Just a block away from the active construction on Hanover Tysons, one more of Northern Virginia’s derelict office buildings has been taken down, making way for Kettler to develop another midrise apartment community. Brentford at the Mile, set to begin construction soon and deliver in early 2022, will be a 7-story building with 411 homes when completed.
The building will be similar to neighboring Hanover Tysons and Kettler’s Highgate at the Mile in many respects. Like Hanover Tysons, the building will be built along a grade, so that the south facade will stand only five stories tall due to the higher ground elevation. The 7-story parking garage will be completely enclosed, along with two interior private courtyard spaces. The builder has also proffered up to 70 designated Workforce Dwelling Units (WDUs), which will be reserved for lower-income residents. Although the approved development plan for the property allows for 25,000 square feet of retail space, only one small retail unit (2,000 square feet in size) will be provided at first. Ground-floor apartments along the taller side of the building could be converted to retail in the future.
Unlike its neighbors, Brentford will feature larger apartments, including three-bedroom and “townhome-style” units. This gives the midrise building a considerably larger, sprawling footprint than the other buildings in the vicinity. A pool, clubhouse, fitness center, and bike room are among the advertised amenities.
Brentford was approved by Fairfax County officials last year as part of a much larger rezoning project, named “The Mile.” 45 acres of North Tysons office parks were consolidated and zoned as a mixed-use residential community focused around a signature park. Highgate at the Mile, which was completed in 2017 as the first phase of this neighborhood, replaced a 1980’s-era office building that was one of four 6-story trefoil-shaped office buildings surrounded by broad swaths of surface parking. With this most recent demolition of another of the old office buildings, only two remain. Eventually these and one other older building will be replaced with a total of 10 urban-style buildings, most of which will be midrise residential and all of which will be less than a mile from Metro. The Mile rezoning also permits certain highrise residential, hotel, or office buildings.
The neighborhood recently found a new connection to the rest of Tysons with the completion of the nearby Jones Branch Connector project that extends Scotts Crossing Road across the Capital Beltway. For the future residents of the Brentford, this crucial piece of infrastructure will provide pedestrian access to Capital One Center, including the Wegmans grocery store and the McLean Metro station. With the Galleria mall and other shopping also within a short walk, The Mile will be one of the most pedestrian-friendly and self-sufficient developments yet to come to Tysons. As future buildings in the development come online, Scotts Crossing Road will extend through the center of the development and eventually end at Westpark Drive in the west.
One of the stormwater management ponds already existing on the Brentford property will eventually be turned into a public park as the other buildings in The Mile neighborhood are built. Until then, a lawn portion of the park will be built while the pond remains. The fenced dog park depicted on the illustrative plan opened earlier but will be relocated whenever the pond is finally replaced.
During the Fairfax County development application review, there was some concern that with the only new construction in the neighborhood being midrise apartment buildings, the development might lack variety. To address this concern, the property owners have committed to future buildings at The Mile being built at taller heights to give variety to the neighborhood. However, the uniformity of midrise buildings at the nearby Mosaic District was well received, so until the taller buildings are constructed, hopefully The Mile will have a similarly warm welcome.
So far, no other buildings at The Mile have advanced a final development plan, but residential development in Tysons continues to advance at a steady pace. It is possible by the time Brentford is completed in 2022 that the design of the next one of its neighbors will be known. Still, Brentford, its existing neighbors, and other nearby buildings in the works such as The Mather, will provide a critical residential mass in just a few years that is positioned to energize Tysons and further Fairfax County’s goal of transforming the area from a 9-to-5 office district to a 24-hour city.