I know single use office buildings are the bane of urbanists, myself included, and with Mitre Building 4 that is what Tysons is getting. The 14-story office building currently under construction along Colshire Drive at the intersection of what will in the future be Colshire Meadow Drive/Colshire Drive (god I hope they changed the proposed name) doesn’t provide any ground level anything. In fact it will have the same street level interaction as it’s neighboring corporate campus.
All is not lost.
The need for Mitre Building 4 comes out of the large IT/Defense contractors desire to consolidate its Tysons properties into a central and metro accessible location. Currently Mitre has space both at this location and a large office campus on Westpark Drive. By consolidating to a metro accessible (literally in front of) location we may see significant traffic reduction on Westpark, Tysons Boulevard, and most importantly the often queued backup at the intersection of Route 123.
This also provides Cityline, the owner of the Mitre Westpark Campus, a new opportunity to introduce another rezoning, which would make it the 3rd by the company formerly a part of Westgroup. The unleased PS Business Park property at Westbranch Drive and Westpark Drive (directly in front of the ambitious Arbor Row rezoning in a part of Tysons I call Fortune 500 Row) would be prime real estate for residential or retail development in a corridor which will be the most populated in Tysons by the end of this decade.
Yes, there are a lot of problems with Mitre Building 4. For instance, beyond just the single use of the project, it also does nothing to improve the street grid around it. I would think that putting the extension of Colshire Meadow Drive into the scope, or atleast proffer contribution, of the project would have made sense but unfortunately the nature of pre-dating the new comprehensive plan allowed the project to move forward with old standards. A shame as the extension of that road would create a vital traffic relief for locals avoiding the backups that occur on Route 123.
The project also proposes surface parking, for a 14-story building, where land use could have been better consolidated and parking provided structurally. Instead of good open space, or pedestrian accessibility between the buildings, there will be an enclosed parking lot of asphalt forcing employees and residents nearby alike to go around the massive block.
Those glaring problems aside, there is some good here. Mitre’s consolidating announces that they plan on being permanent residents here in Tysons, bringing with them high paying high skilled jobs. The project is extremely metro accessible. The building design is notably pleasant and will make a nice addition to a growing skyline.
This process and end product does underline the importance of the new comprehensive plan and the improvements that will be made to how new projects come online.