From their tiny balconies, the residents of Lillian Court look out over eight lanes of traffic whooshing down International Drive before it merges with three highways. Office buildings with giant corporate logos tower across the street: KPMG, International Launch Services, Bearing Point. One of the region's most luxurious malls is steps away -- if you can sprint through the traffic.
Lillian Court at Tysons II in Fairfax County is smack in the middle of the Washington area's biggest office park. And that's just how the people who live there like it.
"It's a lot more peaceful than many places," said Tiwi Martinez, 27, an auditor who moved to Lillian Court two years ago with her husband, Ben. 26. The neighborhood is safe, she says. And when she needs retail therapy, Martinez negotiates a path across Tysons Boulevard to the Tysons Galleria. "I love the mall," she said. "For ladies, it's great."
In a county built on the suburban ideal of reputable schools and spacious single-family homes, the expanding cluster of retail and office buildings in Tysons is attracting a new breed of urban pioneer. The residents are mostly young and professional, snapping up jobs in the region's hottest employment market and eager to live close by to avoid Northern Virginia's notorious traffic snarls. Or they are executives and retirees tired of the upkeep a house demands, with 20 or 30 years of equity to invest in a new, hassle-free luxury home. They bring an international flavor, as many are immigrants lured by the job market.
You can't buy a quart of milk at the corner store in Tysons Corner or throw a Frisbee in the park or even ride a bike -- safely. You can't walk far. But you can eat gratin of lump crab with garlic cream at Colvin Run Tavern, order takeout from China Wok and sip merlot at the Sport and Health Club. You can get to the office in minutes or be driving down the Capital Beltway or Dulles Toll Road in the time it takes most people to park in a downtown office garage.
Many Tysons residents love their city-in-the-suburbs lifestyle, which will become more urban still under Fairfax County's plan to double the development with more condominiums, offices, stores and restaurants. With four Metro stations planned, the area could look more like the dense, suburban downtowns of Arlington, Reston, Silver Spring and Bethesda. That's what people in Tysons say they crave: a "there there" with a supermarket and their favorite clothing store at the sidewalk's edge. But they also fear something else: more people in their cars. County planners expect that in a decade's time, 40,000 people will live in Tysons, almost triple the number there today.
Tysons has always been more job center than neighborhood. But that balance is changing fast, as thousands of luxury condominiums and townhouses are rising, some in towers reaching 30 stories to the sky with $1 million price tags and sweeping views of the Washington skyline.
"A superb location. And the exciting lifestyle that only Tysons Corner can provide," gushes the Web site for the Gates at McLean, a new condominium development off Route 123. "And yet an enclave unto itself; serene and satisfying."
In Silver Spring, the blast of jackhammers outside Bob and Quinn Middleton's townhouse became a daily feature of life for four years. The Middletons moved in 2000 to Cameron Hill, the first residential development to rise in the new downtown. They didn't see a lot around them except empty parking lots and the Metro station, 222 steps away (they've counted).
But it's really a neighborhood now, where they walk to dinner and breakfast at the Tastee Diner and choose among three supermarkets.
"We aren't truly urban, and we weren't really pioneers in the sense most people think of, since everyone knew what Silver Spring was," said Bob Middleton, an administrative law judge. "When we bought here, we said, 'Let's just see what's here.' There wasn't much of anything."
A real downtown for Tysons is years away. Even so, today's off-ramp settlement pulses with life despite the lack of suburban comforts and urban conveniences. Whether Tysons residents work there or not, they say they will happily sacrifice the serenity of a traditional suburb for a quick escape route on the highway.
