Changes also grand for one of county's other mega retail areas
By Jason Jacks
Big plans are in store for this weathered box of a mall surrounded by parking lots, noisy highways and graying office buildings.For starters, the phrase “make it more walkable” has been thrown around; so has “turn it into a urban community.” There is also talk of adding thousands of homes and millions of square feet of retail and office space.
Stop! Before you venture a guess, this is not Tysons Corner Center. But it is another of Fairfax County’s retail dinosaurs: Springfield Mall.
"I think Springfield is going to be the place where people will want to live,” said Springfield Civic Association President Tawny Hammond. “For those of us sticking it out, we will be sitting on a gold mine in 10 or 20 years."
Much like the sweeping plans in store for Tysons Corner that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors poured over recently, supervisors in the next few months will take up plans to transform beleaguered Springfield Mall and its surrounding property from a sprawling suburb of strip malls and unfriendly intersections into a dynamic downtown-type neighborhood.
Vornado Realty Trust, which bought the 35-year-old mall in 2006, plans to convert the building from a traditional big box that is closed in over an assortment of shops and restaurants, into one that brings the outside in.
Shops will face outward. Large windows will bring more light inside. Meanwhile, outside will be dotted with courtyards and small parks connected by wide walking and biking trails.
Later plans also include 2,200 homes, 1.1 million square feet of office space, a new multi-screen movie theater and a 225-room hotel above 130,000-square-feet of retail space.
To top it off, the mall area will be given a new moniker: Springfield Town Center. Work could begin in earnest by next summer.
"It's comparable to Tysons," said Mark Looney, with Cooley Godward Kronish, the law firm representing Vornado, "in that you are taking something that is suburban development and making it urban."
"It's going to be a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week place. It's not going to be just a destination."
The process, though, will not be without growing pains. To make room to renovate the mall's interior, the owners have already begun letting numerous leases lapse. Currently, the mall has a vacancy rate of about 50 percent, giving the cavernous facility a feeling of a deserted town.
"The vacant stores are a sign of progress," promised Supervisor Jeff McKay (D-Lee), whose district includes the mall, adding more "national chain" stores will eventually populate the mall once it's refurbished.
McKay called Vornado's plans not only the "single-most-important" development project in Springfield, but in all of Fairfax, trumping, in his mind, the plans in works at Tysons Corner.
"People already want to go to Tysons," he said. "But Springfield Mall needs an immediate change. It can't wait 20 or 30 years. There is a sense of urgency with this mall."
For years, as McKay said, the mall has been constant source of complaints about its odd assortment of stores, poorly lit hallways that lead to nowhere and crime. McKay called the former owner's actions "criminal" for letting the mall deteriorate before Vornado took over.
The changes, he said, will not only revitalize an aging mall, but also help turn Springfield into another hub of business in the county.
"We can't put all of our eggs in Tysons and the Dulles Corridor," he said. "I expect Springfield to be a major employment center in Fairfax County, like a miniature version of Tysons."
Much like other residents, local business owner Bob Stockton welcomes the mall's makeover. With a new mall and a completed Springfield Interchange and its own Metro station, this barber shop owner said Springfield "is bound and determined" to blossom in growth just like Tysons.
"We have all the transportation Tysons wishes it has," he said. "Eventually, developers are going to realize that."
Talking for the local business community, Nancy-jo Manney, executive director of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, hopes a redeveloped mall will spur changes throughout Springfield.
Like Stockton, she said while Tysons has grabbed headlines in its effort to transform itself, Springfield is already ripe to become a thriving urban community.
"There is a little of 'Hey, notice us. We need the attention that brings the money,'" she said. "I think Tysons gets the attention because it is trying to get Metro. We have a station, but I guess that is old news."