Plan to Remake Tysons Corner Envisions Dense Urban Center

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Tysons Redevelopment Takes Form

Property owners, developers and an architecture firm have come together to pitch their visions for the redevelopment of Tysons Corner.

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Dozens of the 150 Tysons landowners say there will be. They say they are willing to spend millions demolishing what they have and laying new infrastructure if they are allowed to build big. They have teamed up to form at least six consortiums to make the most of their holdings, producing -- and finally revealing to the public -- dramatic renderings that divide Tysons into quadrants, or "rooms," of intimate, urban spaces.

Property owners stand to make huge profits. But they also argue for the environmental benefit of high-density development, particularly around Metro. People drive less when they live and work in urban areas and when parking is less abundant, they say. Their homes, with shared walls, cost less to heat and cool. They require fewer feet of water and sewer lines. Their carbon footprints shrink.

Boosters also argue about the economic necessity of changing the way Tysons has grown. With 6,000 businesses, 14 hotels and two malls, Tysons is Virginia's largest commercial district and the 15th largest in the nation. But because it is so auto-dependent, it is also choked by some of the worst traffic in the region.

"Our metro area is facing an enormous crisis," said Doug Carter, an architect with Davis Carter Scott Design who is leading the efforts of one group of property owners to remake the western end of Tysons Corner. "Growth is good. Growth is inevitable. Growth is coming. We're going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg for the entire Washington area unless we do something constructive here."

Some public officials are caught between the allure of an economically vibrant Tysons and the trepidation of nearby neighborhoods. Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors, has said that Tysons is not suited for the type of urban density characteristic of the Rosslyn-Clarendon-Ballston corridor in Arlington County. But his perspective has shifted more recently; at a recent luncheon, he told business leaders: "Gird yourselves for battle."

Connolly is responding, in part, to the fact that developers aren't the only advocates for unleashing a building boom in Tysons. Environmentalists and smart-growth advocates agree that urban density, "green" building requirements and deep limits on parking are proven ways to reduce traffic, storm water pollution and energy consumption, improve air quality and protect streambeds.

"I don't understand the hysteria," said Stella M. Koch of the Audubon Naturalist Society, who sits on the Tysons task force. "Every place that has these kinds of densities that people get frightened of are all places people like to go. Clarendon is a wonderful example where they've actually reduced car ownership, and where people go because it is so pleasant. If Tysons looked like that, with streams restored and improvements in air quality, we will have succeeded."