Walk out the back gate of Westwood Village this week and you'll pass a construction crew putting the finishing touches on a slime playground. Walk out the front gate onto Route 7 and you'll sit in the same traffic pattern that's been there since before the mall added a fourth level of restaurants. Both are true at once, and that gap between the two speeds says more about life here than either fact does on its own.
Tysons Corner Center reinvents itself roughly every quarter. The road outside it is on a schedule measured in presidential terms. If you live in Westwood Village, you're close enough to feel both.
The lineup already changed twice this year
Hershey Super Sweet Adventure opened at the mall on April 24 with a ticketed workshop and a retail shop built around Kisses, Reese's, Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers. It closed on Labor Day, September 7, after a run of a little over four months. That's not a long tenant history. It's barely a season.
What replaces it is already lined up. CAMP unveiled a Bluey-themed interactive experience called Bluey's House on September 4, running through September 20. The Sloomoo Institute, a slime-based play space, is scheduled to open September 19 on Level 1. Neither is waiting for Hershey's space to sit empty for long.
That's the pattern for 2026. Level99, a 40,000-square-foot social gaming concept with more than 50 physical and mental challenges built around Victory Brewing, opened on Level 2 earlier this year. Under Armour Sports House held its grand opening March 26 through 29. Edikted, a fashion retailer, and Chip City, a dessert shop, both landed on Level 2 in the same stretch. None of these existed at Tysons Corner Center two years ago.
The bigger moves are still ahead. Maggiano's Little Italy is listed as coming soon on Level 1, relocating from its longtime spot at Tysons Galleria, which it vacated back in August 2025 ahead of the move. And in July 2026, Eataly confirmed it will open its first Washington-area location in the space vacated by American Girl in January 2026, though that one is a longer runway: the Italian food hall isn't expected to open until sometime in 2027.
Here's the same information laid out by how fast it actually moved:
| Tenant | Status | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Hershey Super Sweet Adventure | Opened and closed | April 24 to September 7, 2026 |
| Under Armour Sports House | Grand opening | March 26-29, 2026 |
| CAMP's Bluey's House | Limited run | September 4-20, 2026 |
| Sloomoo Institute | Opening | September 19, 2026 |
| Maggiano's Little Italy | Relocating from Tysons Galleria | Coming soon, no date set |
| Eataly | New to the region | Targeted for 2027 |
Five of six rows moved or will move inside a single calendar year. The mall's own redevelopment page puts it plainly: more day-to-night dining, more towers, more reasons to be there, with new East End shops and restaurants still to be announced. It reads less like a shopping center and more like a district that hasn't decided what it wants to be yet, and keeps testing.
None of that touches the six lanes outside your gate
Westwood Village sits a few short blocks from Spring Hill Metro station and less than a mile from the Dulles Toll Road and I-495, tucked behind the Tysons West development at Leesburg Pike and Westwood Center Drive. That stretch of Leesburg Pike, also known as Route 7, carries an average of 76,000 vehicles a day between Route 123 and the Beltway, according to VDOT's own figures. It's one of the busiest corridors in Northern Virginia, and it hasn't changed shape in years.
That's finally supposed to change, eventually. VDOT held a virtual public meeting on April 29, 2026 to present its initial concept for widening the road to six lanes with a median reserved for future bus rapid transit. The county's Comprehensive Plan has called for this since 2023. The total project is estimated at $78.5 million, with Fairfax County having secured roughly $9.8 million for design work back in 2022.
Here's the part that matters if you're planning around it: as of that April meeting, VDOT anticipated a final design wouldn't go to public hearing until spring 2027. Right-of-way acquisition could start in winter 2029 to 2030. Construction isn't expected to begin until spring 2032, nearly six years out from where we stand today.
"This project aims to improve safety, operations, and bicyclist/pedestrian mobility, as well as facilitate future BRT construction in the corridor," VDOT said in its announcement.
Six years from a virtual meeting to a shovel in the ground. Compare that to Hershey's four months at the mall, and you start to understand why the retail directory feels like it's sprinting while the road outside stands still. One kind of change here answers to a lease. The other answers to a state funding cycle.
The trail that already showed up
There's a third kind of change, and it's the one that already happened. Raglan Road Park, a forested stretch that borders Westwood Village and runs along the Old Courthouse Spring Branch stream, got its Vesper Trail extension back in 2019, a 0.4-mile paved connector linking the Spring Hill Metro station to Vesper Street near the Vienna town line. It crosses the stream inside Raglan Road Park on a pre-fabricated bridge.
What's notable isn't the length. It's what county officials chose to build into it. Jenifer Joy Madden, a cycling advocate who sat on the county's Transportation Advisory Commission at the time, described the surface as smooth with barely a dip, and noted it was the first trail in the county fully lighted and the first officials pledged to snowplow. That's a different level of commitment than most short connector paths get, and it's already been in place for years.
Westwood Village's own community page notes that several townhomes back directly to this county parkland, with some facing the Ash Grove House, an 18th-century Fairfax family home tucked into the same green buffer. It's a strange contrast to sit with: a lit, plowed, already-finished half-mile trail behind the townhomes, and a six-lane widening project out front that won't break ground for another six years.
What's actually worth putting on the calendar this month
If you want the near-term version of all this rather than the long view, here's what's dated and real right now:
- Sloomoo Institute opens September 19 on Level 1 at Tysons Corner Center, the slime experience taking over where Hershey left off.
- CAMP's Bluey's House runs through September 20 for the toddler-to-elementary crowd.
- PenFed Plaza's yoga series runs through September 11, 2026, a weekday wind-down before the weekend crowds show up.
- The Flying Ivories Dueling Pianos music series on PenFed Plaza runs through October 16, 2026.
- Outdoor movie screenings continue on PenFed Plaza on an ongoing basis. Bring a folding chair.
None of it requires driving anywhere near the widening project. Spring Hill Metro and the Vesper Trail get you there without touching Route 7 at all, which might be the most useful thing to take from this month's calendar.
The takeaway
Living near Tysons Corner Center means living next to two different clocks. One resets every few months, sometimes faster, and you can watch it happen in real time on the mall directory. The other is set by state transportation funding, and it moves so slowly that a project announced with fanfare in April won't see a construction crew until 2032. The trail already threading through Raglan Road Park is proof the slow clock can occasionally move fast when the county decides to prioritize it. Worth remembering the next time you're stuck on Leesburg Pike wondering why nothing seems to change out there while everything keeps changing two blocks away.
If you're curious how any of this touches home values or timing in Westwood Village specifically, Rick Shewell tracks both sides of Tysons closely and is always glad to talk through what it means for your street. Request a Home Valuation any time you want a straight answer grounded in what's actually happening here, not just what's on the mall directory.
