Fairfax County is taking a closer look at the older office sites in Tysons to determine whether they might be more suitable now for alternative uses.
The county launched a planning study last week that will evaluate the potential for parcels currently designated as office in the Tysons Comprehensive Plan to support future residential or mixed-use development.
An online survey to gather community input on possible improvements is open now through Sunday, June 14. In addition to considering possible land use changes, the study will identify recommendations related to transportation, parks and open space, the environment and urban design.
“All who visit, live or work in Tysons are encouraged to participate and help guide how these areas develop over the coming years,” the county said in a press release.
The plan amendment study was authorized last June by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, which had received three different proposals from developers seeking to replace or supplement office buildings in Tysons with housing.
Targeting the office building at 2000 Corporate Ridge, Valo Park (7950 Jones Branch Drive) and Tysons Plaza (1410, 1420 and 1430 Spring Hill Road), the Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) nominations extended a trend in Tysons and elsewhere in Fairfax County of property owners looking to redevelop office space as demand for older, more suburban buildings continues to wane.
In Tysons, the commercial-to-residential shift is partly by design. In preparation for the arrival of Metro’s Silver Line in 2014, the county adopted a comprehensive plan for Tysons in 2010 that positioned the approximately 2,100-acre area long defined by office parks, its two shopping malls and auto dealerships as an urban center where people would live as well as work and shop.
That vision of Tysons as the county’s downtown has started to take concrete form, with development emerging near the Tysons, McLean and Greensboro Metro stations and the area’s population climbing from 17,000 people in 2010 to an estimated 32,000 people, as of 2025, according to data tracked by the Tysons Community Alliance (TCA).
The area’s office sector has been mostly treading water in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in an uptick in vacancies. Tysons’ overall office vacancy rate has held at 20% since the beginning of 2025, but the rate drops to 14% for the newer “trophy” buildings with modern amenities that tenants generally favor over older, auto-centric office parks.
At the same time, a report commissioned by the TCA and released last December projected that Tysons will need more than 10,000 new homes by 2040 if its population continues to grow at around the current rate.
As a result, most development applications submitted to the county for Tysons sites in recent years have pushed to replace either existing or planned office space with housing, though one complex could be repurposed entirely for a data center. The 456-unit Indigo at McLean Station apartments that are currently under construction on Old Meadow Road is taking the place of a demolished office building.
While more detailed plans for the Corporate Ridge property and Valo Park haven’t emerged yet, Tysons Plaza owner JBG Smith filed a rezoning application earlier this month that proposes replacing one of the complex’s three office buildings with an apartment building and adding more retail space.
Not every office-to-housing proposal pans out, though. After receiving the county’s approval to repurpose the 10-story office building at 2000 Corporate Ridge as a live/work development, owner Rubinstein Partners is now exploring a full residential redevelopment that could take the form of townhouses and include the adjacent property at 2010 Corporate Ridge, per the SSPA nomination.
The planning study will look at all office-designated areas in Tysons, not just those singled out by SSPAs. Most parcels are located on the edges of Tysons along Jones Branch Drive, Tyco Road and Old Courthouse Road, but the Mitre complex in Scotts Run is included as well, as is the Westin Tysons area southeast of the I-495/Route 7 interchange that’s technically just outside Tysons in Idylwood.
A similar study to review the future of older office properties is underway for Reston East.
