Northern Virginia Development News

[babybackribs2314]

Originally Posted by Archiconnoisseur

Commercial airliners came into being well after all of Manhattan had become urbanized. There's no way a modern commercial airport could've been built on Manhattan island anytime after the early 18th century. By 1830, Manhattan already had a population density greater than that of the District of Columbia today. By 1925, a full 27 years before the first commercial jet airliner was developed, New York had become the most populous city in the world.

National Airport was built when Arlington had a population density of roughly 2,200 people per square mile. Manhattan's population density at the time was a whopping 85,909 people per square mile.

Even today, I doubt that the DC metro as a whole has a population density high enough to necessitate the construction of significantly taller high rises. All of Arlington's urban villages have ample room for lateral growth and densification, and many of their current buildings are old enough to merit demolition and replacement with taller structures (e.g., River Place in Rosslyn).

DC-Baltimore is the fourth largest metro area in the country (8.2 million... I believe DC alone is around 6, similar to Philly). Philly has several buildings in the 900-1000' range, which I would guess would be the upwards limit for anywhere in the DC area at this time (not that it's likely by any means, but if Tysons in 15 years is anywhere near what they're projecting, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few 500'+ buildings planned/under construction).

[marc1969]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

DC-Baltimore is the fourth largest metro area in the country (8.2 million... I believe DC alone is around 6, similar to Philly). Philly has several buildings in the 900-1000' range, which I would guess would be the upwards limit for anywhere in the DC area at this time (not that it's likely by any means, but if Tysons in 15 years is anywhere near what they're projecting, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few 500'+ buildings planned/under construction).

Baltimore Metro: 2,658,405
DC Metro: 5,290,000
Combined metros: 8.2 M (although this includes a county in WV)

Baltimore City: 631,336
DC: 581,530

Sorry, I just happened to be looking at an article about this when I saw this post.

[Archiconnoisseur]

Originally Posted by babybackribs2314

DC-Baltimore is the fourth largest metro area in the country (8.2 million... I believe DC alone is around 6, similar to Philly). Philly has several buildings in the 900-1000' range, which I would guess would be the upwards limit for anywhere in the DC area at this time (not that it's likely by any means, but if Tysons in 15 years is anywhere near what they're projecting, it wouldn't surprise me if there were a few 500'+ buildings planned/under construction).

Population and population density are two different things. DC's population density is only about as high as Manhattan's back in 1820, and this number is shrinking. Besides, District height restrictions make the possibility of high rises here moot.

Outside of DC proper sprawl rules. The Metro plus the Beltway have led to the rise of edge cities that distribute density in a vast ring around the District. It's tough for any point on that ring to achieve the critical density necessary to create a true skyscraper mecca. If land prices rise at one point, then developers can simply move shop to another; employees have proven more than willing to commute between edge cities. Without geographic barriers, developers have no incentive to build expensive high rises along the Beltway; moreover, companies such as Lockheed Martin and IBM aren't going to lease space in them when they can dot the suburbs with sprawling low-rise corporate campuses.

If skyscrapers are destined to be anywhere within the city, then it's Rosslyn due to its restrictive geography (bounded by the Potomac and Arlington National Cemetery) and proximity to Downtown. Alas, Reagan National limits the theoretical height of skyscrapers in that area.

[Silicon Francisco]

New City Envisioned In Tysons
The New Tysons Corner could have 200,000 jobs and 100,000 residents.
February 19, 2008


As the Tysons Corner Land Use Task Force hones its proposals, a new city is emerging home to 100,000 people, drawn together by "connector" buses or trolleys, with some 200,000 jobs, built around four transportation stops.
The task force heard briefings last week on Monday night from professional planners and members of its own committees on different prototypes for the city that would emerge after the Dulles Corridor Rail project is completed. Despite anxiety over whether the federal government will provide $1.5 billion in loans and grants for building the rail, the task force continues its work under the pressure that unless the area redesigns itself it will be eclipsed as an important economic center by locations in Northern Virginia.

"Tysons is in decline," Clark Tyler, chairman of the Tysons Land Use Task Force said.

At the close of 2006, Tysons Corner had 44 million square feet of space, 16,000 residents, 107,000 jobs and perhaps the worst traffic congestion in the region. Several other areas of Northern Virginia like Reston’s Town Center are rivaling Tysons as a place to invest and build.

The planners are working through differing ideas.

They considered initially what would happen if the area just grew — "the base" — which would create some 72 million square feet of space, have 32,500 residents and 161,500 jobs and continue to have the worse traffic congestion,

The planners are framing two "prototypes," which later this month will be honed into proposals and later, perhaps in May, one of those proposals will be presented to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors as suggested changes in the Comprehensive Plan to build the city around the expected four stations of the Dulles Rail.

There are key objectives in this planning. One is to drastically cut the numbers of automobiles that are moving through the 1,800-acre area. Task Force Chairman Clark Tyler said there is now 14,500,000 square feet of open parking and parking garages with another 58,000 parking spaces.
"Surface parking would go away," as this new city emerges said Tyler.
The circulators — buses or trolleys — running on dedicated streets would move continually around the town allowing residents and workers to move throughout the area without moving their cars. High residential densities would be built near the four transit locations so that people who wanted to work at Dulles International Airport or Alexandria or Washington, would be able to walk to the Metro and walk home.

The assumptions are based upon research conducted over the last year.
<1b>— Nicholas M. Horrock

Wow, 72 million square feet of office space! In comparison, Charlotte will have about 18 million by the end of the decade.

[Silicon Francisco]

Originally Posted by evangelistik

The entire Dulles area in itself should have multiple threads dedicated to it. This place is still growing at an extreme pace.

Nobody that actually lives in NoVA seems to give a damn (about anything!) I'm interested in development in the area, but not enough to seek anything out other than what I find in the general news.

Northern Va. company gets $170 million NASA contract

WASHINGTON - In a boost for Virginia's commercial space business, NASA awarded a contract Tuesday for a Northern Virginia company to develop a cargo delivery system for the International Space Station that will include launches from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on the Eastern Shore.

Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles won a three-year, $170 million contract to develop a new spacecraft to deliver cargo. Orbital will contribute $150 million to the joint program, which includes funding to develop its planned Taurus II rocket.

The program, called the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services project, is designed to provide NASA with an American-produced and operated cargo delivery system for the International Space Station when NASA's space shuttle is retired and the agency focuses on reviving manned missions to the moon.

Orbital said it plans to use the Wallops facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore to launch its spacecraft after development and testing is completed.

A demonstration mission is scheduled for late 2010, according to a company statement. If successful, Orbital could then carry out operational missions in 2011 and conduct up to eight cargo flights to the space station a year by 2013.

[NovaWolverine]

Business
Two Va. firms win battle for $4.6B linguistics deal

Whitney Blake, The Examiner
2008-02-20 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 183 of 6,300
WASHINGTON -

Falls Church’s DynCorp International and Springfield’s McNeil Technologies Inc. have won a $4.6 billion contract from the U.S. Intelligence and Security Command to provide interpretation and translation services to the Army and other agencies working in Iraq.

The two companies will hire up to 7,000 people for the work. Most of the employees will be stationed in Iraq, according to DynCorp spokesman Douglas Ebner. A maximum of 6,000 translators will be locally hired from Iraq, and up to 1,000 will be U.S. citizens with security clearances.

“We think we’re offering a solid proposal,” Ebner said, and “we’re definitely competent and capable of meeting the contract requirements.”

DynCorp and McNeil Technologies, who have not worked together previously, formed a consortium, Global Linguistics Solutions, to bid for the contract.

DynCorp is the managing partner in GLS with a 51 percent stake. DynCorp specializes in logistics support and mission-critical services, while McNeil Technologies is known for recruiting and deploying linguists.

The five-year contract originally was awarded to the two companies in December 2006 but faced protests twice from L-3 Communications, which had acquired the previous Army linguistics contractor, Titan Corp., in 2005.

The General Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, sustained the first protest, GLS submitted a revised proposal, and the U.S. Army Inscom awarded the contract again to GLS in December. After a second protest from L-3 Communications, the Army re-evaluated the proposals and chose GLS late last week.

wblake@dcexaminer.com
Examiner

[NovaWolverine]

Business
ICO to launch satellite in April

Melissa Frederick, The Examiner
2008-02-21 08:00:00.0
Current rank: # 1,683 of 6,300
WASHINGTON -

ICO Global Communications will launch its next-generation satellite April 14, the Reston company said Tuesday.

The ICO G-1 satellite, which will be launched by Bethesda’s Lockheed Martin, will allow the company to offer a new data service that the firm is calling ICO mim, or mobile interactive media.

The project will use satellites to transmit video, navigation and emergency assistance information to mobile devices, targeting customers such as families traveling by car who want entertainment programming, executives said.

ICO has invested $450 million to $500 million in the new program, Chief Executive Tim Bryan said during a teleconference Tuesday; the firm just spent $44 million to get the satellite insured.

The company’s long-term strategy is to focus on the ICO mim service, while looking at other opportunities as they come along, Chairman Craig McCaw said during the conference.

“We want to de-risk the business as much as possible without spending unnecessary money that we might want in the future,” he said.

The ICO mim service will be offered commercially in early 2009, Bryan said.

The firm is looking to find more partners that will offer content; it already has partnered with NBC Universal to offer television content.

McCaw is also the founder of Clearwire, which had been working with Reston telecommunications company Sprint Nextel on a different high-speed data service known as WiMax until the agreement was terminated in November.

A recent article on TheStreet.com said the companies may be reconsidering a partnership.

The line between companies like ICO and Sprint Nextel is becoming more blurry, analysts have said.

“The mobile satellite market is converging with the wireless and terrestrial world in many ways to offer new products that integrate [cellular], GPS and ... capabilities for voice, data and video products,” said a recent report by Northern Sky Research, which follows ICO. “NSR believes that the MSS industry will see consolidation in the next few years.”

melissa.frederick@dcexaminer.com
Examiner

[NovaWolverine]

Don't have a subscription to Washington Business Journal, so I will cut and paste blurbs of stories.

Friday, February 22, 2008
Rosslyn on the rise
Washington Business Journal

Rosslyn is growing up. New skyscrapers are sprouting up all over, bringing high-paying jobs and wealthy residents to the Arlington County submarket on the Potomac River.

So we couldn't help but wonder: Given all the money to be had, when will Rosslyn get better restaurants and places to grab an Amstel Light after work?

Two new high-rise projects -- JBG's Central Place and Monday Properties' 1812 N. Moore St. -- will be required to have plenty of public amenities, but construction won't start till mid-year at best. Neither has office tenants lined up.

That won't quench the leading edge of Rosslyn's redevelopment, which is already here: Waterview has attracted lofty homeowners, wealthy tourists and more than 3,000 well- heeled Corporate Executive Board employees. Just up Clarendon Boulevard, Abdo Development's Mercer and Wooster lofts are selling to wealthy, hip homeowners. More is on tap. Turnberry Tower will deliver in 2009 with nearly 250 units priced for thick-walleted types. By all accounts, the tony condos are selling well, even in this down market.


Friday, February 22, 2008
Fixing Dulles International Airport
Jets were supposed to revolutionize airports, but the first airport of the future turned out to be a bust. So why did it take so long to change the way the region's largest airport operates?
Washington Business Journal - by Douglas Fruehling

Dulles International Airport debuted in 1962 as the first commercial airport designed entirely for the jet age, a miracle of modern engineering and the gold standard for the future of travel. Ah, the irony.

Just a few years after Dulles opened, the aviation world left the airport behind. Despite a glorious main terminal that douses travelers with light, the airport became a bygone blunder ridiculed and reviled by passengers accustomed to more efficient airports. It suffered like so many pioneers before and after it: Zeppelin airships, Beta recorders, Prodigy online service.

Dulles wasn't exactly left for dead, but it did languish for years as the region's airport of last resort. It wasn't until the 1980s and '90s that airport officials began to do something about it, embarking on major capital improvements to modernize the airport. The most recent project -- dubbed the D2 program -- aims to fix problems created by Dulles' original design. In many ways, Dulles will be a whole new airport when the most visible aspects of the multibillion-dollar project are completed sometime next year.

"Our predecessors got a lot of things right," says Jim Bennett, president and CEO of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which operates Dulles and Reagan National. "But they missed some things."


Friday, February 22, 2008
Is doom and gloom on N. Virginia's horizon?
Washington Business Journal

Which of the following is guaranteed to happen this spring? A) The Nationals win their home opener; B) The cherry blossoms peak during the National Cherry Blossom Festival; C) More than 3.5 million square feet of office space hits the Northern Virginia market.

The only sure bet is "C." The Northern Virginia building boom will peak in the second quarter with the arrival of 3.5 million square feet, nearly all of it outside the Beltway and nearly all of it unleased.

The deliveries come at a bad time for the market: National fears of recession are gripping local office users, and tenants are balking at leasing new space until after the fall election. Leasing forecasts from all the major brokerages note that net absorption slowed in the fourth quarter -- and hint at storm clouds ahead.

"Our demand is down, it's down in a major way," says Mark Larsen of Larsen Commercial Real Estate Services.

[NovaWolverine]

Monday, February 25, 2008 - 9:03 AM EST
Arlington County OKs plans for old Bob Peck Chevrolet
Washington Business Journal - by Joe Coombs Senior Staff Reporter

Arlington County has given final approval to the redevelopment of the old Bob Peck Chevrolet property in Ballston.

Chevy Chase-based The JBG Cos. will build a pair of office buildings with ground-floor retail space, 90 units of affordable housing and 28 market-rate townhouses at the corner of North Glebe Road and Wilson Boulevard. JBG will also contribute $5.9 million to the county's affordable housing fund as part of the plan.

"This project has it all," said Arlington County Board Chairman Walter Tejada, in a statement. "It adds to our stock of affordable housing in the Metro corridor. It replaces a car dealership with well-designed, environmentally-sustainable buildings that will offer first-class office space, ground-floor retail space and a mix of affordable and market-rate homes."

A four-story apartment building will replace the existing Jordan Manor, a 24-unit affordable housing complex at the site. Arlington-based AHC Inc., a non-profit affordable housing developer that owns Jordan Manor, will also own and manage the new affordable complex at JBG's site.

Jordan Manor residents will be relocated in the county through AHC's services, and will have first priority for units at the new building.

The rest of the site will include 28 townhouses along North Wakefield Street and two office buildings.

One office structure will rise 10 stories at the corner of Wilson and Glebe and have 282,989 square feet of space, with 26,292 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The other office building, a seven-story structure on Glebe Road, will have 132,827 square feet of space and 9,949 square feet of retail space. There will be a total of 933 underground parking spaces at the site, and they will also be available to the public for after-hours parking.

[NovaWolverine]

Falls Church Turns to the Future
Council Gets Ready To Vote on City Center Redevelopment Plan

By Kristen Mack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 25, 2008; B01


Falls Church, long considered the hallway between Baileys Crossroads and Tysons Corner, wants people to stop there instead of driving through.

This week, the city of 11,000 should find out whether that could happen. After public hearings tomorrow and Thursday, the Falls Church City Council will vote on an ambitious plan to remake its aging downtown, a goal of city leaders for nearly eight years.

Atlantic Realty, a Tysons-based developer known for such projects as Bethesda Corner, Plaza America in Reston and Ashbrook in Loudoun County, is proposing to tear up the city's center of vacant parking lots and buildings and replace them with an eight-story hotel, office buildings, apartments, a bowling alley and a Harris Teeter supermarket.

If approved, the $317 million project would be the biggest thing to happen to Falls Church since Metro extended the Orange Line there in 1986. In addition to attracting shoppers and diners from across the region, city officials say, they hope the revival of the downtown area will bring young professionals, first-time homeowners and empty nesters to buy condominiums, rent townhouses and establish roots in Falls Church.

Right now, Falls Church Mayor Robin S. Gardner says, the downtown is "not walker-friendly; there's no big open space. It's underutilized, and I don't consider it pleasant. There's nothing that would draw me here."

Falls Church's downtown, bisected by West Broad Street (Route 7), is not unlike other aging city centers that need rejuvenating. In recent years, Fairfax City, Herndon, Springfield, McLean and Annandale, among other places, have redone their downtown commercial areas or have been considering it.

One reason is to expand the commercial tax base to shift more of the burden from homeowners to businesses. Falls Church has one of the area's best school systems and has largely paid for that success through increases in the real estate tax rate and, until recently, higher residential assessments. The so-called City Center project would bring in almost $3 million a year in revenue once the project was complete.

The council voted last month to move Atlantic Realty's proposal forward but will take a final vote Thursday. If approved, construction could begin as early as summer if the developer and officials can resolve details about siting. The proposed schedule would take place in two phases, wrapping up by 2013, according to the developers.

For an investment by Falls Church of $6 million, City Center would add a million square feet of development to a four-block area near Broad and South Washington streets.

The proposal faces some uncertainty. No hotel chain has committed to the site, although developers have been talking to Marriott about putting a Residence Inn there. Harris Teeter has signed a letter of intent, not a contract.

Concerns about the project's financing led the Falls Church Planning Commission to recommend recently that the council reject it. Maureen Budetti, chair of the Planning Commission, said the panel also believed the downtown plan "felt rushed" and did not include the commission's involvement.

Budetti said the council is "pretty sold on the project. I don't know whether any of our specific concerns will be addressed."

"The council is going to have to reevaluate the project, especially in light of the planning commission's vote," said Nader Baroukh, a lawyer who lives in Winter Hill. "We want a city center, but this falls on its face. They have sold city land at garage-rate prices. The city has to have the stewardship to get the development it deserves."

Detractors have raised other questions. They say that the project's mix of 60 percent residential and 40 percent commercial development is unbalanced and that the project doesn't have enough parking, lacks access to transit and needs to include open space.

Jeff Peterson, president of the Village Preservation and Improvement Society, said the city is throwing in all the land it owns and buying additional land without getting a "public square or commons" in return.

"The height, mass and modern design elements of the proposed project all act to undermine the distinctive feel of Falls Church as a special place," he said, citing the architecture of the historic church that gave the city its name.

Adam B. Shulman, a partner at Atlantic, said: "This process has been long in the works. . . . It's not me coming in and saying, 'This is what you need.' It's us responding to what the city wants."

Added Gardner: "This is not our first go. We've had many iterations."

The uncertainty of the economy is another potential barrier. Some places that are hoping to rejuvenate their downtowns -- notably Herndon, Manassas Park and Springfield -- recently have scaled back projects or even killed them because of the real estate market slowdown and its drain on local government revenue. Falls Church's budget for the coming fiscal year will show a drop in revenue mainly because of the housing market slump.

City Manager Wyatt Shields said the housing troubles would not hurt the City Center plan because the city has not seen a marked slowdown in private investment.

"There may be several reasons for this: Confidence in the long-term strength of the Washington area economy is certainly one reason," he said. "But there are local factors specific to the city as well, such as our great location and our strong schools. Falls Church is a great place to live and work, and the market for high-quality mixed-use development here remains healthy."

On Thursday, Gardner said, the council will take the planning commission's recommendation into account. But she said she believes the timing is right for City Center.

"We are at a major crossroads, and this will determine where we are going," she said. "This is the right project for now."


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[NovaWolverine]

Stefan Jacoby launches Volkswagen Group of America's Potomac strategy
Washington Business Journal - by Mike Mills Editor
Joanne S. Lawton
View Larger

Volkswagen AG's U.S. operation has long been the German automaker's contrarian, troubled child. Though the parent company is the world's fourth-largest automaker, and the largest in Europe, its U.S. group commands only a 2 percent share of the domestic market -- down from the 7 percent share it enjoyed during its 1970s heyday with the VW Beetle. While the global company anticipates 2007 profits of $7.5 billion, it operates at a loss here in the states.

Reversing course, at a time when the low value of the dollar punishes importers, will be no easy feat. But the company is embarking on a series of ambitious moves aimed at making the Volkswagen brand as popular as Toyota or Honda in the U.S. It will pare down its U.S. offerings to four core models, all retooled to better reflect what Americans are demanding -- and not demanding -- in their automobiles. Also, while U.S. rivals have been closing factories, Volkswagen plans to announce by June the location of a new plant it wants to build in the United States.

But its most visible move culminates in mid-April, when, after calling the Detroit area home for 30 years, Volkswagen Group of America transfers its corporate headquarters from Auburn Hills, Mich., to Herndon.

When Volkswagen arrives, the Washington region -- which recently suffered the departures of Sprint Nextel Corp. and AOL headquarters -- will find itself playing host to a global leader in the automobile industry, 400 new white-collar jobs, a new ultra-modern glass headquarters building off the Dulles Toll Road and a new CEO, Stefan Jacoby.

From his new Herndon headquarters, the 49-year-old Jacoby hopes to make real Volkswagen's goal to more than double U.S. auto sales to 1 million vehicles within 10 years. Part of that strategy includes recruiting about 200 new marketing, finance and business administration professionals for the group, which includes the VW, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini brands, as well as some financing units.

The recruiting effort has just begun. The company's Web site lists new Herndon-based jobs in, among other areas, market research, dealer communications, public relations and financial reporting and includes job titles like "auto show and events specialist," "vehicle order specialist" and "media and digital operations manager." A job fair is scheduled for March 6 at the Westin in Tysons Corner.

Volkswagen Group of America plans to spend $100 million moving into the new 185,000-square-foot headquarters, including tearing apart the interior of the six-story structure to add a central staircase that Jacoby hopes will encourage interaction up and down the various departments.

Jacoby has bought a home in Georgetown, meaning he will need an E-Z Pass to handle D.C.'s reverse commute.

Jacoby has frequently stated that the company is leaving the Midwest for the Washington region because more people here drive his company's iconic, sometimes quirky German-designed cars. Yet he has also said VW's new mission will be to design and build cars that better respond to what average Americans -- like those in the Midwest -- say they want to buy.

Jacoby doesn't see a contradiction. "It is essential for us to be close to our customers," he said. "It's also important for finding the talented people working for this company."

What follows is a transcript, condensed and edited, of a Feb. 6 interview with Jacoby at Volkswagen's soon-to-be-former headquarters in Auburn Hills. In it, Jacoby discusses the decision to move to Herndon, the hiring process and his company's growth strategy -- as well as his views on the Dulles Metrorail extension and whether Volkswagen can get bigger without getting boring.
VW's latest import

In less than two months, Stefan Jacoby will join the ranks of CEOs heading major companies in the Washington region.

A thumbnail resume:
Age: 49
Hometown: Hanover, Germany
Degree: MBA, University of Cologne, 1985
1985-1997: Positions in controlling, sales and marketing departments, including stints in Detroit and Tokyo
1997-2001: Expanded VW joint ventures in China
2001-2004: Left VW to become president and CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Europe
2004: Returned to VW as general representative of marketing and sales
2007: Named president and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America
Willkommen: Jacoby on VW's new headquarters, new hires and (he hopes) new profitability

Why is it so important where Volkswagen Group of America is located in the U.S.? It's important because, for a marketing and sales operation, it is essential for us to be close to our customers. It's also important for finding the talented people working for this company. And it's important having an international airport hub with a close connection to our head offices in Germany, and also having a hub flying to the various regional offices we have in the states here.

How are the relocations and hirings going? We've had a very proactive and interactive process ... a very fair process for the people who will remain here in Auburn Hills, who will leave the company and the people who we invited to Washington. We have identified the people we want to have in Greater Washington, and these employees have decided. They have a very attractive moving package as well. We are moving with approximately 120 people. That means we have to recruit approximately 200 people now within the next weeks and months, and then of course achieving on our promise of running the company in Virginia with around 400 people. And over the next few years we will recruit further.

Was there an economic component to people deciding whether to come, with the housing market being so bad in the Detroit area and so expensive in Northern Virginia? Well that's true. We have to face the reality that if you move to any other attractive place it will be more expensive with respect to housing and cost of living than here in Michigan. We take that into notice, and we put this into our financial [relocation assistance] package.

The unemployment rate in the Washington region is much lower than in Michigan. Won't it be more competitive filling positions? We want to be in a competitive environment because we think we are competitive. We are an attractive employer. We're offering employees a very good working environment, of course a good salary, good fringe benefits and an international atmosphere. And what I think is important as well is that we're offering career opportunities. It is my strong intention with this team to let people within two to three years to rotate not only within our Virginia office but also toward our regions, for example, or toward our head office or other international sites. Volkswagen is an international player, a global player, and there are a lot of opportunities.

Was the decision to relocate to Northern Virginia related to your upcoming decision on where to locate a new U.S. manufacturing plant? The decision for Herndon was independent of the decision we will make in the near future concerning a production location. [For the plant] we would prefer to have six to seven hours time difference to Europe. Infrastructure, in the respect of letting people fly to Herndon and then from Dulles to Europe, that's an important point as well.

Have Gov. Kaine or other Virginia officials been in touch, pitching Virginia as a location for the plant? Oh yeah, we have a lot of contacts, not only with Virginia representatives, but with many other states. We have a very fair process. Everybody is invited; we make that very transparent. We look very carefully. And we take the engagement of the politicians into our consideration.

Why build a plant in the U.S. when American car companies are moving plants elsewhere? Well, they, as well as our Japanese and Korean competitors, already have plants here. And we have a plant in Mexico. And there are very important economic reasons. It means being independent from the euro-U.S. dollar exchange rate developments, which is of course one of the major driving factors for this decision. But there are other factors as well. And I would summarize them as: being close to the market, understanding the market requirements. This is where we have to learn from our competitors. This is where we have deficits. If we have a plant that is dedicated to the market and what we can offer with our product range, our availability and our supply, we can act more quickly to respond to market demands.

You hope to sell 1 million vehicles per year within 10 years, instead of 328,000 annually today. How? I want to bring Volkswagen to where it belongs. Volkswagen is a volume player. We are not a niche brand. We pushed ourselves here a little bit too much into niches. We don't want to be like Toyota, and we don't want to be like Honda. We want to be Volkswagen. And Volkswagen is good for 800,000 vehicles. That's approximately 5 percent market share. We have the potential. It's an icon brand, it's a high-value brand here. We want on top of that to develop Audi as a brand with premium recognition like other brands, especially Mercedes and BMW. We're making great progress with Audi. Audi is great in this market. We sold last year 93,000 vehicles. I think it's a realistic objective for Audi to double the volume to 200,000 vehicles by the year 2018.

What do you mean when you say you want to bring Volkswagen cars more in line with what Americans want? It means the products, their specifications and sizes have to be changed, as well as the price position of the cars. It does not mean I want to decrease prices. It means that we have to offer different contents, which better fit into this market. I'm misquoted quite a lot saying Jacoby wants to decrease prices here. It's not about decreasing prices. It's about offering a product that fits into market demand here in the United States. So we need different specifications. There are things in Europe that people want that American consumers don't need and don't want. And there are other things and specifications in a car that American customers pay more attention to than European customers. So this we have to learn. And we are in a good position to offer these kinds of American tailor-made products. With the two [new models] we are planning for the market, starting from 2010, they will be bigger than today's Jetta and Passat, and in respect of the product contents they are less European and more American. But, and very importantly, without losing the strong characters of Volkswagen. We will not just only adapt ourselves to our American or Japanese competitors. We will always remain a Volkswagen. By having this strategy, it doesn't mean that we get boring. We will always be a little bit different.

Does it concern you at all that the Metrorail extension to Dulles might not get built? It would be a pity if that doesn't happen. I know that traffic is very dense. Northern Virginia is an attractive location for companies like us, but also for American companies. One part of its attractiveness is the infrastructure. A railway from Washington to Dulles airport would be very, very positive. As a foreigner I'm surprised how much less public transportation this country has. I lived in Japan. The whole country lives on public transportation. It's very convenient to commute from the airport to Tokyo, which is 50 miles. It's a one-hour ride. It's a fast train. It's perfect.

Do you intend to be active in the Greater Washington business community? Volkswagen never really was in Detroit. I hope I will find time for that, yes. Of course, my focus has to be my business here and turning this business around. We are a turnaround company, and we have to manage today's situation. We are not profitable. We want to turn this business into profitability. But that doesn't mean we don't want to be a good citizen in the Greater Washington area and Northern Virginia. And we will select carefully where we will have engagement and where I personally also will have engagement.

How will your new building foster creativity? One of things I have noticed here [in Auburn Hills] is that people are not really communicating. In our business, communication, transparency, exchange of information, quick decisions and getting agreements from different departments from different people are most important. So we came up with the idea of building a big stairway so people are not sitting in their silos, on their floors. And that will be kind of a central communication area where we will also display information and show new product. So it's a very modern building. It's fresh, it's open, it offers a very good working environment. We very carefully selected the furniture, very modern, very state of the art, very comfortable. All the chairs are from Germany, first-class chairs for everybody. It will be stunning.
Job shop

The Washington region knows how to supply jobs for politicians, tech startups, defense contractors and countless other livelihoods. But the auto industry? Below are some Herndon job descriptions from VW's recruiting Web site (www.vwgroupofamericacareers.futurestep.com.
CRM analyst "Responsible for the integrated marketing process of retaining qualified Audi owners and sourcing qualified Audi prospects via various resources, and driving them to visit showrooms, dealer events, corporate/partner events, test drivers, and ultimately to purchase an Audi."
Customer loyalty manager "The primary objective is to define the customer strategy and implement initiatives and processes to increase loyalty."
Digital operations specialist "Determine overall interactive marketing infrastructure, managing key internal and external partners with respect to website hosting, key functionality and ongoing metrics. Manage dealer, dealer association & corporate websites."
Autoshow and events specialist "Design and approve floor plans for Canadian and select U.S. national auto shows as well as all rental auto shows."
Manager, real estate lending "The role will lead the Real Estate Lending Team including loan origination, construction loan management, and portfolio management."
Enthusiast/motorsports manager "Responsible for three key areas within the Experiential Marketing area: Motorsports hospitality management, Audi Driving Experience management, and liaison to Audi Club North America."
Vechicle order specialist "Ensure European and Mexican factories production constraints are reconciled with dealer orders and sequenced and released accordingly.

E-mail: mmills@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/258-0820


All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.

[NovaWolverine]

Tysons Corner Presentation

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

Another one

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

[babybackribs2314]

Originally Posted by NovaWolverine

Tysons Corner Presentation

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

Another one

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

WOW!

Check out the images of Tysons on page II. The second on the right looks like a render of Tysons II built out; it's incredible. It's obviously still preliminary, but it looks like there's several buildings in the 500'+ range with one building at least twice the height of the Ritz. Hopefully it works out.

[brightside.]

Originally Posted by NovaWolverine

Tysons Corner Presentation

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

Another one

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

Nice. I like the idea of circulators.

[NovaWolverine]

I do too, in fact, whether streetcar or bus, we need need a robust circulator system in a place like Tysons for what it's aspiring to be.

[Silver Springer]

This is really big! I'm surprised this wasn't posted, next to Lockheed Martin, Sprint-Nextel was the largest private/publicly traded firm in the region and the largest in Virginia (I refuse to count Fannie Mae). They recently had a huge loss, they were a terrible company anyways.

Sprint Decides Kansas Is Home
Era Ends With Loss Of Reston Base

By Cecilia Kang and Zachary A. Goldfarb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 14, 2008; Page D01


Part of the old Nextel headquarters in Reston. In the heady days after the 2005 Sprint Nextel merger, parking lots were stuffed by breakfast time. (By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)

When Sprint and Nextel announced their merger in 2005, it was touted as a union of equals. Both corporate campuses would be maintained, with top executives based in Reston and most operations in Overland Park, Kan.

That split-campus decision, made to appease employees who didn't want to move from either location, hindered the integration of company cultures and technologies. Meanwhile, the stock declined more than 40 percent in the past year and the company lost about 1 million subscribers to competitors.

Yesterday, chief executive Dan Hesse announced that Sprint Nextel would move its corporate headquarters from Reston to Overland Park in his latest bold shake-up. It comes weeks after the ouster of three top executives and an announcement of 4,000 layoffs -- and just months after AOL's decision to transfer its headquarters to New York.

Some say the move marks an end of an era in the region's telecommunications industry, following the sale of homegrown telecom giant MCI.

"It's a blow for the area to be a telecom hub and center of gravity," said Daniel Akerson, former chief executive of Nextel and a managing director at private-equity group Carlyle.

But, Akerson added, "there's still a lot of resonant entrepreneurs that were spun out of all of those companies that will persist and maybe there will be a new AOL or new Nextel."

Sprint didn't disclose how many of its 4,400 Washington area employees would be affected by the relocation but did say a small number of senior leaders would move to Overland Park. Hesse said Sprint would reduce the number of office buildings it occupies in Reston to seven from nine. It was already offering voluntary retirement packages to Washington employees.

"The two cultures never really came together, and the company never really took advantage of elements of both cultures as one," Hesse said in an interview yesterday. "What I want to do now is bring them both together."

Hesse said consolidating headquarters will help executives focus on improving operations, bringing back customers who have gone to competitors, and focusing on projects like building a new high-speed network. The change will also reduce travel costs, with Hesse and some other executives traveling between the two campuses at least once a week.

Because the company's greatest concentration of employees was in Overland Park, where Sprint got its start more than a century ago as a local wire-line and then long-distance phone operator, Hesse said it made sense to choose the Kansas location over the Washington area.

Hesse took over the company in December after the ouster of Gary Forsee, who in 2005 was the region's fourth-highest-paid executive. Forsee left under pressure from unhappy investors, who saw the merger with Nextel as a disaster and sought dramatic change for the company.

The board's choice of Hesse -- who came from the local phone spinoff of Sprint, called Embarq -- surprised some because he was an insider. Within weeks of his arrival, he replaced Sprint's chief financial officer, chief marketing officer and president of sales and distribution. The company has also said it may write off as much as $31 billion related to the merger.

Earlier this week, it appointed Ralph Whitworth, an activist shareholder who has pushed for sweeping changes at Sprint and other distressed companies, to its board.

"This is long overdue. It's actually shocking how long they've gone with dueling headquarters," said Michael Nelson, an analyst at Stanford Group.

Shares of Sprint rose 1.4 percent yesterday, to close at $10.14 a share.

Nelson said that when the companies merged, Wall Street was enthusiastic about the prospects of Sprint's buttoned-down executive ranks combining with Nextel's scrappy background as an entrepreneurial start-up that built a wireless network out of taxi-cab radios. The companies originally promised $14.5 billion in savings through this year because of the merger.

Sprint's location to Reston was initially a boon to the local high-tech industry, adding credence to the area's foothold as a national high-tech hub featuring giants like AOL and MCI.

Former employees recall that in the early days after the merger, excitement was high and the employee parking lots in Reston were packed by 7:30 a.m.

But there were clear rifts between managers from each company, some of whom had to compete against one another for their jobs. Forsee's formal style didn't resonate with former Nextel chief Tim Donahue's casual approach, some employees said.

The company hired consultants and created committees in an unsuccessful attempt to meld the two cultures. By 2006, former employees said, poor morale took its toll, and the parking lots remained empty until mid-morning.

Staff writer Kim Hart contributed to this report.

[Eerik]

Originally Posted by NovaWolverine

Tysons Corner Presentation

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

Another one

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/tys...s_02112008.pdf

I decided to stop by my least favorite shopping venue the other night: Tysons Corner Mall. It was the same-old, same-old: very little parking and tons of people.

While walking toward Bloomingdale’s (first floor) they have a large model crafted out of wood, depicting the build out scheme with the towers and new development. Pretty impressive…both the representation and the scheme.

Leaving the mall, looking at all the parked cars, I can’t fathom how they intend to squeeze all that program into so little space. While Tysons Mall has ample parking (minus weekends and the Christmas shopping season) it is not typical of other suburban malls that are surrounded by a sea of parking lots. As is, there is very little surface parking at Tysons; most of it is crammed into multistory garages.

Nonetheless, Metro or no Metro, Tysons is on the verge of major changes…

[mr. Va]

I, for one, am glad that Sprint is moving out. I work for Verizon Wireless and I'm glad that Virginia is getting rid of that poorly functioning nonsense.
Let Sprint fail in Kansas. It makes room for better companies in Virginia, like Volkswagen-Audi, moving into the plaza next door.

[mr. Va]

We need smaller sub-topics. I'm Glad to say that Reston TC has a new tower crane in its already massive 1/2 mile wide skyline of office towers! I think it is for the JW Marriott. I'd like to talk about how Reston is comming allong, because I remember 10 years ago when looking west from the Reo Grande Cafe, one would see car parks. For acres. Now you can't see further than across the street as the view is blocked by the new glass Rolls Royce buildings. (And sprawling city clocks behind that.) It is really comming together nicely. In 15 years, those lands have gone from farms to 1/2 mile long canyons of 25 storie office towers of class A offices, upscale retail and dining, and $7,000,000 penthouse condos with unbeatable views. Only in the D.C. area. ..Only in Northern Virginia.

[southbalto]

caps bringing it back home....discuss...