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You may have noticed over the past several years the only office buildings being started were those that had been in the works for over a decade (Tysons Tower and 1775 Tysons Boulevard) and owned by massive development companies that could afford a slow leasing cycle. It turned out the fears about the commercial absorption didn’t pan out for those two projects, both of whom have been successful in wooing tenants or consolidating from older properties to their new towers.
Enter NVCommercial who has been watching the market more cautiously ever since gaining approval for their Tysons Central rezoning in 2013. We had been expecting to see their first building being an apartment building, following a string of fellow land development starts in the use, but NVCommercial has come out ready to start on a new speculative (without anchor tenant) office. It’s not clear whether NVCommercial will begin construction without a firm tenant yet, but they will have a final development plan in hand after this week to make that choice.
It’s good to see the office market returning, even though Tysons is pushing for more residential land use. It is impossible to decouple the reality that Tysons is a commercial engine for the region and the basis for the values in housing are ingrained in its job market.
What I am disappointed in is how Foulger-Pratt addresses what many have called the Great Wall of Tysons; ie the Metro tunnel bulk head which has created a massive super block obstruction at the Greensboro Metro Station. It is true that people can cross the street (and are encouraged to do so) via the metro skywalk, but we have seen how well cursory skywalks to address pedestrian mobility.
I would have liked to see a more ambitious decking concept to create a public space and activated zone which could then attach to the skywalk. Yes, Tysons Corner Center has this same kind of skywalk connecting between the metro and the new development. However, at its terminus is a massively popular public space which helps keep the zone populated and therefore avoids vagrants, littering, and worse. This could have been accomplished at this new building, creating a sense of place, but instead the skywalk ends up being just an outdoor hallway to the building entrance.
I’m also disappointed in the building siting, which sits back from the already too wide Route 7, via a parking garage entrance along Route 7 which has its own paved roadway. This leads to over 100 feet of asphalt and a pedestrian dead zone. This issue was raised during the rezoning, yet was allowed by the County.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row top_margin=”page_margin_top”][vc_column width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]All that being said, no individual project will solve Tysons, and all infill projects are important to creating an urban fabric, despite some being more successful at that goal than others. When complete this Tysons Central project will have taken an aging and often abandoned strip mall with more asphalt than building footprint, along an previously unused road embankment, and created a mixed use project for new businesses and jobs.
Foulger Pratt expects the completion of the project in 2018, based on that time frame they would be beginning excavation Spring 2016.
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