Talk
about the audacity of hope: The Obama campaign has
nothing on the Tysons Land Use Task Force. The
coordinating committee, appointed in 2005, wants to
transform Tysons Corner from one of the largest
"edge cities" in America into a thriving
urban center. If the vision to reinvent Tysons
Corner into the "downtown" of Fairfax
County over the next 30 to 50 years is realized, the
former country crossroads would match the size of
today's downtown Philadelphia, the nation's fifth
largest.
Achieving
that vision would be a remarkable accomplishment:
Unlike traditional big-city downtowns laid out in
grid street patterns, Tysons grew from a rural
crossroads into one of the nation's largest office
clusters in a most haphazard manner. The resulting
patchwork of shopping centers, boxy office
buildings, vast parking lots and broad thoroughfares
is difficulty to navigate and devoid of the charm
and sense of "place" that inspires a
passionate sense of attachment.
Long
devoid of the human element, Tysons Corner now is testing the limits of
its one putative design virtue: its ability to
accommodate cars.
Ninety-eight percent of the 65,500 people who work
there commute to their jobs in cars, mostly solo. Hemmed in by
Interstate 95, the Dulles Toll Road and residential
development, Tysons offers few alternatives for
getting in and out. Consequently, rush hour congestion on the
highways, as well as the Route 7 and Route 123
bottlenecks, is among the worst in
Virginia. Even getting around inside the
business district is a pain. There's so much asphalt
to cross that people typically find it easier to
cross the street by driving a car than making the
effort on foot.
Tysons
Corner: An aggregation of stores and offices
isolated by parking lots and cordoned off by
pedestrian-hostile roads.
For
salvation, many
people look to the proposed construction of a rail line linking Dulles airport and Tysons Corner with
the Metro rail system. Not only would Metro provide
a transportation option for thousands of passengers
in and out of the business district, it would spark
re-development around the four Metro stations along
the lines of a walkable downtown like
Philadelphia's. The Tysons task force, created with
the expectation that the Rail-to-Dulles project
would receive funding, has been meeting for two and
a half years to plan how to best leverage that
multibillion-dollar public investment. The
preliminary plan, "Tysons
Corner: Path to the 21st Century," hews to
the principles of smart growth, including many of
the principles long advocated in Bacon's Rebellion.
A new-and-improved Tysons Corner would have a much
larger residential component, zoning for a finely
grained mix of land uses, pedestrian-friendly streetscapes
and quality open spaces. Denizens could live, work and shop
locally, conducting much of their daily business on
foot and interacting in public places. Building
densities would be highest around the Metro stops --
30-floor buildings would be allowed -- and would
step down at the 1/8th 1/4 mile marks. On the border
with adjacent neighborhoods, development would be limited to
densities that would allow a smooth visual transition. One
variant of the "Path to the 21st Century" plan would create a "circulator
system" of buses or trolleys in dedicated
lanes that carry riders to within a block or two of
any location within the Tysons territory. The task
force also is planning an array of public amenities
such as parks and open space, affordable housing,
bike lanes, stream restoration, storm water
controls, fire, police and public schools, a
performing arts center, even public art. Rendering
of a pedestrian-friendly Tysons Corner It's
a wonderful vision. Carrying out the plan truly
would make Tysons a wonderful place to work and
live. There's just one little problem. It's not at
all clear how much this ambitious plan would cost,
or who will pay for it. The financial obstacles are
formidable and there is little evidence that the
task force has thought through the economics of
getting from Point A (the dysfunctional present) to
Point B (the radiant future). The
extension of Metro rail through Tysons Corner was
last estimated at between $2.4 billion and $2.7
billion. While the federal government is expected to
pay a significant share, a majority of that sum will
come from Dulles Toll Road commuters and property
owners along the rail route. Meanwhile, a list of
Tysons-area traffic improvements identified in
Fairfax County's 1994 comprehensive plan -- Interstate crossings, new highway ramps,
and a host of smaller projects -- could well cost
more than $1 billion. And that doesn't include the
cost of creating the grid streets, much less the tree-lined
streetscapes and other public facilities. I have been
unable to uncover any document on the task force
website that tallies up all the costs. It appears
that the task force is forging ahead with no clear idea of
what the final tally will be. It's
not clear either who will pay for the improvements.
Implicit in the discussions so far is the assumption
that property owners will help foot the tab. It is
they, after all, who have the most to gain
financially, first by creating a more desirable place to
live, work and play, and secondly by rezoning that
allows them to
re-develop their properties at higher densities.
Currently, Tysons
Corner has about 44 million square feet of
"floor area," 16,000 residents and 105,000
employees. With no changes to the county's
comprehensive plan, by-right development will allow up
to 74 million square feet, 35,000 residents and
161,500 employees.
The
"prototype B" scenario crafted by the task
force would allow even greater density: up to 127 million square feet,
100,000 residents and 203,000 employees. Under that
scenario, proposed increases in density
would allow developers to add 83 million square feet
of commercial, retail and residential space -- twice
as much as exists there now.
Map
shows boundary of Tysons study area, along with location
of proposed Metro line and four stations. Higher
density on that scale would represent a windfall
to property owners, so it is perfectly reasonable to
ask the private sector to help pay for the
infrastructure required to support it. There appear to be two broad
options. Fairfax County can tap property
owners either by exacting cash proffers in
rezoning cases, imposing higher taxes through special tax
districts, or employing some combination of the two.
None of the plan's costs or financing
mechanisms has been sketched out in any
detail, which explains why property owners have been
relatively quiescent. So far, from what I can tell,
the public discussion has focused on how to spread
the goodies around -- a far more pleasant job than
figuring out how to pay for the goodies.
Judging by
their feedback posted on the task force website,
many landowners are concerned at this stage with
maximizing the densities allowed for their
individual properties.
In
a letter
to the task force, the owners of the Commons
Property, location of a Safeway-anchored shopping center,
contend that their location warrants higher density
zoning. "The proposed intensities are not
sufficient to ensure redevelopment with the grid of
streets, parks and community amenities envisioned.
... Outside the 1/4 mile radius [from the Metro
stations], a Floor-to-Area Ratio of 2.0 or less
provides little incentive to seek a rezoning and
[the] myriad of proffers or conditions likely to be
required."
Even
privileged businesses with property on the proposed
Metro stops suggest that densities aren't high
enough to coax them into doing what the task force
has in mind. Says
a letter
from Dan Clemente, one of Northern Virginia's better
known developers: "As it exists today,
throughout this quadrant, all of the property is
currently developed with sound business uses; the
densities being proposed in this plan are not high
enough to justify the economic costs involved with
disrupting these going concerns. That being the
case, this design will frustrate if not make
impossible the planning staff's goals of
consolidated development."
If
the proposed densities don’t induce major property
owners to make the massive investments required to
convert the vision into reality, the task force has
a problem.
Handing
out more density bonuses, as the special pleaders
request, is not a viable answer either. Tysons
Corner has a track record since 1994 of absorbing
about 600,000 square feet of space a year. It’s
not clear how much of the 83 million square feet of
density to be added in the "Path to the 21st
Century" plan, is commercial. But if we assume
that half of it is, we’re talking about more than
40 million square feet. That will take about 70
years to absorb! Granting more density to property
owners will only add to an overhang so massive that
it will slow re-development of existing assets to a
snail's pace.
Here's
another complication: The
plan would increase the number of employees in
Tysons Corner by nearly 100,000, or double current
levels. If congestion already makes Tysons a
"hell on wheels," how will the district
deal with twice the current number of employees?
The
Metro will provide access to Tysons Corner for a
decent percentage of those employees. I can't find
any numbers specifying the rail line's capacity, but
it should measure in low multiples of 10,000s.
Additionally, an increase in housing for an added
84,000 residents holds out the potential that
thousands will live close enough to walk or ride the
"circulator" to work. According to the
2000 Census, one third of the 11,300 residents in
Tysons worked locally. If that proportion held
steady, added housing could take another 35,000
people or so out of their cars.
Those
are impressive numbers, but the result
of adding so much office space -- if it's ever
filled -- could be tens of thousands of additional
commuters struggling to drive in and out of Tysons Corner each
business day. Task force consultants have
suggested that the combination of Metro rail, the
circulator, mixed uses, higher densities and pedestrian
streetscapes will reduce congestion. I haven't seen
any report that shows how such an optimistic conclusion was
reached. If it's off -- if streets and highways wind
up more congested -- it could cripple efforts
to attract new business.
I
fear that the numbers may not add up: The massive expense of
re-developing Tysons Corner on the scale
envisioned -- in some cases, tearing down expensive
buildings that have not been fully depreciated -- may be so high that it simply
cannot be financially justified. The frightening conclusion:
Tysons Corner was designed so badly and the cost of
re-developing tens of billions of dollars of such
poorly planned infrastructure and office buildings
may be so high it is simply beyond salvation.
I
truly hope I'm wrong. The prospect of continuing
Business As Usual -- helter skelter, by-right
development of another 30 million square feet of
space and bringing another 60,000 employees into
Tysons Corner -- without mass transit,
without a balanced of jobs, housing and amenities,
and without pedestrian-friendly streetscapes is too
horrifying to imagine.
--
August 25, 2008
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