Fairfax Board OKs Massive Spring Hill Development

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday another massive development in Tysons Corner, moving along the county’s long-term plan to turn the area into a walkable, urban downtown center.

The complex will occupy more than 17 acres: about 10 acres between Route 7, Tyco Road and Spring Hill Road, and another seven acres at the corner of Greensboro Drive and Spring Hill Rd.

See map at right.

The proposal is the final piece to a three-part plan by the McLean-based Georgelas Group  to transofrm the area around Route 7 and Spring Hill Road.

Georgelas earned the county's first application approval in September 2011 for the first two parts of its plan, which calls for five residential/retail buildings — one of them at 300 feet and the others falling shortly below it — around the Tysons West station. 

The third and final piece approved this week, "Part C," will include seven high rises — including at least two office buildings, at least three multi-family apartment buildings and a hotel with ground floor retail — at Tyco Road. About 2,000 residential units are expected.

Another part of the development at Greensboro Drive will include an office building, two new residential buildings and the integration of two existing residential buildings.

All of the buildings will be within a three to six-minute walk to transit that will take residents directly to the Spring Hill Metro station, which will be within a quarter of a mile of the development, officials said.

“We have embarked on a complete remake of Tysons,” said Aaron Georgelas, a managing partner at The Georgelas Group. “It has taken a tremendous amount of courage from everyone involved to get us to where we are today.”

In all, the three parts of the plan will make up 3.8 million square feet of a planned 7.6 million square feet of office, residential, retail and hotel space across three different neighborhoods.

See past reporting on an overview of Parts A and B  and a

According to the county, the Spring Hill Station development will have green buildings and parks. Approximately 20 percent of the units will be affordable workforce housing

“When we adopted the Tysons Plan, we knew that there was going to be a different kind of relationship between the county and landowners in order to achieve the redevelopment,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Sharon Bulova said. “I think this is a real demonstration of that kind of collaboration.”

Tuesday’s approval is the third significant development project to pass the Board since September 2012.

On Sept. 26, Supervisors approved Capital One Financial’s 4.4 million square-foot headquarters expansion, and on Nov. 20, they passed CityLine Partners’ Arbor Row, about 2.6 million square feet of mixed use development.