Tysons Corner was established as a retail and commercial destination due to its close proximity to several arterial roads during the 20th century boom period of highways, but these same highways that cross weave through its heart now threaten the future sustainability of the city’s economy. Tysons and Fairfax have been applauded by urbanism advocacy groups for their forward thinking approach on retrofitting the office park on steroids, but at the same time the highway scars of its origination will continue to grow and divide the city into fragments. Fortunately the same form of development that began the innovative conversion in Tysons Corner might the solution to this remaining dilemma. The planned pedestrian skywalks could instead be converted to grand pedestrian plazas lined with a condensed road grid, high-rise developments, and streets lined with retail. Beneath this new urban core would remain Route 123, freely functioning and efficiently distributing the vehicular traffic from the Dulles Toll Road and 495.
Other localities in the US have tried this concept before, but have relegated the air space to only public functions such as excessive park lands in the case of Woodall Rodgers Park in Dallas, Texas. While the park creates good public space for residents, it is wasteful of the unique central location of most arterial roads, and misses an opportunity to have costs covered by developers as well as reap tax revenue. In the case of Route 123, Fairfax County can have its cake and eat it too. Currently WMATA and the Tysons Planning Commission intend for four (4) skywalks to be created across Route 7 and Route 123 in order to separate pedestrians from the future defacto central freeways. While functionally this does provide a pedestrian safe corridor, a new concept should be considered that can create economic benefit from these pedestrian systems? The office park on steroids, Tysons Corner, would be the perfect locality to create the pedestrian skywalk on steroids.
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Route 123 through Tysons Corner wastes a vast zone of land capabilities which could exist above the road. Selling the air rights to private land developers, given the ground zone would continue to be a holding and right of way of the State and County, would spur innovative design strategies that would reclaim otherwise wasted urban space.
- High-rise construction requires extensive structural practices that otherwise for road construction would be viewed as wasteful but is inherent to high density construction.
- In many cases, including underground parking and roof way plazas, private developers have shown the ability to create pedestrian and vehicular aerial spans between buildings.
Other localities in the US have tried this concept before, but have relegated the air space to only public functions such as excessive park lands such as Woodall Rodgers Park in Dallas, Texas. While the park creates good public space for residents, it is wasteful of the unique central location of most arterial roads, and misses an opportunity to have costs covered by developers as well as reap tax revenue. The sale of the 10 acres currently encompassed within the Route 123 right of way between the Westpark Bridge and the new metro station could be sold off to developers such as Macerich, Lerner, or other interested parties. With this prime central location, previous land sales have shown values of $10 to 15 million an acre, but assuming a reduction due to caveats, this air space could still bring $60 million to Fairfax County. Clearly concessions will be needed to spur development such as;
- Increased parking allowances elsewhere as these buildings will have no available below grade parking.
- As this is the urban core of Tysons, height restrictions should be removed in order to cover much of the initial cost of the additional structural column and girder sizing.
- The $60 million should be taken from the air space sale and returned to the developer, once construction would begin at a pro-rata share of the new tunnel/bridge construction, to help pay for the cost of the large pedestrian and vehicular decks necessary.
It benefits the County to encourage the development through the provision of these funds as the County will retain vehicular function, gain a new pedestrian infrastructure, and reap upwards of $25 million a year in tax revenue at full build out of this 10 acres. Lastly, the County will benefit by bringing Macerich and Lerner back to the rezoning table as an active partner in the transformation of Tysons Corner, instead of the current status of grandfathered development projects.
The developers, specifically Lerner and Macerich, could have massive benefits from this land sale as it would finally create a unified retail corridor that would encourage mall and other retail traffic and create a foothold on the 21st century shopping district of Tysons Corner. With the removal of height restrictions and the encouragement to create high density mixed use directly next to a new metro station and pedestrian network, these developers can finally flex their marquee capabilities.
Lastly, and most importantly, the pedestrians, vehicles, and transit users of this future central hub of Tysons Corner will see a true separation of uses, a natural creation of road grids, and an efficient conversion of a hazardous merge and intersection zone converted to an ordered and linear distribution of vehicles through the tunnel. Route 123 would inherently be converted to a limited access below “ground” arterial road simplified by the removal of the currently congested and dangerous intersection with Tysons Boulevard. Spaces currently used at the center of on-ramp loops could be converted to tunnel safety control and monitoring facilities.
The additional structural costs for columns would be absorbed if higher density is allowed as the design criteria for true high rises, taller than 500 feet, would inherently use the sized columns required at ground level to provide for overhead decking. The overhead road deck/park for the Dolley Madison Tunnel, with associated blast and fire protection for tunnel function, 2 control centers, and premium landscape finishes would be the only additional cost beyond standard land developing cost for these projects. This totals approximately $120 million in additional development cost, covered in phased portions by each building project (split between 7 separate high rise structures at approximately $17 million per high rise) and assisted by the Fairfax County air space sale. This cost clearly becomes less consequential the higher and more space effective the high rise becomes, as 50+ story structures often run construction costs in the hundreds of millions.
If accepted in principal by VDOT and Fairfax this concept could return an urban heart to the functional center of Tysons Corner and serve as a demonstration of the unique vision of Tysons Corner. The only remaining question, how will this look?