every new project coming to Tysons to help reduce impacts to residents who rely on walkways to get around town.