The timetable appears to be holding as construction continues on a centerpiece building for George Mason University’s Arlington campus in Virginia Square.
In a new update, George Mason University officials say they expect private tenants to begin moving in on schedule this summer, with university staff and programs to begin their move-in in the spring of 2025.
The announcement came about four months after university officials, regional economic-development leaders and representatives of Clark Construction held an early-November “topping-out” ceremony, another step on the road to occupancy of the 345,000-square-foot facility to be known as Fuse at Mason Square.
When complete, the new structure will provide a home for Mason’s Center for Digital Innovation and the university’s new School of Computing.
The Fuse building is rising on land occupied from the 1950s to the 1970s by an outlet of the now-defunct Kann’s Department Store. When its Virginia Square location was forced to close in the mid-1970s owing to recessionary conditions, George Mason officials purchased it, and it served as the nucleus for future university growth on adjoining parcels.
(The old Kann’s building, which at one time was home to the university’s law school, was razed to make way for the new building.)
In addition to land on which the new Fuse building is rising, the Arlington campus includes the Antonin Scalia Law School, the Schar School of Policy and Government, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, programs in Arts Management and the School of Business, Mason Enterprise, and Continuing and Professional Education, as well as meeting and conference facilities.
A “visioning” process on Mason’s physical facilities across Northern Virginia, which wrapped up last year, ended largely with the view that the Arlington campus did not need more intense development beyond what was in the works. But some tweaks were suggested, including better connectivity among buildings, better pedestrian crossings of Fairfax Drive and adding vibrancy to the large but often empty plaza that fronts Fairfax Drive.
For details on the campus, see the Website at masonsquare.gmu.edu.
