Clouds Over Tysons, Connection Newspapers, May 1, 2012

The hopes of glorious vision face reality of a post recession Northern Virginia.

By Nicholas Horrock

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Back when Clark Tyler was running meetings of the citizens group planning the redevelopment of Tysons Corner, the transformation of this traffic strangled cross roads seemed a glorious vision.

The ambitious plan grew during one of the hottest housing booms of Fairfax’s history. Housing prices soared and equities grew. The boom in turn was fed by millions of dollars of federal and defense expenditures in Northern Virginia. Typical family real estate taxes grew as well from $2,400 a year to $4,800.

But now in 2012, the hopes of that glorious vision have run into the reality of a post recession Northern Virginia and the tightening of federal expenditures that could spell limitations in the future. . . .

. . .  But the unexpected costs of Dulles Rail are not the only clouds hovering over the "glorious vision" of a new Tysons Corner:

• Housing values have fallen due to recession, but the high taxes of the mid-2000s have remained high.

• Federal government spending is growing tighter and the Department of Defense anticipates sharp cuts.

• The office market, the very center of the notion of historic expansion for Tysons Corner, is down 17 percent and the federal workforce is contracting.  An analysis by Jones Lang LaSalle, an international real estate broker doesn’t see federal employment expanding sharply in the near term.

• Large projects in nearby jurisdictions mean competitors for Tysons Corner.  In Alexandria construction is under way on a 20-year, 300 acre project which will include high rise office buildings, perhaps an additional Metro stop and could attract a work force of 60,000.  In Arlington, the county is working hard to repopulate the Crystal City development which until recently had a work force of some 60,000.

• When the military’s Base Realignment and Closure program (BRAC) moved 20,000 employees from Arlington to Alexandria, South Fairfax and Prince William County in 2010, it created an office building boom around Ft. Belvoir and increased development in Prince William County. . . .

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