For more than a decade, one of the most prominent corners in Tysons has sat empty — a ghostly reminder of what was supposed to be. The old Best Western Hotel came down in 2016. The cranes never came. In its place, a whimsical pop-up book park called Tysons Tales filled the void with oversized lawn chairs and Little Free Libraries, charming enough, but always meant to be temporary.
That wait may finally be over. On April 30th, Dittmar Company — the Vienna-based developer behind dozens of Northern Virginia’s most recognized apartment communities — submitted a sweeping new rezoning application to Fairfax County, pitching a revised vision for Westpark Plaza that its attorneys describe as more flexible, more feasible, and more likely to actually rise from the ground.Rendering of the proposed Westpark Plaza development at Leesburg Pike and Westpark Drive in Tysons.
The Project
The approximately 5.2-acre site sits at the corner of Westpark Drive and Route 7 (Leesburg Pike), just south of The Boro. What Dittmar is now proposing is a project of real scale: four buildings — two residential towers with ground-floor retail, one residential-only building, and a 300-room hotel soaring 19 stories into the Tysons skyline. The residential towers would reach 32 to 33 stories, collectively delivering up to 1,681 homes.
Why Now? The Old Plan Didn’t Work
The original 2014 approval tied the three buildings together with physical connectors, creating an inter-dependent design that Dittmar ultimately concluded was “not economically viable nor buildable.” You couldn’t build one piece without all the others being ready simultaneously — a financial and logistical trap that kept shovels out of the ground for years.
The new plan strips out those connectors entirely. Each of the four buildings — its parking included — can now be constructed and operated independently. The hotel can even be relocated within the property to respond to future market conditions. Dittmar has engineered maximum flexibility into the redesign, allowing them to break ground on whichever piece makes the most economic sense first, then follow the market from there…