Air rights could tie together Tysons Corner
Tysons Corner owes its existence to the many important highways that intersect nearby. Ironically, by dividing Tysons into fragments, these same highways now threaten its future success as a cohesive urban place. Air rights development at key locations could reunify Tysons.
One problem with the otherwise impressive Tysons Corner redevelopment plan is that the two main streets, Route 7 and Route 123, will continue to function as suburban arterial highways. They’ll be so hard to cross that the neighborhoods on either side will be effectively cut off from each other. Rather than main streets, they are de facto freeways, barriers that divide the community in two.
Fairfax County proposes to address this problem by adding 4 pedestrian bridges. But a better solution would be to deck over these roads wherever possible, and then stitch together the neighborhood fragments with air rights development.
Imagine grand pedestrian plazas, lined with a grid of narrow local roads and high-rises with ground-floor retail, all elevated above the main roads below carrying vehicular traffic from the Dulles Toll Road and I-495. Decks could transform barriers into true urban places. Roads that waste vast amounts of land could be converted to more productive use.
An air rights development similar in concept is advancing in the District of Columbia, and is an example of how this idea can work. The Return to L’Enfant plan (PDF) will deck three blocks of I-395 in downtown DC with new buildings.
The High Street deck over I-670 in Columbus, OH is a successful example of an air-rights development that was implemented a few years ago, although it is smaller in scale.
Route 123
The best opportunity for a deck may be along Route 123, where it passes the Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria malls.
Top: Route 123 as proposed in existing plans. Bottom: Route 123 as it could be, with a deck and air rights development abutting the elevated Silver Line. Images by the author.