"I think the potential in Rosslyn is very real for a beautiful skyline that will put Rosslyn and Arlington on the map, " Fisette said.
Tim Helmig, a partner in Westfield Realty Inc., said that the company is still negotiating the height of the building with the FAA and that nothing has been decided.
"Our goal is to work with the FAA to arrive at a mutual resolution on height," Helmig said.
Even if the FAA deems the building a hazard, the agency -- with no jurisdiction over land use -- has no authority to stop the project, Peters said. The 1,149-foot-tall Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas -- roughly the same distance from the city's airport as this building would be from National -- was built over the objections of the FAA, he noted.
County officials said they are awaiting the FAA's ruling. They will weigh it when they consider changing their zoning ordinance in June to allow for taller buildings such as Westfield's project and two other proposed office and residential complexes.
They said the FAA has privately asked that the county increase the height limit only to about 390 feet. The current limit is 300 feet, the height of Rosslyn's two distinctive silver towers -- now home to WJLA-TV and Northrop Grumman -- and one other building.
County officials conceded they would face political pressure if they were to approve a measure allowing a building so high that planes were forced off current flight paths and over residential neighborhoods.
The two federal commissions most concerned with protecting the District's monumental vista, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, are likely to oppose Arlington's vision, as they have in previous years when development projects in Maryland and Virginia have threatened to overwhelm the Washington Monument.
In 1979, for example, the commissions teamed with the Department of the Interior in a lawsuit to prevent Arlington from allowing the first tall buildings in Rosslyn. The suit failed; the buildings were built, and the late J. Carter Brown -- then the quotable chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts -- dubbed Rosslyn a "visual belch in the landscape."
"Jefferson spoke of the importance of looking from the Capitol to the green hills beyond," said David Childs, the current chairman of the commission. "To have a skyscraper poking up and harming that view would be a mistake."
