Residents Support HQ2 in Letters — “Many Arlingtonians want Amazon.com Inc. to set up HQ2 in Crystal City and Pentagon City — or at least that is what a slew of letters and emails to the [Arlington County Board] seems to indicate… ‘I would say the theme of the emails is: ‘Don’t blow it,” [Libby] Garvey said.” [Washington Business Journal]
Expect Fireworks at County Board Meeting — “Board Chair Christian Dorsey (D) said he has ‘no interest’ in postponing [this weekend’s Amazon] vote and has heard no suggestions to do so from other board members. He expects the measure to pass, but he also said anywhere from 100 to 400 speakers could show up for the public hearing before the vote.” [Washington Post]
More on Expected HQ2 Jobs — “While Amazon has said about half of the 25,000 HQ2 jobs here will be tech-related, we now know a bit more about the breakdown, thanks to a Thursday talk by Ardine Williams, vice president of people operations for the company, to high schoolers.” [Washington Business Journal]
Extended Comcast Outage — Much of Arlington lost its Comcast cable and internet service for several hours Sunday. [Twitter]
More Trouble for Trustify — “Real estate investment trust JBG Smith Properties Inc. is heading to court to try to collect on a $263,477.21 judgment against one of its tenants, private investigation startup Trustify. The Chevy Chase developer won an ‘unlawful detainer’ judgment against the company Jan. 31, allowing it to evict Trustify from its main office at 200 12th St. South in Crystal City.” [Washington Business Journal]
ACFD Helped Battle McLean Fire — Arlington County firefighters helped to extinguish a house fire in McLean over the weekend. One resident died in the blaze. [Tysons Reporter]
Amazon is sending a pop-up store into Crystal City today with the hopes Arlingtonians will stop by.
The store-on-wheels is dubbed the “Treasure Truck” and travels the country offering “new, trending, local, or delicious items” per a company spokesman. Today the truck will be parked at 2011 Crystal Drive until 1 p.m.
Amazon app users can sign up for notifications that alert them when the truck opens and whatever the truck is offering that day. Users can then purchase the items they want online and pick-up in person at the truck.
In the past, the truck has served up an array of items from brownies to gold Bohemian Rhapsody movie backpacks to lightbulbs, according to Twitter posts.
Indulge your sweet tooth on Treasure Truck today with brownies from Chicago's JR Dessert Bakery, just 19.99. And in select cities, pick up a free bag of new @BearNaked premium granola, too (while supplies last)! Treat yourself at https://t.co/IctiLxp7dcpic.twitter.com/cTIOx3GBVk
The truck’s inventory was not available to this reporter online as of 10:45 a.m. this morning.
Amazon’s treasure truck heralds the company’s impending move to the area scheduled for 2021, when it will begin construction for its second headquarters in the Crystal City and Pentagon City area that some local officials have attempted to rebrand as “National Landing.”
The trillion-dollar company’s promise to occupy long vacant real estate and add 25,000 jobs comes in exchange for $23 million in county grant money, $750 million in state incentives, and a head’s up on any Freedom of Information Act Requests, according to documents released this week. It’s a deal that’s drawn criticism from unions and affordable housing advocates as ARLnow previously reported.
Arlington County has also been criticized for directly pitching tax incentives Amazon would be eligible to receive, but which few other businesses have taken advantage of, as ARLnow reported this week.
Some of Amazon’s future neighbors in Crystal City now say that they’re eager to see the County Board approve an incentive package to bring the company to Arlington.
The Crystal City Civic Association penned a letter of support Monday (March 4) for the company’s arrival in the neighborhood, encouraging the Board to give the green light to a plan to hand over $23 million in grant money to the tech giant over the next 15 years. The Board is set to consider the deal, publicly revealed for the first time this week, later this month.
Civic Association President Carol Fuller wrote that the citizens group still has “some concerns, obviously ‐‐ e.g., housing costs, traffic, schools.” But she says its members “look to the county to prepare adequately,” and trust that the neighborhood can handle the arrival of Amazon and its promised 25,000 workers.
“As the civic association to be most affected initially, we welcome the planned gradual arrival of Amazon to Crystal City,” Fuller wrote to the Board. “The $23 million in incentives from the county makes sense — they are paid only if/when Amazon creates the jobs it promised. Moreover, we expect the Amazon arrival to help increase hotel and restaurant business in Crystal City, which will increase county tax income and help pay for those incentives.”
In all, the county expects Amazon to generate $342 million in tax revenue over the 16 years the tech giant plans to spend setting up shop in the county — and that’s without the hefty tax break the company could soon earn from the county.
Fuller also cited the transportation improvements bound for the neighborhood as a major factor in her group’s support for the project, including the planned second entrance for the neighborhood’s Metro station and a pedestrian bridge connecting Crystal City to National Airport.
Some county officials and activists critical of the project have urged Amazon to better engage with its soon-to-be neighbors, and Fuller said the company has so far done a good job on that front. She pointed out that Holly Sullivan, the company’s worldwide economic development head who has begun appearing at some Arlington gatherings, stopped by the civic association’s Feb. 23 meeting and has been invited to return.
“We look to Amazon to fulfill its promise to be a ‘good neighbor,'” Fuller said. “We want them, both as a corporation and as individual residents, to be active participants in our community.”
Fuller’s support for the project echoes the broad sentiment of most county, and state, residents, who have said that they support the company’s arrival in both Crystal City and Pentagon City. The Arlington Chamber of Commerce, Crystal City Business Improvement District and the Crystal City Citizen Review Council have all issued recent statements similarly urging the Board to approve its incentive package for Amazon.
The Board is currently planning a vote on the matter on March 16. In the likely event the incentives are approved, Amazon expects to begin submitting plans for new office buildings shortly afterward.
Experts See More Amazon Jobs Heading Here — “Given Amazon’s Northern Virginia incentives allowing for as many as 38,000 jobs over 15 years, CoStar Managing Consultant and Senior Real Estate Economist Paul Leonard expects it will absorb much of the planned New York payroll, despite Amazon’s company line that ‘nothing has changed’ for National Landing.” [Bisnow]
More on I-395 Incident — Arlington County Police say it was a juvenile suspect, driving a stolen car without a driver’s license, who caused a big crash on I-395 before leading police on a foot chase during Tuesday’s evening rush hour. [Arlington County]
Inside Look at Memorial Bridge Work — Workers are laboring to restore the Arlington Memorial Bridge to its former glory, one piece of 90-year-old granite at a time. [NBC Washington]
Copa Kitchen & Bar Opening Today — The latest restaurant to open at Ballston Quarter is Copa Kitchen & Bar, which is expected to serve customers from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. today, according to a social media post. [Instagram]
Where’s the Weather? — Our faithful weather bar, which has graced the top of our site for many years, is out of commission, for now. IBM, in its infinite wisdom, killed the source of our data. Why, Watson, why? We’re working to restore the current conditions display with a new data source, but it’s probably going to take a few months. [Weather Underground]
Documents released in late January show that Arlington officials explicitly pitched the tech giant on the prospect of scoring major tax savings through the county’s “Technology Zone” program, back when they were still wooing Amazon last year. Created in 2001 and last updated in 2014, the program was designed to provide incentives for high-tech businesses to move to Arlington by offering significantly reduced rates for the county’s “Business, Professional and Occupational License” tax in certain neighborhoods.
Amazon wouldn’t be eligible to apply for the tax break until it actually sets up shop at its planned destinations in Crystal City and Pentagon City. One of the county’s “Technology Zones” runs along the “Jefferson Davis Corridor,” including the neighborhoods near Route 1 that the tech firm hopes to someday call home.
Once it arrives, however, the company could use the program to shrink its BPOL rate by as much as 72 percent for the next decade.
The potential tax break was not described in the memorandum of understanding laying out the county’s promised incentives to the company signed by both parties on Nov. 9, 2018, nor was it mentioned in any subsequent announcement of Arlington’s plans for Amazon.
Yet the county did advertise the program in documents dated Oct. 11, 2018, recently posted on the county’s website, outlining Arlington’s pitch to Amazon.
“Based on the jobs Amazon creates, if the company is eligible for tech zone benefits, it would apply each year for that BPOL credit,” said Cara O’Donnell, a spokeswoman for Arlington Economic Development, which helped broker the Amazon deal. “It’s a standard part of our proposals to technology-related companies and each one is handled individually.”
Critics of the deal see this potential tax saving as part of a pattern for Amazon, however.
Amazon is already set to receive $750 million in state incentives designed to defray its state tax burden, and Arlington officials have insisted that the company’s massive expansion plans could have a transformative impact on the county’s flagging tax revenues. Yet this BPOL tax break could result in Arlington losing out on a hefty chunk of cash from Amazon — the county collected $65.6 million in BPOL revenue in the last fiscal year, its third largest source of tax dollars behind the real estate and personal property levies.
“Their track record is clear — they try to do everything they can not to pay taxes,” said Danny Cendejas, an organizer with the “For Us, Not Amazon” coalition opposing the company’s Arlington plans. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were looking for every possible loophole.”
But O’Donnell stressed that county officials “have not factored BPOL into any of our revenue projections” associated with the company’s arrival. The county has long expected to see about $342 million in tax revenues from Amazon as it develops the new headquarters over the next 16 years.
O’Donnell added that the company would have to apply for the program like any other business.
Without the “Technology Zone” tax break, Amazon would also be responsible for paying $0.36 for every $100 of its gross receipts as part of the BPOL tax. Should it earn eligibility for that program, the company could see the rate cut in half if it can prove it employs up to 499 people in “business units with a primary function in the creation, design and/or research and development of technology hardware or software,” according to county documents.
If Amazon can show it employs up to 999 people for those purposes, it could pay a rate of $0.14 per $100 of receipts. If the company exceeds 1,000 employees, it would pay $0.10 for every $100.
The company hasn’t settled on the exact mix of job functions for the 25,000 to 38,000 employees who could someday call the Arlington headquarters home — Holly Sullivan, the company’s worldwide head of economic development, said at an event in Arlington last week that she anticipates a “50-50” split between tech workers and other staff on the campus, making it a pretty safe bet that Amazon could meet the program’s standards.
The potential size of the company’s tax savings also remains a bit murky. County documents estimated that the “Technology Zone” savings “are equivalent to approximately $2 to $3 per square foot in building occupancy costs annually.”
Kasia Tarczynska, a research analyst with Good Jobs First, an advocacy group studying the Amazon deal, says that the savings are difficult to estimate, but she suspects it would work out to “a lot of money because of the size of the project.”
And Tarczynska adds that this is the first she’s heard of Amazon being eligible for the tax break. The head of Good Jobs First, vocal Amazon critic Greg LeRoy, agreed with her assessment.
Many of Amazon’s local opponents were similarly surprised to hear the news that the company could reap the tax savings, particularly given the frequent assurances from county leaders that Amazon would help relieve the recent strain on Arlington’s finances.
“In all of the numerous meetings I’ve been to with the [County Board], they have never once mentioned the tech zone incentive,” said Roshan Abraham, an anti-Amazon organizer with Our Revolution Arlington.
Tarczynska says that such a tax break “is a common subsidy in the region” — neighboring Fairfax County has a similar program — yet Arlington has regularly seen anemic participation in the program.
When ARLnow last investigated the program in 2015, just eight businesses were currently taking advantage of it. These days, O’Donnell says the county has recorded approximately 70 businesses participating in the program since it began.
Chamber Rallying Members to Support Amazon — “The Arlington Chamber of Commerce wants to make sure supporters of Amazon’s decision to locate in Crystal City aren’t caught napping. The business organization on March 4 sent out a missive to rally the troops in the days leading up to the County Board’s expected action on an economic-incentive package.” [InsideNova]
Local Bars Helping Women in Unsafe Situations — “Something from the United Kingdom’s bar scene is coming all the way across the pond to Arlington, Virginia — but it isn’t a new beer or liquor. Several bars in Arlington County have implemented the ‘Ask for Angela’ campaign, which aims to help women and anyone in an uncomfortable or threatening situation get help.” [NBC Washington]
Panel Recommends Aquatics Center Fees — “Fees ranging from $9 for a one-day entrance to $630 for an annual pass have been proposed for the future Long Bridge Park aquatics and fitness center. But the fee schedule, developed by a task force set up by county leaders, leaves undetermined, for now, how much of a subsidy taxpayers will need to provide for the Crystal City facility’s operation.” [InsideNova]
A rendering of Amazon’s planned development at the “PenPlace” site in Pentagon City
Future Amazon HQ2 / Metropolitan Park location in Pentagon City as seen in March of this year (Staff photo by
Arlington officials have, at last, unveiled a detailed version of the county’s proposed incentive package designed to bring Amazon to the county.
A draft copy of the county’s “Economic Development Incentive Grant Agreement” posted online for the first time today (Tuesday) sketches out the exact amount of office space Amazon will need to occupy in Arlington in order to win $23 million in incentive cash over the next 15 years.
The agreement also reveals additional details about how the county plans to work with the company to add infrastructure improvements in the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods, which Amazon hopes to soon call home, and lays out the procedure for either side canceling the incentive arrangement.
County staff are unveiling the incentives agreement 11 days before the County Board is set to vote on the deal, the last hurdle for the company to clear before it can start to officially set up shop in Arlington. Gov. Ralph Northam signed off on $750 million in state incentives for the company last month, amid persistent complaints from critics on both sides of the political aisle that government officials shouldn’t dole out grants to a company run by the world’s richest man — proponents of the deal argue that the incentives are well worth it, given Amazon’s potential to send hundreds of millions to county coffers in tax revenues.
Notably, Amazon has agreed to only use the incentive money to build its new Arlington facilities, including any expenses associated with “construction,” and “furniture, fixtures and equipment.”
Under the terms of the proposed deal, Amazon will need to lease 60,000 square feet of space in the county by June 30, 2020 to start qualifying for the cash. Arlington plans to draw the money from an expected increase in revenue from a tax on hotel stays, with Amazon’s arrival projected to juice hotel tax revenues in the area.
That office space occupancy target jumps to more than 567,000 square feet by 2021, and regularly creeps upward from there. By 2026, when the company expects to have new buildings built near Metropolitan Park in Pentagon City, Amazon will need to occupy about 1.8 million square feet of space. By 2028, when its new buildings at the former “PenPlace” site are set to be ready, it will need to hit a 2.69 million-square-foot target.
The timeline included in the incentive agreement tops out with a 6 million-square-foot target in 2035. The company has said it intends to build and lease a minimum of 4 million square feet in the county, and could reach 8 million square feet by the time it reaches its peak of roughly 38,000 employees stationed at the new headquarters.
USPS Decides to Relocate Rosslyn Post Office — “The U.S. Postal Service will relocate the Rosslyn Station Post Office, located at 1101 Wilson Blvd, to a yet-to-be-determined location as close as reasonably possible to the current site.” [USPS]
Netherlands Carillon to Go Quiet, Temporarily — “Bells that have been ringing high atop an Arlington hill for nearly 60 years will soon go temporarily silent as they embark on a journey thousands of miles long… The 50 bells will be taken down by crane and sent by ship to a foundry in the Netherlands, where they will be cleaned and retuned.” [WJLA]
New Memorial Bridge Lane Closures — “Work is moving ahead on the Arlington Memorial Bridge, which means that the overnight traffic pattern will change to accommodate construction lanes. Starting on Monday, March 11, the National Park Service will reduce the number of lanes that drivers can access from 9 p.m. until 5 a.m.” [WTOP]
Ballston Tech Company Acquired — “Comcast today announced it has acquired BluVector, a company that uses advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide cybersecurity protection to companies and government agencies.” [BluVector]
‘Pizza With Police’ Event Planned — “Pizza with the Police, similar to the popular Coffee with a Cop series, is an informal event designed for Arlington’s residential and business communities to meet and interact with members of the police department, ask questions, discuss their public safety concerns and get to know their neighbors.” [Arlington County]
Amazon VP Tweets from Crystal City — “Delicious lunch at Federico Ristorante Italiano in #CrystalCity! It was fun to hang out with @FreddieFlamingo and see one of the great local restaurants that the future #AmazonHQ2 employees will be able to enjoy very soon!” [Twitter]
A multimodal transit hub planned for Crystal City to coincide with Amazon’s arrival. (via JBG Smith)
A map of proposed transportation projects around Amazon’s new headquarters in Crystal City (via HQ NOVA)
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Major redevelopment is coming whether or not local resistance turns the e-commerce giant away, but the attention-grabbing headlines and all-at-once infrastructure proposals don’t reveal how mobility investment is a gradual process – or how Crystal City has been steadily improving its transportation infrastructure since long before the HQ2 contest even began.
Crystal City has long been slated for some major transportation investments: Long Bridge reconstruction could enable MARC to bring commuters straight from Maryland to Crystal City and let people bicycle straight to L’Enfant Plaza. A new Metro entrance would make it much easier to connect to bus service. A remodeled VRE commuter rail station would enable larger and more trains, Metroway expansion will strengthen ties with Pentagon City and Alexandria, and a pedestrian bridge to the airport would take advantage of the fact that DCA is three times closer to Crystal City than any other airport in America is to its downtown.
These projects are big: big visibility, big impacts, big cost. They have all been in the pipeline for years, and Amazon is bringing them renewed attention and new dollars.
However, these major investments aren’t the only projects that will update Crystal City’s decades-old transportation infrastructure. Just as important as these headline-making proposals are the more incremental projects that, block by block, are making Crystal City an easier place to get around — and, just like their larger counterparts, these smaller projects have been given some extra weight by HQ2.
Old Visions, New Funding
One document has guided much of Crystal City’s development for the past decade: the Sector Plan. The Crystal City Sector Plan made many suggestions for possible improvements. Not all of them have yet come to fruition, but many have, and the plan continues to drive Arlington’s conversation about Crystal City.
That conversation has recently become a little more ambitious. Amazon’s HQ2 announcement brings not only attention, speculation and more than a little resistance — it will also bring very definite funding. Arlington and Alexandria, combined, “have secured more than $570 million in transportation funding” while the commonwealth of Virginia has committed to $195 million for the same.
This new funding flows mostly toward old designs, all of them focused on alternatives to the car. Arlington’s Incentive Proposal discusses 10 transportation “example projects.” Five of them fall within Crystal City itself, of which all but one follow ideas that originated in the Sector Plan (the remaining project, VRE station expansion, isn’t new either).
Moving Block by Block
Most of Crystal City’s streets were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and followed the “modernist” school of city planning.
They separated pedestrians from cars as much as possible, often putting pedestrians in bridges or tunnels; located stores in malls rather than on sidewalks; and spaced out intersections widely so that cars could accelerate to highway speeds. The Sector Plan calls to convert these into “Complete Streets” that will “accommodate the transportation needs of all surface transportation users, motorists, transit riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians.”
It can be easy to think of transportation investments as one-off projects. The CC2DCA pedestrian bridge to the airport, for example, is an all-or-nothing endeavor. Half of a bridge wouldn’t be very useful for anybody.
Because of its focus on the street level, the Sector Plan calls for gradual change. It endorses street transformation projects that can be completed incrementally — block by block, street by street, improving the area’s transportation network over time. It seeks “to balance any proposed investments in transportation infrastructure with improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of the existing network, so that the maximum benefit can be delivered at the lowest cost.”
This approach pairs well with Crystal City’s desirability for land developers. Most significant developments in Arlington are governed by the site plan process, through which the county negotiates with developers for community benefits — which might include a street renovation. Robert Mandle, chief operating officer of the Crystal City Business Improvement District, explained that “as a redevelopment plan, many [Sector Plan] improvements were anticipated as occurring in conjunction with opportunities presented from redevelopment.”
Arlington leaders will soon convene more than a dozen town halls to discuss Amazon’s plans for the county in the run-up to a planned vote on the matter later this month.
County Board members plan to spend the next few weeks holding meetings with a variety of civic associations and advocacy groups to discuss the tech giant’s arrival in Crystal City and Pentagon City, and have now released a schedule of the impending gatherings.
Up to two Board members will attend each one, planning them as open forums for community members to discuss all the implications of Amazon’s new headquarters for county residents.
The Board had originally expected to vote on an incentive package designed to lure the company to Arlington in February, but delayed those plans slightly to allow for more time for community engagement. Since the company announced its expansion plans for the county, concerns have bubbled up over the company’s potential impact on everything from housing affordability to traffic congestion.
New Board member Matt de Ferranti was especially insistent on pushing for the extra time, inviting civic groups of all stripes to request meetings with the Board.
The sessions will not, however, include representatives from Amazon itself. County officials and activists critical of the company have been insistent on seeing some engagement from Amazon executives with the broader community — for its part, the company argues that it’s conversations with local business leaders have adequately helped set the stage for its arrival in the county.
The Board already held some meetings last month, holding gatherings with 10 civic associations and the environmental group EcoAction Arlington. Board members now plan to meet with the following:
League of Women Voters: Saturday (March 2)
Etz Hayim: Sunday (March 3)
Civic Federation: March 5
Donaldson Run Civic Association: March 6
Freedom Is Not Free: March 7
Barcroft School & Civic League: March 7
Lyon Village Civic Association: March 11
Shirlington Civic Association: March 11
Columbia Heights Civic Association: March 11
Radnor/Ft. Myer Heights Civic Association: March 12
Waycroft Woodlawn Civic Association: March 12
Leeway Overlee Civic Association: March 13
Aurora Highlands Civic Association: March 13
Columbia Forest Civic Association: March 13
Arlington Mill Civic Association: March 13
Northern Virginia Conservation Trust: March 21
Arlington Ridge Civic Association: March 21
Anyone interested in attending can check with each group individually for exact times and locations as they’re finalized.
The Board currently plans to vote on the incentive package at its March 16 meeting. Arlington is proposing to send $23 million in grant money to the company over the next 15 years, with the cash drawn from a projected increase in hotel tax revenues driven by Amazon’s arrival.
The Board’s decision is the final domino that has yet to fall in finalizing the company’s plans for the area. Gov. Ralph Northam and state lawmakers have already approved up to $750 million in tax rebates for the company.
Amazon’s Offices Will Be Dog-Friendly — Amazon’s new “HQ2” offices in the Crystal City area will be dog-friendly, its head of economic development said at an event yesterday. Property owner JBG Smith wooed Amazon, in part, by making sure there were lots of dogs around during Amazon’s visit to the area. [Bisnow]
HQ2 Still Not a Certainty — “While there aren’t any signs Amazon.com Inc. plans to walk away from National Landing after abandoning Long Island City, the company’s future landlord and development partner warned Tuesday that HQ2 is still just an agreement in principle, not a done deal.” [Washington Business Journal]
Autonomous Vehicles in Ballston? — “In collaboration with the Ballston Business Improvement District, [a Virginia Tech] research team is seeking current public attitudes towards [self-driving vehicles] in Ballston through an online survey.” [Virginia Tech]
Arlington Gets ‘Love’ Tourism Grant — “The Arlington Convention and Visitors Service (ACVS) announced today that it has received a $10,000 grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation (VTC) ’50 Years of Love’ grant fund. ’50 Years of Love’ is part of VTC’s efforts to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Virginia is for Lovers tourism slogan.” [Arlington County]
Marymount Names New Provost — “Marymount is pleased to announce that the search process for its new provost has drawn to a successful conclusion. From a distinguished national pool, the University has selected Hesham El-Rewini, Ph.D., P.E. as the newest member of the Marymount team.” [Marymount University]
Beyer on Bryce — Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) quoted Star Wars upon new of now-former Washington Nationals slugger Bryce Harper signing with the Phillies: “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” [Twitter]
