Today in Around the Corner, planning controversy surrounds statements made during an expert panel on the future of Tysons where developers and business leaders noted that Tysons will be the future of the economy in the region
It started with a discussion as summarized on the Patch. (patch)
Then all the DC folks at the WaPo just couldn’t help posing the question to their mostly DC crowd on whether Tysons will surpass DC economically and as the urban core. This of course brought out just the best in DC folks who love mocking everything Virginia. (Washington Post)
And now Washington Business Journal has joined in, adding a couple of jabs against DC with some support on the idea that Virginia is the economic power of the region.
So we want to know what you think? It seems like Tysons is hated by all. Attacked from urban residents in DC and Arlington as being “just a mall”. Attacked from suburban and exurban commuters as being a massive driving headache and waste of infrastructure funds. Somewhere in the middle what is lost is that people keep coming here; 115,000 employees and over 50,000 shoppers every day. A GMP that simply does not align with traditional planning categories of “suburb and urban”. Pockets of existing development that are established and support thousands of residents in higher densities than in DC or Arlington. So why all of the hatred towards Tysons?
Our take on why Tysons is rising and what is the economic dynamics that will fuel its boom.
Urbanism Concept of the Day
In a discussion this past weekend I heard a point of view that I never thought I would hear. “We need more parking in Tysons, and all of these plans will remove all of the parking”.
Yikes, I think most rational people would probably say that Tysons has more parking than it would need for several more decades of development, but this brings up an interesting misconception that has been circulating the non-depth followers of the developments. Parking will be reduced.
That simply isn’t true. While parking ratios will be reduced, the overall parking will continue to increase with new developments, and frankly at much higher rates than DC or Arlington per square foot. What is occurring is an economic balance in the worth of a parking space.
When land prices approach $10 million per acre, the 100 parking spaces that would fit in that amount of space, essential cost $100,000 per space. If one was to construct a parking garage for the sole purpose of replacing this surface parking vertically, it would typically cost about $25,000. Right away you can see that the land is less valuable as paved over parking lot than by simply reorganizing the spaces vertically. Does this dynamic work at lesser land values? Of course not. In regions where acreage is far cheaper it makes more sense to provide surface parking. But Tysons has seen several land transfers showing the average price at approximately $7-10 million per acre. Beyond building a parking garage many of the developments incorporate residential, commercial, or hotel space which reduces the effective cost of the structural parking even more. This is just one element of the economic dynamics involved in redevelopment.