Capital One Proposes New High-rise Office Buildings, Hotel, Community Center At McLean Station

High-rise office and apartment buildings, a hotel, community center, stores and new roads could replace the athletic fields that now surround the Capital One headquarters on Dolley Madison Boulevard.

Members of a McLean Citizens Association committee listened for two hours Tuesday night as Capital One representative Antonio Calabrese explained how the 26-acre site could eventually be a city-like mixed-use development that would total more than 4 million square feet of new development at Dolley Madison Boulevard and Old Meadow Road.

"As patrons exit the rail station, they will find themselves here at this expansive, welcoming Metro station gateway park," said Calabrese, Land Use/Zoning Counsel to Capital One, when he presented the same plans to the Fairfax County Planning Commission last week. "This walkway leads to an attractive, generous, green pedestrian network through our residential block and up to our new, major public civic plaza, again landing at the front doorstep to our prominent hotel," he said.

The county planning commission has delayed approval, but the plan is expected to go before the Board of Supervisors in early September.

The Capital One proposal is the to emerge two years after Fairfax County Supervisors adopted a sweeping blueprint to transform Tysons Corner from a car-choked tangle of traffic and office buildings into a a lively urban community of up to 100,000 people built around the four new stations of Metro's Silver Line.

Fairfax County officials are encouraging developers to design neighborhoods containing a mixture of housing, businesses and offices that welcome families, bicycles and people who love to walk.

Tysons Corner is envisioned as a major economic generator for Fairfax County, Northern Virginia and the state of Virginia.

The Capital One site, bounded by Dolley Madison, the Capital Beltway (I-495) and Scott's Crossing, now contains the bank's 14-story headquarters, various athletic fields and parks.

The redevelopment proposal that Calabrese explained to the Planning and Zoning Committee of the McLean Citizens Association includes:

• Up to 12 new office buildings ranging in height from 21-28 stories. Four high-rise apartment/condominium buildings, neighborhood restaurants, cafes and shops on the ground level of the office and residential buildings, and a new hotel.

• The plans also include a new road that would cross the Beltway and connect Scott's Crossing Road with Jones Branch Drive. The so-called Jones Branch Connector has long been part of the redevelopment plans for Tysons Corner. That connector road would mean that McLean residents could drive to the  Hilton Hotel and the Gannett building without going through Tysons Corner.

• Three large parks including a common green that would be built on top of a underground parking desk on site. One park will include an athletic field and a children’s play area.

• A $12 million, 30,000-square-foot community center that would be on the first floor of one of the office buildings. The community center would include a basketball court and educational facilities, but it may not be built for 15 years, Calabrese said.

• The first new office building should be complete by 2015. The Silver Line opens next year. The new community would emerge over the next 20 years.

"This has been a great presentation. This has been so enlightening,” Mark Zetts, chair of the Planning and Zoning Committee said. Zetts said he would recommend that the committee approve the plan. 

"We have before you a unique opportunity to accommodate Capital One’s growth, foster a major economic development project that benefits the County, Tysons, Capital One, the existing Rail Tax District, the potential Road Improvement Tax District, the C&I District, help make the absolutely essential Jones Branch Connector a reality, support ridership of the soon-to-be opened Silver Line and concurrently realize the lofty objectives of the 2010-adopted Comprehensive Plan," Calabrese told the Planning Commission.