John T. "Til" Hazel

John Tilghman "Til" Hazel Jr. (born October 29, 1930) is an American attorney and real-estate developer in Northern Virginia who is credited with developing several portions of Fairfax County, Virginia into major commercial and residential areas from the 1960s through the present. He was instrumental in the large-scale development of Tysons, Virginia (previously known as Tysons Corner) into one of the country's first significant edge cities.^[1]

In the 1960s and 70s, as Fairfax County was rapidly transformed from a largely rural area to one suburban, Hazel became the public face and fulcrum on which the pro-development forces rested. In 1983, a Washington Post article offered up this characterization: "[Hazel] emerged as its [Fairfax County] most controversial figure as a judge, lieutenant in the Byrd organization, community booster, preeminent zoning lawyer and developer, and eventually, as near to the political kingmaker as Northern Virginia’s diffuse power structure allows.^[2] Author Joel Garreau posits in his seminal book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier that Hazel “has done more to shape the Washington area than any man since Pierre L’Enfant."^[3]

Early Years

John T. "Til" Hazel Jr. was born in city of Washington, D.C. His father, John T. Hazel, was a prominent Arlington, Virginia surgeon who also owned a farm in rural Mclean, Virginia; his mother, Ruth Douglas Hazel, was a homemaker. Hazel attended and graduated from Arlington's Washington-Lee High School. Presented with the option of either attending Iowa State University to study agriculture or enrolling at Harvard University, Hazel chose Harvard, where he studied American history and graduated cum laude in 1951. He went on to study at Harvard Law School, receiving his Juris Doctor in 1954. Hazel then joined the U.S. Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps office and served until 1957. Following his honorable discharge, he turned to practicing law in the private sector, joining the Arlington County office of Jesse, Phillips, Klinge, and Kendrick. Two days after he started work, Hazel was approached to help move the firm to Fairfax County, which it soon did.^[4]

At Jesse Phillips, Hazel was tasked with condemning and acquiring land for the future Capital Beltway. It was this experience that led to Hazel developing a great knowledge of zoning, land acquisition, and eminent domain, and would lead to his future success as a developer.^[5]

Advocate of Development, Community Booster, and Real Estate Developer

In the late 1940s after the end of World War II, Fairfax County was still a sparsely populated rural tract, but one poised to boom as a suburb of Washington, D.C. It was ideally positioned, located roughly 15 miles from D.C.’s core business district. Arlington County, situated between the Potomac River across from Washington and the eastern border of Fairfax County, already had seen substantial development during the war years, and its growth was showing no signs of slackening as the 1940s came to an end.^[6][7] It was the residential tract-housing development of Pimmit Hills, near his father’s old farm in Mclean, Virginia, that caught Hazel’s eye. It was 1950, and though he was off at college, he sensed an opportunity.^[8]

Beginning in the late 1950s, Hazel, who was by then a seasoned land-use attorney, positioned himself as a tireless advocate for commercial and residential growth in Fairfax County. He quickly became the go-to guy for developers who wished to open up Fairfax to new housing and commercial development. Hazel pursued rezoning applications and changes to the county’s comprehensive plan with great energy.^[1] Once these changes were approved, he then pushed for the timely installation of sewers and other utilities in accordance with the comprehensive plan, which primed the targeted areas for development. If the county board was slow or hesitant to take action on a particular rezoning application or land-use measure, Hazel was quick to turn to the courts. He petitioned often and was almost always successful, as the Virginia courts affirmed the state's reputation time and again as being more receptive to the rights of landowners than not. In Edge City, Garreau notes that "[Hazel] was a buzz saw. During his heyday, he never lost a zoning case in the Virginia Supreme Court.”^[9]

In the vicinity of Tysons Corner, Virginia, which in the 1940s was a small farming community at the crossroads of Route 7 and Route 123 in Fairfax County, Hazel saw the potential for large-scale development. The future Capital Beltway, a project envisioned since the early 1950s, and for which Hazel had been involved acquiring land for, was finally under construction as the 1950s came to a close. Planned to encircle Washington, D.C. roughly 10 miles out, the road would pass near Tysons Corner. Working closely with developer Gerald T. Halpin, who had purchased more than 100 acres in Tysons in 1962, Hazel was able to get the land rezoned for mid- and high-rise commercial development.^[10] The first buildings in Tysons went up soon afterward, mainly catering to defense and national security contractors involved in providing services to the Central Intelligence Agency, which had relocated in 1961 to the Langley area of nearby Mclean, and to the Pentagon in nearby Arlington. Other businesses soon followed their lead.

In the early and mid-1960s, Hazel helped steer a development company helmed by Isadore Guldesky, Theodore Lerner, and H. Max Ammerman through a legal maze of ordinances and regulations to construct Tysons Corner Center, at the time one the first super-regional enclosed malls in the country. After a controversial Fairfax County Board vote in favor of the Guldesky-Lerner-Ammerman group and, later, a lawsuit concerning a lease and zoning issue, the highly anticipated Tysons Corner Center was opened in 1968.^[11]

In 1971, Hazel became a developer himself, forming a partnership with Northern Virginia-based developer Milton V. Peterson. The resulting Hazel/Peterson Companies went on to build some of the largest residential developments in Fairfax County, including, among others, Burke Centre, Franklin Farm, Fairfax Station, and Fair Lakes. The company also developed the Tysons-Mclean Office Park in Mclean. In 1990, the partnership ended its run and was amicably split.^[12]

Hazel estimated in 1987 that he was directly responsible for creating housing for 60,000 of Fairfax County’s then 600,000 residents.^[13] He has owned or controlled at one time or another thousands of acres of land in Northern Virginia. In 1978, Hazel was quoted that he and Peterson owned “several hundred acres” of undeveloped land that might benefit from a proposed cross-county arterial road.^[14] It was reported in 1984 that Hazel had amassed 620 acres in the western Fairfax County.^[15] Hazel currently owns and lives on a more than 4000-acre working farm in Fauquier County, Virginia.^[3][16]

Hazel also was instrumental in garnering the rezoning needed for Lerner’s 117-acre Tysons II mixed-use development, considered by some the key in the urbanization of Tysons Corner.^[17] The project, which has opened in stages starting in 1988, currently contains the upscale, tri-level Tysons Galleria mall, a Ritz-Carlton hotel, and three high-rise office buildings. Other high-rise buildings are either under construction or are planned.

Working often in concert with Hazel was his brother William A. Hazel who owned and operated Chantilly, Virginia-based William A Hazel, Inc., a company which evolved to become one of the Washington area’s largest construction firms.^[18] At its zenith, the business was depicted as an “earthmoving empire of twelve hundred employees” with “more heavy equipment than many African nations.”^[19] William A. Hazel died in 2012 at the age of 77.

In 1988, Hazel teamed up with the Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation in an attempt to build a regional shopping center next to the Manassas National Battlefield Park, but the project was faced with such strong opposition that the plan was scrapped.^[20][21] The family-owned Hazel Land Companies, Inc., established in 1971, remains active, pursuing residential, commercial, and retail development opportunities throughout the Washington, D. C. metropolitan region.^[22]

Attorney, Judge, and Law Firm Founder

After receiving his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1954, Hazel found employment with the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Army. He worked for the Judge Advocate for three years, leaving in 1957 to join the Northern Virginia law firm of Jesse, Phillips, Klinge, and Kendrick. Hazel was a general practicing attorney at Jesse Phillips, but soon honed a specialty in real estate and zoning law.^[4]

In 1961, Hazel became a general district court judge in Fairfax County, and served in that capacity until 1963.^[13][23] He then returned to private practice, forming in 1963 his own law firm Hazel, Beckhorn & Hanes. Headquartered in Fairfax County, the firm specialized in all aspects of real estate law. By 1987, Hazel, Beckhorn & Hanes had grown to 65 lawyers. In that same year, the firm merged with Thomas & Fiske, an Alexandria, Virginia-based firm. The resulting entity, Hazel, Thomas, Fiske, Beckhorn & Hanes comprised 118 lawyers.^[17] In 1990, the firm shortened its name to Hazel & Thomas, PC.

Hazel & Thomas, PC merged with Pittsbugh-based Reed Smith Shaw & McClay, LLP in 1999. For a period of time, the combined firm was called Reed Smith Hazel & Thomas, but was officially changed to Reed Smith in 2002.^[24] Hazel was a senior partner in Reed Smith Hazel and Thomas, and later Reed Smith. As of 2016, he is no longer associated with the firm.

Other Endeavors

Hazel has been a significant supporter of George Mason University going back to the institution's early years in the late 1950s as the Northern Virginia branch of the University of Virginia. Along with other community leaders, he helped acquire the land for school's main campus in Fairfax County. Appointed to the university's first Board of Visitors, he served in that capacity from 1972 to 1983, and later as the BOV's rector from 1976 to 1978 and 1982–83. Hazel also was a leader in the formation of the George Mason University Foundation in 1966. He served on the Foundation's Board of Trustees for 32 years, including six as chair.^[23]

Of particular interest to Hazel was the establishment of the George Mason University School of Law in 1979 (now known as the Antonin Scalia Law School). Despite considerable opposition in the state of Virginia, Hazel and others eventually prevailed in acquiring a law school for George Mason. He personally presented the accreditation case to the American Bar Association to establish the program. In 2005, the George Mason Arlington Campus building that houses the Scalia Law School was named John T. Hazel Jr. Hall.^[23]

Hazel is a founder of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, an organization promoting cooperation between industry and universities in Virginia.^[23] He is Chairman Emeritus of Flint Hill School in Oakton, Virginia, and a former member of the Board of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.^[25] Hazel also served as chairman and vice chairman of the Corcoran Gallery of Art Board of Trustees in Washington, DC.^[26]

References

External links

• Fairfax County, Virginia Official Website
• Arlington County, Virginia Official Website
• Amazon.com — Joel Garreau's Edge City: Life on the New Frontier
• The Garreau Group
• Hazel Land Companies, Inc.
• George Mason University
• Tysons Corner Center
• Reed Smith Law Firm