Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

PART 1Cutting Transit Time

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Fifty years of planning and five years of construction culminated this past July with the opening of Phase I of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project. Connecting Tysons Corner and Reston to the rest of the Metrorail system, the Silver Line aims to ease the burden of travel along the Capital Beltway and into Tysons Corner, which previously was possible only by automobile on increasingly congested roads.

Tysons Corner is Fairfax County’s central business district, and its night-time population of 20,000 regularly swells to over 100,000 as people commute to the area for work. This daytime population spike – a whopping 400% increase – has resulted in what many commuters agree is an increasingly stressful commute into the area.

Despite being home to two shopping malls – the upscale Tysons Galleria and Tysons Corner Center, the largest mall in the Baltimore-Washington area – one shopper in a recent Washington Post article said that, despite living in the Fort Totten area in northeastern Washington D.C., she’d never made the trip out to either mall because of the sheer amount of traffic congestion she’d have to face driving to the malls. With the opening of the Silver Line, what had once been an unimaginable trip became a simple train ride.

New Tysons Corner Silver Line station in February 2013

Cutting Transit Time

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Unused bridge pier near West Falls Church station in 2010, intended to support a Silver Line bridge

The Silver Line has four stations in Tysons Corner. With many businesses and shopping areas conveniently located a comfortable walking distance from the stations, leaving your car at home and has become not only a viable alternative, but an increasingly convenient and attractive one. Phase II of the Silver Line Project, which is expected to open in 2018, will extend the rail line all the way to Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD).

By connecting the area’s central business district with the busiest airport in the Washington metropolitan area (IAD sees over 22 million passengers a year), the opening of Phase I of the Silver Line and the eventual completion of Phase II promises growth and development in the area, both economically and in terms of population.

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

PART 2Boosting Development

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Boosting Development

The Silver Line extension to Washington’s Metrorail system represents a significant investment in the future development of the region. Costing $3.14 billion, with a significant chunk of that funding coming from the Federal Transit Administration and the Department of Transportation, the new 11.7 miles of Silver Line – an expense of $46,943 per foot of new track – can be seen as proof positive of a commitment to the development and expansion of services in the area, and the effects can already be seen.

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Boosting Development

Tysons Corner, as would be expected of the seat of Fairfax County’s business district, already has the largest concentration of office space in Northern Virginia: as of 2008, it had 46 million square feet of office and retail space. As of 2013, another 14 million square feet of similar office and retail space had been approved for, or was already under construction, with another 31 million square feet of office and retail space planned in the areas surrounding the four Metrorail Silver Line stations in Tysons Corner.

In the six years immediately preceding the opening of Phase I, 1.5 million square feet of construction has been completed within a half mile of the Metrorail stations in Tysons in anticipation of the opening of the Silver Line. Within that same area, another 6 million square feet of construction is projected to be completed by the opening of Phase II in 2018. This isn’t all office or retail space. In anticipation of an influx of new residents, much of the new construction is dedicated to housing, all of it projected to be reasonably accessible to the Metro.

Get ready. Jobs along with the local population are projected to rise over the coming years due to the development spurred by the opening of the Silver Line.

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

PART 3Growing Jobs &

Businesses

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Growing Jobs and Businesses

According to federal data, since 2010, 4200 new residents have moved to Tysons Corner in anticipation of the opportunities that the opening of the new Silver Line will bring. This influx brings the area’s permanent, or so-called “night time” population, to somewhere in the vicinity of 24,000. Despite the city’s higher than average cost of living (Tysons comes in at 140.4, as opposed to the national average of 100), city planners fully expect continued growth over the next couple of decades, and are projecting that by 2050 Tysons Corner will be a “walkable, sustainable urban center” supporting 200,000 jobs and a permanent population of 100,000. This will effectively transform it from a so-called edge city into a 24-hour urban center where people engage in all aspects of life, work, and play.

Even before the opening of the Silver Line, the population of present day Tysons Corner would swell in the daytime by 3 or 4 times to around 100,000. The current figure is certain to be higher; of the roughly 15,000 people using the five new Metrorail Silver Line train stations during week days, between 5000 and 7000 – almost half – are ending up in Tysons Corner, and local businesses are noticing. In less than a month, retailers in the local Tysons Corner Center mall reported double digit increases in sales numbers. Even before the opening of the Silver Line, Tysons Corner Center mall was already drawing 55,000 shoppers every weekday. With the opening of the new train lines, companies can look forward to increased sales and business.

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

Main Terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport at dusk in Virginia, USA.

Tysons Corner is already the 12th largest employment center in the United States. With the completion of Phase II connecting the area to Washington Dulles International Airport in 2018, the current daily influx of approximately 80,000 people into the Tysons area is sure to see a boost from an appreciable portion of the 60,000 passengers passing through IAD every day. Already improvements to city roads and infrastructure are in some stage of planning or construction, a testament to the city’s determination to live up to its vision of the future.

Companies that aim to be part of that vision are getting a foot in the door right now. Join them.

Moving with the Times: New Silver Line Drives Business Growth

METRO OFFICES11710 Plaza America Drive, Suite 2000 Reston, VA 20190

(877) 697-7005www.metroffice.com