JBG Smith

Pike fried chicken spot Queen Mother’s moving to revamped Crystal City Water Park

By Matt Blitz
1/9

The revamped Water Park in Crystal City is reopening this summer along with nearly a dozen new restaurants, including acclaimed local fried chicken spot Queen Mother’s.

The 1.6-acre park on Crystal Drive is reopening to the public this summer after a year-long construction effort, park owner JBG Smith announced this morning.

In addition to a number of food and drink spots, the revamped park will feature a live performance stage, public art installations, a building with public restrooms and bike facilities, and a “modernized fountain water wall” that empties into an “immersion fountain,” per a press release and renderings provided to ARLnow.

On top of the water wall will be an open-air raw and cocktail bar simply being called “Water Bar.” A New York-style pizza place will also be located in the park.

There will be a total of nine 300-square-foot restaurant kiosks lining Crystal Drive. Each will hold a small-scale eatery “meant to serve as incubator opportunities for up-and-coming culinary talent,” said the press release.

Among those are several notable local restaurants, including Queen Mother’s Restaurant — currently on Columbia Pike — and Reston-based Tiki Thai.

The full list of restaurants moving into the kiosks is below.

  • Brij, a DC-based café and wine bar by Skyler Kelley, whose vision is to bridge people and communities together with proceeds benefiting single mothers, the LGBTQ+ community, and the un-housed.
  • Bubbie’s Plant Burger, a plant-based and kosher certified Americana burgers, fries and soda pop shop from chef Margaux Riccio and general manager Shaun Sharkey, the creators of DC’s award-winning Asian fast casual restaurant Pow Pow.
  • Cracked Eggery, launched by Potomac native Mike Tabb and his partners as a popular food truck serving inventive egg sandwiches, bowls and tasty sides throughout DC. It now has permanent locations in Cleveland Park and Shaw, where it occupies space in a JBG SMITH-owned building.
  • DC Dosa, Bombay-born Priya Ammu’s South Indian street food concept, and her first location outside of Union Market.
  • Dolci Gelati, a DC-born gelato shop by Gianluigi and Anastasia Dellaccio serving up 450+ seasonal and artisanal flavors made fresh on a daily-basis as well as a robust coffee/espresso program.
  • Falafel Inc., launched by Ahmad Ashkar in Georgetown with a simple, inexpensive menu of falafel bowls, sandwiches and sides and the goal of feeding refugees alongside the World Food Programme.
  • PhoWheels, a family-based business from Tuan and Jennifer Vo featuring Vietnamese inspired dishes. Their kiosk will be the first brick and mortar location for the popular DC food truck.
  • Tiki Thai, a new outpost of chef Porntipa “Pat” Pattanamekar’s Reston eatery that has been dubbed “Virginia’s first premier tiki bar and Thai restaurant,” offering a wide-range of eats inspired by Thai and Polynesian cuisine.
  • Queen Mother’s, Virginia native and James Beard Award Semi-Finalist Chef Rahman “Rock” Harper’s tribute to his mother through his renowned fried chicken joint.

Queen Mother’s owner and chef Rahman “Rock” Harper, who was semifinalist for a James Beard award earlier this year, told ARLnow that the new Crystal City location will serve the fried chicken sandwiches and duck-fat fries the restaurant is known for. The plan is to also debut new flavors — and alcohol.

“We’re going to introduce some cocktails, maybe a cocktail on tap or a beer or two. So you’ll be able to get your chicken sandwich and your duck-fat fries with a nice little tasty beverage,” Harper said.

The new location at the Water Park will also mark the end of Queen Mother’s run on Columbia Pike, at least for restaurant-style service. Harper said he’s going to keep the space to help with catering orders, though.

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Americana Hotel redevelopment in Crystal City nears finish line

By Jo DeVoe
1/6

(Updated at 3:45 p.m.) Plans to redevelop the Americana Hotel in Crystal City with apartments could get final approval next month, Arlington County says.

“The County is targeting April for full Planning Commission and Board review, but that is subject to change,” Dept. of Community Planning, Housing and Development spokeswoman Erika Moore told ARLnow.

JBG Smith proposes to demolish the former hotel at 1400 Richmond Hwy and build a 19-story, 639-unit apartment building with 3,885 square feet of ground-floor retail. If approved next month, construction could wrap up in 2026 or 2027, a company representative said in a Site Plan Review Committee meeting last month.

Up to this point, JBG Smith has overcome sloping terrain and maneuvered future development plans for neighboring sites and Route 1, which the Virginia Department of Transportation plans to lower. Per the meeting discussions, the developer is spending the remaining time before final review ironing out transportation and sustainability elements.

The building will have 188 on-site residential and visitor parking spaces. JBG Smith proposes setting aside 206 spaces for residents at the nearby Bartlett Apartments, which is a quarter-mile away. County code allows property managers to provide spots on other properties they own up to 800 feet away, says Kedrick Whitmore, an attorney for the project.

Some SPRC members differed over whether this would be a burden.

“One of our group members in that situation, they lived in a place and had off-site parking, it was so hard every time they had shopping to get from one place to another,” said Pedestrian Advisory Committee Secretary Pam Van Hine. “How are you going to mitigate that?”

Also speaking from experience, Transportation Commission Chair Chris Slatt said his first apartment after college had off-site parking about the same distance away.

“It was occasionally annoying but otherwise not a big deal,” he said. “We all know how much parking costs to build. If it means you are 100 bucks a month under rent because it’s annoying, I would happily take that if I were fresh out of college.”

Malcolm Williams, an associate with JBG Smith, said the Bartlett garage is three-quarters full and use will likely decrease with additional transit usage.

(The county is expanding bussing in the area via the extension of the Crystal City-Potomac Yard Transitway, while advocates of an at-grade Route 1 want to see more walking, cycling and scooting along the urban boulevard.)

The building will also target younger people working at Amazon or other nearby companies who are less likely to own cars. To Van Hine’s point, however, Williams did acknowledge the need for additional managerial effort.

“Anytime you have shared parking, it’s going to require heavy touch from the onsite property manager to make sure that drop offs and things of that nature are managed efficiently… and it’s legible for people,” Williams said. (more…)

Plans for RiverHouse come into focus as residents call for more infrastructure upgrades

By Jo DeVoe
1/12

(Updated at 5 p.m.) Proposed infill development for the RiverHouse site in Pentagon City is coming into focus with more renderings from the developer.

Reprising long-envisioned intentions to redevelop the expansive property, JBG Smith filed plans last year proposing apartments, senior housing, condos and townhomes on the surface parking lots on the RiverHouse site. Existing apartment towers will stay and more units within them will be set aside for affordable housing.

Arlington County has yet to officially accept JBG Smith’s application, a step that would kick off a formal community engagement and review process, which the developer anticipates will culminate in Arlington County Board review by the end of 2023.

The timeline for the RiverHouse project (via JBG Smith)

On Thursday, more than 100 residents, neighbors, other community stakeholders attended an open house, in which JBG Smith shared renderings showing how it proposes shorter and fewer buildings than what is allowed in the Pentagon City Sector Plan, a document guiding decades of development in the area.

“As our design team has developed our plans for the RiverHouse Neighborhood, we have benefited from the active participation and input from existing residents, neighbors, and other community stakeholders,” JBG Smith said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to collaborate in the coming months as we advance a shared vision for our neighborhood.”

After the meeting, residents tell ARLnow they are hoping for more collaboration to improve “livability” on the site and in the surrounding area, through more community benefits and supporting infrastructure, per the Arlington Ridge Civic Association President Kateri Garcia and the local group Dense That Makes Sense.

“How do we know the infrastructure in place is going to be enough to meet the demand of all these additional people?” Garcia said. “What are the benefits we most need in this area? … We already have a community center and library that is out of date. How can we use the investment to improve those facilities to right-size them for the future population?”

Some Arlington Ridge residents welcome, for instance, the lower heights. Before the Arlington County Board adopted the sector plan in February 2022, some residents rallied against the height maximums the plan would allow on the RiverHouse site, potentially blocking the skyline view some enjoy in the condos and homes that line Arlington Ridge Road.

“The October 2022 plan is a more reasonable plan than what Arlington County’s Department of Community Planning, Housing and Development (CPHD) proposed in its Pentagon City Sector Plan that was accepted by the County Board at its February 12, 2022 meeting,” according to Dense That Makes Sense, a group of residents who organized on this issue.

That said, the group said it does not endorse the 2022 plan, nor does it necessarily endorse plans JBG Smith put forward in 2019, which it says is the best of the three visions for the site. It argues that further study of the site is needed to figure out what supporting infrastructure is needed before JBG Smith moves forward.

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County Board approves two apartment towers in Crystal City

By Jo DeVoe
1/8

Two 30-story apartment towers proposed for Crystal City received a green light from the Arlington County Board on Saturday.

The proposal from JBG Smith will redevelop a block at the intersection of 23rd Street S. and Crystal Drive that is currently home to a vacant office building from the 1960s and, until demolition started earlier this year, a strip of one-story retail that included the restaurant Jaleo.

The west tower (223 23rd Street S.) will have 613 units and 8,000 square feet of retail. The east tower (2250 Crystal Drive) will have 826 units and 14,929 square feet of retail. A north-south vehicular access will run between the two towers and is intended to take parking and retail loading off the nearby streets.

This project also includes an approximately 8,025-square-foot interim public green space, which the Crystal City Sector Plan envisions becoming a 13,000-square-foot open space.

A 5,574-square-foot walkway lined with planters and seating will run east to west and connect pedestrians to a relocated entrance to the Crystal City Shops, an underground mall, as well as retail at the base of the 2250 Crystal Drive building.

JBG Smith will rebuild 23rd Street S. from Crystal Drive to Richmond Highway, adding 1,600 new linear feet of protected bike lanes across Crystal Drive and 23rd Street S. The developer will also add a mid-block crossing where the north-south connector intersects with 23rd Street S. and floating bus stops on either side of the street.

The project is set to achieve LEED Gold certification. JBG Smith will contribute more than $8 million to affordable housing and set aside 34 off-site affordable units at one of its existing Riverhouse apartment buildings in Pentagon City. Open space in the development is set to be redeveloped in the near future.

References to Missing Middle — which was the next item for discussion — broke into comments from County Board members.

“The big picture here is 1,400 additional units that are in one of our transit corridors. This is an example of the type of project that across perspectives, most everyone supports,” said Board member Matt de Ferranti. “This is part of smart policy to prevent further ex-urban development. It’s part of good policy for our community.”

Board member Takis Karantonis hailed it as “a very good project.”

“This is between one of the nation’s most vibrant innovation districts, [Amazon’s] HQ2, the anchor, and everything that comes around it, and the Virginia Tech campus a few blocks down the street,” he said.

He went on to connect the project to the Missing Middle housing proposal, which was discussed in public comments for more than five hours after Board members voted on JBG Smith’s redevelopment plans.

“These people will live there and after a while, we would like them to have more opportunities to stay in Arlington and continue to be productive residents at the core of our economic growth machine,” he said.

Board members and Planning Commission representative Jim Lantelme applauded JBG Smith’s plans to reuse unoccupied parking garage spaces for residents.

“That’s something we encourage and would like to see more of,” Lantelme said.

Staff and Lantelme mentioned changes JBG Smith made in response to comments from advisory commissions and staff. They said these changes improved the pedestrian experience by setting the height of the towers farther back from the street and redesigning the larger public plazas to include more plantings and a pet relief area.

Board Vice-Chair Libby Garvey thanked JBG Smith the changes made.

“The fact that we don’t have a lot of speakers here to tell us how bad the plan is shows that the work has really been well done, ” he said. “Arlingtonians are not shy about letting us know if there’s something they don’t like.”

Inn of Rosslyn residential redevelopment project plans filed

By Jo DeVoe
1/8

(Updated 4 p.m. on 10/28/22) JBG Smith is under contract to sell The Inn of Rosslyn, which it purchased nearly two years ago, according to permits filed with Arlington County.

Now, a new developer — “MR 1601 Fairfax Drive Property LLC,” an affiliate of Monument Realty — is proposing to redevelop the site with an apartment building, according to an ownership disclosure statement.

Although designated as an “important” property on the Arlington Historic Resources Inventory list, the property will be demolished. Iconic features of the 65-year-old building in the Radnor-Fort Myer Heights neighborhood will live on in embellishments to the apartment building.

In December 2020, developer JBG Smith purchased the Rosslyn area motel, the Americana Hotel in Crystal City and two apartment buildings, one of which is adjacent to the Inn of Rosslyn. These four buildings were owned by a local family for about 60 years, but surviving members decided to sell after hotel profits stagnated during the pandemic.

And now, the developer is reselling the property.

The plans for 1601 Fairfax Drive, about a half-mile from the Courthouse Metro station, are taking shape as plans for the Americana Hotel have already started moving through Arlington’s review processes. The developer proposes to demolish the motel and construct an 8-story, nearly 80-foot-tall apartment building with 141 units and 87 below-grade parking spaces.

Monument Realty is foregoing retail on the site because of the site’s sloping topography, and “lack of sufficient pedestrian traffic to support retail uses,” writes Nicholas Cumings, the developer’s land use attorney for the project. (Coincidentally, sloping topography is posing logistical challenges for the developer at the Americana Hotel site.)

Despite the “important” historic designation, a 14-year-old redevelopment plan for the area recommends redeveloping the property with a building up to 12 stories and 125 feet tall, with optional retail and a main entrance on Fairfax Drive and loading and parking off N. Queen Street, per the filing.

The hotel site “could accommodate additional density and height, because this area is adjacent to high volume Arlington Boulevard and the sloping topography will minimize the appearance and impact of greater heights,” according to the 2008 Fort Myer Heights North Plan.

The plan additionally calls for redesigning Fairfax Drive as a “complete street” serving pedestrians, bicyclists, transit users and drivers, while stipulating that new development should have architecture that mimics the existing neighborhood.

“The architecture of the proposed building will complement and draw from the architecture of the existing building and the characteristics of the surrounding neighborhood,” the plan says. “The Applicant’s proposed building design is partly influenced by the building’s distinctive features, which are honored through the façade cantilevers, recreation of the existing ’50’ sign and balcony railings mimicking the zig-zag design of the existing railings.”

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JBG Smith files plans to turn RiverHouse parking lots into 1,668 homes

By Jo DeVoe
1/12

(Updated at 4:25 p.m.) Sixty-some years ago, developers paved paradise in Pentagon City and put up parking lots to serve residents of the RiverHouse apartment complex.

And after a few stops and starts, property owner JBG Smith is poised to reach its longtime goal of redeveloping the vast parking expanse along S. Joyce Street, which at this point is only partially utilized by residents. Today (Monday), the developer officially filed its plans to turn parking into apartments with ground floor retail, condos, townhouses and senior living facilities.

JBG Smith plans to preserve the three existing buildings along S. Joyce Street and add 1,668 new units and nearly 28,000 square feet in retail. The proposed development of the 36-acre property will increase density on the site from 49 to 91.3 units per acre.

This filing comes eight months after the Arlington County Board adopted a new sector plan intend to shape development within the 116 acres comprising Pentagon City. It replaced a 45-year-old document that reached the end of its life in the shadow of Amazon’s under-construction second headquarters.

“Following the County’s adoption of the Pentagon City Sector Plan, our team has had the opportunity to meet with local residents, neighbors, County Staff and other community stakeholders,” JBG Smith Senior Vice-President Matt Ginivan said in a statement. “We are grateful for their time, insight and input, which have helped shape our proposed plans for the RiverHouse Neighborhood. We look forward to continuing to collaborate in the coming months as we advance a shared vision for our neighborhood.”

Not all that engagement was positive. Last fall and winter, the plan reignited old concerns about redeveloping the surface parking lots and open spaces surrounding the complex. The density the plan envisioned at the RiverHouse site prompted a group of nearby residents to form a movement criticizing the county for a lack of community engagement and petitioning the County Board to moderate its approach to growth.

An illustrative site plan of the existing RiverHouse high-rises and the proposed infill redevelopments (courtesy of JBG Smith)

Currently, RiverHouse has three apartment buildings:

  • 13-story “James” building at 1111 Army Navy Drive, with 452 units
  • 16-story “Potomac” building at 1400 S. Joyce Street, with 647 units
  • 16-story “Ashley” building at 1600 S. Joyce Street, with 571 units

It also has six tennis courts, a private outdoor dog park, picnic tables, two outdoor swimming pools, a jogging trail and a community garden, according to the complex’s website.

JBG Smith proposes development divided into three parcels:

  • A “north parcel” between James House and Potomac House with:
    • two 7-story, 80-foot tall apartment buildings, one with 401 units and 13,079 square feet of retail and another with 551 units and 14,680 square feet of retail
  • A “central parcel” with:
    • an 88-foot-tall condo building with 164 units
    • a 97-foot-tall building for seniors, with 185 units with options for independent and assisted living and memory care facilities
    • an 84-foot-tall apartment building with 102 units
  • A “south parcel,” located south and west of Ashley House, with:
    • 265 units of three- and four-story townhomes, with two to four bedrooms and a mix of private and communal outdoor spaces

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JBG Smith asks for more time to negotiate lease for Crystal City library

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

JBG Smith is asking the Arlington County Board for more time to negotiate a lease with the county for a library inside one of its new buildings.

In May 2021, the Arlington County Board approved JBG Smith’s plans to replace Crystal Plaza One (2050 and 2051 S. Bell Street) with two multifamily towers, an “East” and “West” tower, and shift S. Clark Street to the east to create a new S. Clark-Bell Street.

As part of a residential redevelopment project, JBG Smith agreed to financially support a new 7,200-square-foot library branch located in an existing building at 1901 S. Bell Street.

As of now, the developer is predicting it will not make a deadline set as part of conditions for its redevelopment, according to a county report. The conditions require the lease for the library space to be executed when a specific building permit, known as a footing-to-grade permit, is issued as construction progresses at the Crystal Plaza One site.

According to the report, JBG Smith and the county “have been diligently working to complete the lease agreement,” but they won’t be ready before construction reaches the footing-to-grade milestone.

“The result would potentially cause a work stoppage and prolong the construction timeline,” the report says. “To prevent construction delays and allow more time to complete the lease agreement, the applicant proposes to move the deadline for lease execution back to the final building permit for the second building (West Tower). This would provide approximately five months of additional time to complete the lease execution.”

County staff recommend requiring the lease to be executed when the final building permit for the second building is issued, or by April 1, 2023, whichever occurs first.

Additionally, JBG Smith has agreed to revised conditions ensuring it will begin contributing payments for the library’s operations before the footing-to-grade permit is issued.

JBG Smith previously agreed to contribute $250,000 per year, for five years, for a total of $1.25 million, beginning concurrent with the lease execution, per the report. These revisions will allow the payments to begin while the lease is being finalized.

Currently, people who live and work in the area have to cross busy Route 1 to reach the nearest library, the Aurora Hills branch located a few blocks from the Pentagon City mall. Previously, Crystal City residents also had access to a temporary, “pop-up” library.

Americana Hotel redevelopment in Crystal City fraught with unknowns, tricky terrain

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

In the shadow of Amazon’s HQ2, the Americana Hotel stands vacant and ready for redevelopment.

The hotel at 1400 Richmond Highway, which JBG Smith purchased in late 2020, is in a prime location. Met Park, the first phase of Amazon’s headquarters, is across the street. PenPlace, the project’s second phase, is down the road. The Crystal City Metro station is a block south.

But the prospect of building apartments and retail right next to a global tech company’s second headquarters came with two issues: physical problems with the land and questions about when, and how, neighboring properties and Route 1 would change.

The Americana property slopes down significantly. It abuts an elevated portion of Route 1 that the Virginia Department of Transportation proposes lowering. The building is surrounded by apartment buildings, a hotel and a VDOT-owned patch of grass, all of which could be redeveloped or reconfigured in the future.

JBG Smith representatives say the proposal, filed in April and accepted by the county this month, accounts for these conditions and questions. They say it meets a county zoning requirement that towers be separated by 60 feet and a recommendation in the Crystal City Sector Plan that podiums be separated by 40 feet.

“We have designed the building around trying to maintain the maximum flexibility for that future development, but there is nothing in the current plan that is in any way not compliant or fully in accordance with the sector plan and zoning ordinance,” land use attorney Kedrick Whitmore told members of the Long Range Planning Committee this summer.

The aging Americana Hotel — which was once featured in a Russell Crowe movie — would be replaced with a 644-unit, 19-story tall building with 3,674 square feet of ground floor retail, according to the application materials. A below-grade parking garage would provide 191 on-site parking spaces and an existing garage at the Bartlett Apartments (520 12th Street S.) would provide an additional 206 off-site spaces.

The developer aims to achieve LEED Gold certification.

“The building includes work-from-home, fitness, and other amenity spaces, as well as outdoor access to balconies and two rooftop terraces with unobstructed views of the surrounding landmarks,” Whitmore wrote in a letter included in JBG Smith’s application.

And the developer aims to break ground before VDOT gets started on rebuilding Route 1 at-grade. VDOT plans to wrap up a second study phase of the proposed changes early next year.

“We do acknowledge that’s an issue we have to discuss with county staff and VDOT,” Jack Kelly, a Vice President with JBG Smith, told the LRPC. “We made high-level assumptions on setbacks, based on what we know about the future alignment of Route 1.”

The developer also had to do “a lot of guesswork” to design around potential redevelopment projects for the adjacent Embassy Suites by Hilton Crystal City National Airport, The Paramount apartments and the VDOT parcel, said Malcolm Williams, an associate with JBG Smith, in the same meeting.

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Federated Wireless to relocate to Crystal City, bring new 5G capability to the area

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that highlights Arlington-based startups, founders, and local tech news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

(Updated 11/06/22 at 11:40 p.m.) Ballston-based Federated Wireless is moving its corporate headquarters to Crystal City — and it is bringing 5G connectivity with it.

The move marks the next step developer JBG Smith is taking to turn the area into the world’s first large-scale “Smart City,” with futuristic experiences such as self-driving cars and virtual reality powered by a speedy wireless network.

Federated Wireless, currently located at 4075 Wilson Blvd, will occupy approximately 36,000 square feet of office space at 2121 Crystal Drive, per a press release from property owner and developer JBG Smith.

This building is home to aerospace company Lockheed Martin and a park, as well as a forthcoming restaurant called “Surreal.”

As part of the move, the wireless services company will design, deploy and manage 5G Private Wireless networks for commercial tenants and residents living and working in JBG Smith’s offices and apartments in Pentagon City, Crystal City and Potomac Yard (known collectively as National Landing).

The area is saturated with companies that need what private 5G provides: high-speed data and few communication delays. National Landing’s roster includes Amazon’s second headquarters, Boeing’s recently relocated global headquarters, Virginia Tech’s Innovation Campus and numerous tech, defense and cybersecurity companies.

“We will be developing a showcase to demonstrate the power and cutting-edge capability that Private Wireless can bring defense contractors, government, retail clients, residential tenants, smart cities, and other customers and citizens in the area,” Federated Wireless Chief Commercial Officer Chris Swan said in a statement.

That could draw more innovative companies to the area, too.

JBG Smith has said its “smart city” would be replete with Internet-connected devices supporting futuristic experiences such as self-driving vehicles, immersive and augmented reality, building automation and environmental sustainability.

2121 Crystal Drive (via Google Maps)

The company already had expansive real estate holdings, from existing office space and apartments to developable land, to realize this goal — but it needed the technology to do so.

Over the last two years, it has assembled the radio frequencies and fiber networks needed to support the vision.

In 2020, JBG purchased seven blocks of Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum from the Federal Communications Commission. In 2021, it announced partnerships with AT&T and Arlington County to bring about ubiquitous indoor and outdoor public 5G in 2021.

And now, Federated Wireless is providing a third piece to the puzzle.

“Cloud, Edge, and [Internet of Things] combined with 5G Private Wireless represent a once in a generation opportunity to transform buildings, cities, and citizens’ experience. The game-changer here is that the 5G Private Wireless network we’re building with JBG Smith is the catalyst that will bring that reality to life in National Landing,” Federated Wireless CEO Iyad Tarazi said in a statement.

“Our partnership with JBG Smith is all about enabling shared spectrum solutions to power the next generation of connected businesses, cities and people,” he added.

Pets, park, pedestrians present problems for planned apartment towers in Crystal City

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

Dog poop, a lackluster park and imposing tower façades.

These are lingering concerns for some county commission members and residents who recently reviewed designs for two proposed apartment towers from JBG Smith in Crystal City.

The developer proposes building two towers with a total of 1,440 apartment units where the restaurant Jaleo (2250 Crystal Drive) used to be, and where an 11-story office building stands (223 23rd Street S). The new towers would have ground-floor retail and a parking garage underground.

Architects went back to the drawing board after a meeting in July to improve designs, and generally, these improvements were welcomed during a Site Plan Review Committee meeting last week.

Still, commissioners, community members and county staff said a planned interim park should be more vibrant — with ample amenities to separate dogs and their droppings from other visitors — and the towers should have more pedestrian-scale architecture, so that walking by does not feel claustrophobic and shady.

“I do hope there will be signs saying ‘This is not a dog park’ because people will try their hardest to use it as such,” said Ben D’Avanzo, a nearby resident representing the Aurora Highlands Civic Association, during the meeting on Thursday. “There’s only so much we can do to control that and prevent what happened at Met Park happens here.”

Before Amazon began rebuilding the park, Metropolitan Park was best known for being a large patch of grass where dogs from neighboring apartment buildings relieved themselves.

The 2010 Crystal City Sector Plan envisions three park spaces, totalling some 26,000 square feet, but one of those parks would require JBG Smith to redevelop apartments at 2221 S. Clark Street. In the interim, as part of this project, JBG Smith will create a temporary 8,000 square-foot park on the southwest corner of 223 23rd Street S.

Commissioners had also criticized initial designs for the park near JBG Smith’s planned towers for being “just a lawn,” said Planning Commissioner James Schroll during a meeting last week.

“Some of the concerns we received from you guys is that there may be foot traffic cutting through this lawn and there were concerns pet owners would use it for dog relief, and we didn’t really want that,” said Amanda Walker, with OJB Landscape Architecture.

Landscapers added pet relief areas and plantings around the park’s edges to prevent people from creating desire paths. The park is designed to allow for flexible, removable furniture to accommodate concerts, fitness classes and picnics and become a “destination for the community,” Walker said.

Before and after changes to designs for the interim open space at 223 23rd Street S. (via Arlington County)

“Right now, this looks good, but we’ve got lots of parks that look like this all over the area. It’s going to be hard to attract people to it in this interim period,” said Michael Dowell, representing the Crystal City Citizen Review Council. “If we really want to take a chance, let’s get some massive sculpture — that you can move…”

“… to the next interim park,” said Chris Slatt, representing the Transportation Commission at the SPRC meeting, completing Dowell’s sentence.

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Ballston’s Buffalo Wild Wings appears to be closing

By Matt Blitz
Buffalo Wild Wings in Ballston (file photo)

It appears that the Buffalo Wild Wings in Ballston will close next month.

Earlier this month, a request was submitted to the county on behalf of the building owner JBG Smith to amend the site plan for the office building at 950 N. Glebe Road. In that request, it’s noted that the 7,318 square foot space on the ground floor of the building that currently is home to Buffalo Wild Wings is set to be vacated when the lease is up at the end of August.

“The [building] has never enjoyed strong street frontage for retail or restaurants, which led to lower sales for the existing tenant and contributed to their decision to vacate at the end of the lease in August 2022,” the statement of justification letter reads.

Upon learning of the restaurant’s intent to close, JBG Smith attempted to find a replacement tenant but was “unsuccessful.” In response, the developer is moving on and asking the county to add “retail equivalent uses” as a permitted use.

The hope is to turn the large space once home to the beer, wings and sports chain into an assortment of “lounges, conference rooms, co-working spaces, and a fitness center” as a way to “substantially upgrade the ground floor experience” for office tenants at 950 N. Glebe Road.

ARLnow has reached out to both Buffalo Wild Wings and JBG Smith to confirm the chain’s departure from Ballston. We’ve not heard back from either as of publication.

Ballston’s Buffalo Wild Wings opened a decade ago based in part on the success of the Crystal City location. It was expected to be one of the company’s top-performing restaurants in the country, per the regional manager at the time.

That does not seem to be the case, at least today. Recent reviews of the restaurant on both Google and Yelp say that it is often devoid of customers, that food items are frequently out of stock, and that the establishment is understaffed. A lack of customers has plagued many — though not necessarily all — restaurants on the western side of Glebe Road, as the Metro station entrance, plus most of Ballton’s businesses and foot traffic, are on the eastern side of the busy artery.

Overall, JBG Smith seems to be looking to spruce up 950 N. Glebe Road. The proposed updates include a 410-square-foot bump out for a fitness center, landscape changes, and an “indoor/outdoor tenant café-style area with operable windows,” along with more conference rooms and co-working spaces.

“These proposed amendments to Site Plan #331 will allow the [building] to compete in a struggling office and retail market,” the request says. “Securing new retail and office tenants during the uncertain economic environment of the last two years has proven difficult for the Applicant, especially given that it lacks tenant amenities (which are now proposed).”

Hat tip to Chris Slatt

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