When we first announced that Tysons Tower had begun construction, an exclusive story only provided on The Tysons Corner, we thought that Macerich had a lot of catching up to do in order to attain their lofty goal of construction delivery in 2014. We had no idea what kind of construction effort the first month would entail.
It appears, from this humble civil engineer, that about 50% of the earthwork necessary for the site development has been completed. Soldier piles appear to be complete along the entire length of the existing mall access road along the AMC garage which will allow for the remaining 50% of the earthwork operations to continue. That means if you are a resident in Tysons Corner you should likely avoid the Westpark Bridge in the mornings for the next couple of weeks as it has become more congested with dump trucks hauling off soil stockpiles. Next door to Tysons Tower you might be seeing some new steel supports rising. We believe these are the first elements of the pedestrian bridge proposed across Route 123 from the new Tysons Metro stop.
[tube]NNGmWA_ZBOs, 350, 250 [/tube] We have had a love hate relationship with this project from its inception. While the project does achieve a significant upgrade to the existing VDOT embankment and 1 story strip mall that was previously adjacent to the mall, it misses a huge opportunity for a private public partnership with Fairfax County. In a previous article we discussed the possibility of VDOT air rights over Route 123 being used to create decking and additional urban developments, all the while providing a vehicular tunnel through central Tysons and a truly walkable and crossable connection between Western Tysons and Eastern Tysons. The Macerich development will not necessarily make that future concept unrealistic but it will make the decking project slightly less fruitful by not matching the most efficient layout. In fact the completion of Tysons Tower likely forces the removal of an entire block from our original concept layout.
We also believe Fairfax County missed an opportunity to bring Macerich, and Lerner, back to the rezoning table where each party could barter for concessions that would help the greater good of the city. Macerich and Lerner have both argued that paying for infrastructure in Tysons is not a requirement for them, and cited the fact that they are paying for the metro through the special tax district already. Other land owners have stated their willingness to come to an agreement if these two big members of the community would also assist on the projected billion dollar Tysons specific infrastructure (2.1 billion including overall Fairfax projects). The County could have played as mediator if they had anything to offer such as parking or density concessions.
Overall Tysons Tower is progressing quickly and will be a huge improvement to a Route 123 corridor which currently looks more like a rural freeway than an urban haven. We don’t expect this project alone to draw many people out of their cars and onto sidewalks, but we do think that it is a first step in creating a better arterial region through improved land use.
For a video of the future of Tysons Tower see this IFM rendering of Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers future skyscraper.
