By Brian Trompeter
BRIAN TROMPETER
and SCOTT McCAFFREY
Staff Writers
As she prepares to leave elected office after seven and a half years, Arlington County Board member Katie Cristol is looking ahead to her next post.
Cristol does not formally come on board as CEO of the Tysons Community Alliance (TCA) until July 5 – a day after her County Board resignation takes effect – but earlier this month she appeared before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ Economic Initiatives Committee as part of a briefing on the new organization’s plans.
TCA’s collaboration with the Fairfax County government is “unique for the depth of partnership between public and private sectors,” Cristol said at the meeting.
“The innovation, the risk-taking that members and representatives of Fairfax County government are bringing to this work, the trust and spirit of collaboration that the private sector brings, are incredible assets for the TCA to build on,” she said.
The organization, which morphed out of the previous nonprofit Tysons Partnership, also benefited from a $2.5 million start-up budget from the Board of Supervisors.
Acknowledging different priorities competing for Fairfax County’s budget dollars, Cristol said the supervisors’ investment will allow TCA to pursue a “sophisticated, data-driven work plan” and start delivering real quality-of-life improvements in Tysons.
Cristol won election to the County Board in 2015 and was re-elected in 2019. She and board member Christian Dorsey, who also has served two terms, opted not to seek re-election.
Because of the timing of Cristol’s departure, no special election will be needed to fill her seat. The four remaining County Board members will appoint someone to fill out the remaining months of her term, with successors to Cristol and Dorsey joining the board in January.
Cristol’s new focus comes at a time Tysons is diversifying its assets and becoming a community-based urban hub, said Josh White, who chairs the TCA board.
With 116,000 employees, Tysons has the region’s second-largest workforce and represents 17 percent of Fairfax County’s jobs. The urban center provides 10 percent of the jurisdiction’s overall retail revenue and 8 percent of its tax revenue ($268 million annually), despite occupying just 1 percent of the county’s land.
“Given its footprint, Tysons has the capacity to continue growing over the next several decades,” White said.
Acknowledging that Tysons now has a 20-percent office-vacancy rate, Richard Bradley, who is serving as interim CEO of TCA until Cristol’s arrival, said other communities have shown that creating a livable residential environment helps the office market.
Fairfax planners long have sought to increase the number of Tysons residents. Tysons’ population since passage of the comprehensive plan has increased 96 percent from 15,390 residents in 2010 to 30,124 in 2022.
The number of Tysons households rose 19 percent from 2018 to 2021 – a rate four times faster than the county average.
Some Fairfax County supervisors expressed surprise that about 38 percent of households in Tysons earn $100,000 per year or less, which is 4 percent more than the county average.
Fairfax Supervisor Walter Alcorn (D-Hunter Mill) favored more affordable housing in Tysons and said he envisioned there eventually would be one or two such developments near all four of the urban center’s Metrorail stations.
TCA has begun convening a series of strategic-planning and work groups, guided by the county’s comprehensive plan, and will facilitate a community-engagement process.
The groups hope to produce a final report by late fall that will “chart a future direction for Tysons and help shape an action agenda,” White said.
Supervisor John Foust (D-Dranesville), who chairs the Economic Initiatives Committee, said TCA leaders had accomplished much in a short time.
“It’s obvious that people are not only putting in the time, but putting in the passion,” he said. “You truly care about what’s happening in Tysons . . . You were looking at how other people did it, but in my opinion, you did it better.”
Pieces of the TCA’s efforts can be replicated elsewhere in the county, said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D).
The county has “aggressive opportunities” to repurpose some vacant office space in Tysons, McKay said. Some pockets of Tysons have had vacancy issues for years and officials do not want those vacant, antiquated, suburban-scale buildings to hinder the county’s efforts to redevelop the area, he said.
“I really hope a big focus is on that,” McKay said.
