Tysons Corner, also known as just Tysons, is a community in Fairfax County, Virginia and is located in Northern Virginia between McLean and Vienna along the Capital Beltway. Tysons Corner lies within the Washington Metropolitan Area and is home to two super-regional shopping malls which are the Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria. It is also home to the corporate headquarters of numerous companies and is Fairfax’s central business district and regional commercial center.
Tysons Corner was initially known as Peach Grove and received the designation Tysons Crossroads after the Civil War when William Tyson, a Maryland native, purchased a tract of land from A. Lawrence Foster, who served as a Fairfax County Commissioner at the time. In 1851, the Peach Grove Post Office was established, and William Tyson served as the postmaster from 1854 until 1866.
During the 1950s, Tysons Corner was a quiet, rural intersection with a few small stores and a fruit stand operated by William Tyson himself. Some of the most significant changes came in 1963 when the Tysons area evolved from crossroads in the country to a giant commercial urban area at the interchange of Routes 7 and 123. In 1962, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the plan for the Tysons Corner Shopping Center, now known as Tysons Corner Center. When the mall first opened in July of 1968, the developers proclaimed it as the largest enclosed mall in the world.
Recent years have brought an influx of technology companies into Northern Virginia as well as new office buildings and hotels. The rapid growth of Tysons Corner has been the topic of several studies and one factor is considered to be the aggressive promotion of the area by Earle Williams, CEO of the firm Braddock Dunn & McDonald. Now Tysons Corner serves as a “downtown” area of Fairfax County consisting of a quarter of all office space and an eighth of all retail in the county.
Tysons Corner has some of the best shopping that can be found on the East Coast of the United States and has a great variety of fine dining and an assortment of hotels. While Tysons Corner is a wonderful destination for leisure travelers from all over the world, it is also a favorite for business meeting planners because of its abundant hotels and meeting venues. Tysons Corner also has easy access to some of the best attractions in Fairfax County and other parts of the Capital Region through road and railway.
Currently, Tysons Corner is known as an “edge city” which is an area that has a high concentration of business, shopping, and entertainment in what had previously been a rural or residential area. People generally commute to Tysons during the day and away from it during the night, leading to a daytime population over 100,000 and a nighttime population of fewer than 20,000. By 2050 Fairfax County plans to transform Tysons into a sustainable urban center that will be home to up to 100,000 residents and contain around 200,000 jobs. The vision is for Tysons to become a 24-hour urban center where people not only live, learn, and work, but also when they are engaged with their surroundings and can enjoy a variety of attractions.