Tanger Outlets at National Harbor

Tanger Outlets was constructed on a 40-acre parcel on the historic Salubria property which comprises 44 acres on the east of Oxon Hill Road and west of Indian Head Highway in Oxon Hill, Maryland at the National Harbor site. Tanger Outlets houses approximately 85 outlet designer and brand name stores measuring up to 350,000 square feet. The outlet will have six points of entry and a “racetrack” design allowing shoppers to park in one place and tour all the stores, with the main entrance off Oxon Hill Road and another entrance accessible from Harborview Avenue at National Harbor.

This project required entitlement through the public process for an outlet mall site. Entitlement had to be completed via 4 separate plans, rezoning application, a conceptual site plan, a preliminary plan, and a detailed site plan all without having final architecture or tenants. The project timeline required this to be completed in an abbreviated schedule, which given the complexity of the project, posed a challenge. To ease the scheduling concern and to preemptively avoid any review delays, Soltesz arranged a meeting with the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCP&PC) before project kick-off to discuss submitting multiple plans simultaneously so that reviews happened concurrently rather than the traditional and mandated linear fashion. Soltesz prepared historic exhibits for approval by the historic preservation committee that was integral to the site approvals. This was agreed to by the review authority and saved a minimum of four months of review process time. In addition, since space was not fully leased, it was impossible to provide architecture. Thus to stay on schedule and to maintain complete flexibility, Soltesz negotiated a generic architecture submittal that showed the intended “look and feel”. This created the need for a flexible building permit review process as well which Soltesz helped to navigate saving time and money for the client. Soltesz’s ability to understand the client’s vision and to be flexible and creative in their approach led to the team’s development of effective solutions and overall project success.