The Boro, an 18-acre, eight-building office, multifamily and retail mega-project in the pipeline for Tysons, has a new partner. The Meridian Group bought the land where SAIC's HQ sits in 2013 and, when it's fully built, will develop about 2M SF of office space, more than 2,300 residential units and up to 266k SF of retail, including a flagship, 70k SF Whole Foods and a Showplace luxury movie theater. To lead the retail and residential development, Meridian has enlisted Kettler, one of the biggest multifamily developers in the region, to do what it does best: build residential.

"It was quite an easy decision" to bring Bob Kettler, snapped this winter, into the project, Meridian president David Cheek says. Kettler was at the top of a short list of residential developers Meridian looked at. The project is going through the approval process with Fairfax County now, with a projected approval in October. If all goes well, groundbreaking would come in 2016 and Phase 1, which includes 750 units (124 of which are condos), the Whole Foods and movie theater and 400k SF spec office tower, will deliver in 2018.