development

NEX Gas Station Closes for Cemetery Expansion

By ARLnow.com

It’s still in the early planning and funding stages, but a proposed realignment of Columbia Pike and expansion of Arlington National Cemetery has produced its first tangible change.

The Navy Exchange/Quarters K gas station on S. Joyce Street, near the Pentagon, closed for good about a month ago. The Navy Times reports that the station will eventually be demolished as part of the cemetery expansion plan.

The expansion is being made possible by a 2008 land swap deal between Arlington County and the federal government. At some point after 2011, the county will exchange a 4.3 acre parcel of land along Southgate Road — which runs from Henderson Hall to the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Joyce Street — for 4.3 acres of land on the present Navy Annex site along Columbia Pike.

The county is eying the western portion of the Navy Annex, which will be shuttered and torn down, for a proposed Freedman’s Village heritage center and black history museum. The federal government, meanwhile, plans to eliminate Southgate Road to make way for the aforementioned planned expansion of Arlington National Cemetery.

Another aspect of the expansion plan is playing out in the halls of congress. Arlington’s congressional delegation has been seeking funding for a realignment of Columbia Pike between the Air Force Memorial and S. Joyce Street. The proposed project would eliminate a sharp bend in the road that routes it closer to the cemetery. Instead, the proposed realignment would take the Pike on a more direct path to Joyce Street, through what is now a Defense Department parking lot.

The project promises to “provide additional contiguous expansion space for the Cemetery” while enhancing the streetscape and resulting in “significant improvements in safety, mobility and economic development along the Columbia Pike Corridor.”

Congressman Jim Moran’s office confirmed that the Pike realignment was still in the planning stage but was unable to provide an approximate timeline for the project due to uncertainties regarding funding.

Proposed Building Purchase Would Allow Year-Round Homeless Shelter

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 11:50 a.m.) Arlington County Manager Barbara Donnellan will recommend that the County Board approve the purchase of 2020 14th Street N., a seven-story office building in Courthouse, according to a county news release.

The purchase of the $25.5 million, 70,000 square foot building will allow the county to achieve several significant goals.

Two stories of the building would likely be devoted to a new, year-round shelter for homeless adults. The “comprehensive homeless services center” will replace the current Emergency Winter Shelter on 15th Street N. in Courthouse, which is only open during cold weather months.

The acquisition would also allow the county to consolidate offices space from its Court Square West building at 1400 N. Uhle Street. After the offices are moved and the Court Square West building is torn down, the county would then be able to proceed with a planned redevelopment at Courthouse Plaza. That redevelopment would see the county’s large surface parking lot converted into a mixed-use development with ground floor retail, office and residential space, underground parking and a public plaza.

Existing private tenants at 2020 14th Street N. will eventually be moved out after a county acquisition, with some possible exceptions including street level retail tenants like Ragtime restaurant. Donnellan’s recommendation is expected to be considered at the Board’s Dec. 13, 2011 meeting. The county says it would consider using its eminent domain powers if a “voluntary purchase” is not successful.

Lynn Street Sky Bridge to Be Torn Down

By ARLnow.com

An aging sky bridge across Lynn Street in Rosslyn is set to be torn down.

The sky bridge, located on the 1700 block of North Lynn Street, will be torn down as part of the CentralPlace development. Demolition permits were filed earlier this month, and are still going through the county approval process.

No word yet on when exactly the demolition work would take place.

Photo via Google Maps

William Jeffrey’s Tavern Bets Big on the Pike

By ARLnow.com

William Jeffrey’s Tavern, a new “eclectic American” restaurant and 16-tap watering hole on Columbia Pike, represents a huge bet on the Pike’s future by three successful local restauranteurs.

Wilson Whitney, Adam Lubar and Chris Lefborn — who own Rhodeside Grill (1836 Wilson Blvd), Ragtime (1345 N. Courthouse Road) and Dogwood Tavern (132 West Broad Street, Falls Church) — are plowing some $2 million into the elaborately-decorated, nearly 200 seat restaurant at 2301 Columbia Pike, on the ground floor of the Siena Park apartment building. They’re in it for the long haul, too, after signing a 20-year lease on the space.

“We’re really out there,” Whitney said of their investment.

The partners say they’ve been following the Pike’s redevelopment for some time, and decided to act now (after saving up for a few years) to grab “one of the better spaces” before the pace of change accelerates.

“We looked at this area for probably eight years, as a place to come and bring our style of restaurant to,” said Lubar. “But we didn’t really think it was ready for it until all this new development came down here.”

The partners are hoping to quietly launch the restaurant with a “soft opening” on Dec. 12, though that date is still in flux. Lubar said he is actually looking forward to the openings of the other two new restaurants on the block: Eamonn’s and Taqueria Poblano.

“We’re excited about that, we don’t want to be the only kids on the block,” he said. “We want this to be a destination. We want this area to be a place where we keep the residents here instead of sending them to North Arlington or across the river.”

The planned Columbia Pike streetcar was also a deciding factor in launching the restaurant.

“We’ve been waiting for it. I think it’s going to be really, really cool when it comes through,” said Lubar. “That was one of the selling points to this area, that that should be down here some day. I think connecting this area with Fairfax and making it a little more Metro accessible can only help develop this whole area.”

William Jeffrey’s will feature 16 beers on tap, including a “microbrew of the month,” and more than a dozen beers in bottles and cans. It will have “Prohibition-style” specialty cocktails, featuring fresh juices and homemade bitters and simple syrups.

The food menu includes appetizers, soups, salads and sides; seasonal entrees priced between $18 and $25; and wraps, sandwiches and burgers priced between $9.50 and $12. There will also be an emphasis on daily specials. Though the menu is pretty standard “American-style” fare, chef Sam Adkins — formerly of Jackie’s Restaurant in Silver Spring and Cashion’s Eat Place in the District — said there will be an emphasis on homemade ingredients, including homemade bacon, pickles, spice rubs, dressings and mayonnaise.

(more…)

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Garvey Announces For County Board — Arlington school board member Libby Garvey, who ran unsuccessfully for state Senate earlier this year, will formally announce next month that she’s running for Senator-elect Barbara Favola’s old seat on the County Board. In an email to supporters, Garvey also said that she will not run for re-election to the school board when her term is up in 2012.

Pike Streetcar Project Moves Forward — The Columbia Pike streetcar project is still on track. “We’re on a schedule to try to get a project going, and we don’t want this to take as long as Dulles rail,” County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman told WAMU.

Arlington Buildings Recognized — The Northern Virginia chapter of NAIOP, a commercial real estate development association, held its annual awards ceremony yesterday. Among the Arlington winners was the 900 North Glebe Road building in Ballston, which won for “Best Building, 4 Stories and Above;” George Mason University Founders Hall in Virginia Square, which won for “Best Building, Institutional Facility over $20 Million;” and 2800 Crystal Drive in Crystal City, which won for “Best Interiors, Tenant Space 15,000-49,999 square feet.”

Lawyer: Bullying Led to Hawaii Shooting — The lawyer for an Christopher Deedy, a State Department special agent who lives in Arlington, said that Deedy was protecting others when he fatally shot a 23-year-old man in a Waikiki McDonald’s. [Associated Press]

Brown’s Used Car Center Closes on the Pike

By ARLnow.com

Brown’s Used Car Super Center has closed its doors on Columbia Pike.

The dealership, at 3200 Columbia Pike, was once billed as “the area’s largest selection of pre-owned/used cars, trucks, SUVs and vans.” Its brands included Honda, Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Mazda, Mercedes Benz, Lexus, Infiniti, Hyundai and others.

Now, the parking lot has been cleared out and little but furniture and art remains in the one-time showroom. An employee who answered the phone confirmed that the super center has closed. The employee said she did not know what will take its place.

One neighborhood rumor posits that the Rosenthal Jeep/Chrysler dealership, at Glebe Road and Columbia Pike, will take the Brown’s dealership’s place. Rosenthal is set to close in about a year when the land it sits on gets redeveloped into a mixed-use residential and retail development. So far, we have been unable to confirm the rumors.

Board Stays Up Late to Approve New Boeing HQ

By ARLnow.com

It was 12:50 a.m. by the time the Arlington County Board adjourned last night, having spent three hours debating a proposal for aerospace and defense giant Boeing to build a new regional headquarters complex near Crystal City.

After a lengthy back-and-forth discussion, the Board voted unanimously to approve the project, which won high marks for its economic benefits to the county but which was strongly opposed by the county’s own citizen-led transportation and planning commissions.

Opponents of the Boeing plan argued that allowing six-story, single-tenant office buildings on the 4.7 acre property — located between Crystal City and the county’s new Long Bridge Park — ran counter to Arlington’s original “smart growth” goal for a mixed-use office, residential and retail development there.

The Boeing complex, which the company will own instead of lease, won’t provide the kind of active streetscape befitting a property so close to a multi-million dollar county park and recreation center, opponents said. Instead, the property will be largely closed off to the public; buildings will be set back from the sidewalk with no ground floor retail and no public-use parking spaces (which could have been utilized during special events at the park). Transportation Commission Chair Bill Gearhart called the complex, which will have 555 underground parking spaces, “auto-oriented” as opposed to transit-oriented. The Planning Commission called the architecture of the proposed buildings “mediocre.”

“If this project is approved, the County would be setting a precedent that it is okay to shred everything in order to keep a company that is not working, living or playing well with its neighbors,” the Planning Commission wrote.

But Boeing supporters — including county staff, Arlington Economic Development, and the Crystal City Business Improvement District — argued that the hundreds of jobs and millions in annual tax revenue that will be generated by the new Boeing complex represents significant a benefit to the county that more than justifies the shift in land use goals required to approve the project.

“I think tonight presents us a unique opportunity in recruiting and retaining a major employer,” said County Manager Barbara Donnellan. “At a time of increased economic uncertainty, this level of commitment to a major employer is critical to the county’s future economic sustainability, especially in Crystal City, where the future impacts of BRAC are yet to be seen.”

In pushing for the proposal’s approval, however, even Donnellan admitted that it “was not without controversy.”

“I acknowlege that my recommending steers slightly away from some of our urban planning ideals,” she said. “But I believe we’re facing a set of extraordinary circumstances.”

Supporters made the case that the plan for mixed-use development on the proposed site — two run-down square blocks of abandoned industrial buildings and a shuttered, deteriorating hotel — was unrealistic in the near-term. Waiting years for market conditions to be right for a high-density mixed-use development, some said, could jeopardize the county’s plan to build an aquatics center as part of the second phase of the Long Bridge Park project. As part of the agreed-to Boeing proposal, financially-challenged developer Monument Realty will engage in a land swap with the county that will allow the aquatics center to be built.

(more…)

New Hotel Breaks Ground in Ballston

By ARLnow.com

A new Residence Inn by Marriott extended stay hotel is being built in Ballston, across the street from Ballston Common Mall.

The project held its official groundbreaking ceremony yesterday. The hotel, which is expected to open mid-2013, will feature 11 floors and 183 all-suite rooms.

The Residence Inn is part of the Founders Square development, which by fall 2014 is expected to consist of two high-rise office buildings, one high-rise 257-unit apartment building, and a smaller building reserved for retailers — in addition to the hotel. All told, the complex will feature 775,000 square feet of office space and 28,000 square feet of retail space.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Merrick Mailer Goes Negative — Republican state Senate candidate Caren Merrick is railing against mudslinging by her Democratic opponent, Barbara Favola, by sending out a mailer that does some major mudslinging of her own. “Barbara Favola: Too extreme to represent us,” the mailer says, before listing a litany of negatives about Favola’s record on the Arlington County Board. “Apparently, she will do anything to get elected in her quest for power,” the mailer also says, before declaring: “On November 8th, vote to reject [Favola’s] mud slinging politics.” [Blue Virginia]

Man Struck By Train Dies — Updated at 11:50 a.m. — The 39-year-old McLean man who was struck by an Orange Line train in an apparent suicide attempt at the Clarendon Metro station last week has died. Earlier, Metro said the man had been in critical condition the Intensive Care Unit of a local hospital with head injuries and broken bones. It took rescuers about an hour to free the man from underneath the train on Tuesday, Oct. 11. The disruption on the Orange Line caused major delays for thousands of evening rush hour commuters. [Washington Examiner]

Boeing HQ Fight Comes Before the Board — Will the County Board approve a plan to build a sprawling new six-story headquarters for Boeing just north of Crystal City. Or will it take the unanimous opinion of the county’s Planning Commission and reject the project because of a lack of community “benefits?” The board will take up the matter at its meeting this evening. [Sun Gazette]

Flickr pool photo by Webaroo

Board Votes for ‘Big Box’ Restrictions

By ARLnow.com

Walmart, Target and other large format retailers are going to need to get County Board approval should they ever want to build a store in Arlington.

On Saturday the board unanimously approved a change to the county’s zoning ordinance that will require new “big box” retail stores to seek a Special Exception Use Permit. Before that, a large retailer could have theoretically built a store in certain areas on a “by right” basis, without the need to obtain board approval.

The amendment will apply to retail stores with a gross floor area of 50,000 square feet or more on any level, or stores with 200 more more dedicated parking spaces. Car dealerships were exempted from the rule.

“With the Board’s action, [large format retail] developments will only be built in Arlington after the community has an opportunity to review potential negative impacts and determine the appropriate conditions to mitigate those negative impacts,” Arlington County said in a press release.

ARLnow.com was the first to report that the board acted to make the zoning change after a developer, working on behalf of Walmart, started expressing interest in an industrial site near Shirlington. County staff warned that “big box” stores like Walmart could generate four times the amount of local road traffic as a similar-sized office building or hotel.

“This isn’t to impede someone from setting up shop if they want to do business here,” board member Walter Tejada said during Saturday’s board meeting. “It’s really saying that we should have a dialog, that there should be a process in which we can address any potential negative impacts to neighborhoods.

“By putting this in place we at least create for ourselves the opportunity to enter the conversation,” added County Board Vice Chair Mary Hynes.

Board member Jay Fisette noted that many other localities have similar rules already in place.

“We’re not breaking new ground,” he said. “This has been done all over the country, it has been done all over the region. We’re in fact the last major jurisdiction in Northern Virginia to take a similar action.”

Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman said economic conditions only recently started making Arlington attractive to large format retailers.

“I think perhaps the reason it came last here is because we don’t have as many of those big pieces of land — the targets of that sort of thing,” Zimmerman said.

“I didn’t mean a pun there, I promise,” he added.

Board Approves New Apartment Building Along Rt. 50

By ARLnow.com

A new 12-story apartment building will be coming to the Fort Myer Heights/Courthouse area as part of a plan to help preserve a historic garden apartment complex.

The planned 104-unit building will have a distinctive red brick facade, to match the adjacent Wakefield Manor, Wakefield Annex and Courthouse Manor garden apartments. The existing, three-story buildings — designed by the late, notable architect Mihran Mesrobian and given Arlington County’s highest historical designation — will be preserved “in perpetuity” as a result of the development.

The Arlington County Board voted unanimously on Saturday to approve the development and preservation plan. The new apartment building will be constructed at the corner of N. Troy Street and Fairfax Drive, overlooking Route 50. Currently, a surface parking lot sits on the future construction site.

In addition to helping with the county’s goal of preserving historic garden apartments, the development will tick a number of other boxes on the county’s priorities list. Mature trees on the site will be preserved. The new building will be built to LEED Silver environmental standards. The developer will contribute $75,000 to the county’s public art fund. And the developer will add a couple of units to the county’s committed affordable housing stock (or make a nearly $400,000 cash contribution to the county’s affordable housing fund).

“Three buildings, ranked ‘essential’ in Arlington’s Historic Resources Inventory, will now be preserved for future generations,” County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman said in a statement. “At the same time, a new, elegant building compatible with its historic neighbors will add 104 new homes to the Fort Myer Heights housing mix.”

A 179-space parking garage will be built under the new building. The parking structure will also have 38 bike parking space.

View More Stories