The parking garage is complete and ground is being cleared in the first phase of redeveloping Pentagon Centre.

The plan by Kimco Realty calls for a 450-space parking garage, two residential towers with 690 units and 25,000 square feet of new retail space.

And the projected completion date of early 2019 appears to be within the company’s grasp.

The garage was completed last year, and now attention shifts to building the residential towers. One will be 25 stories, while another will be 11 stories. Cranes and diggers dot the area as workers get closer to laying the foundations for those towers. Meanwhile, the Pentagon City Metro station entrance nearby remains open as normal under the scaffolding.

Originally, Kimco had planned to construct the complex’s office space first. But the high office vacancy rate in the county convinced the firm to build the residential portion before.

Future phases of the project — planned to begin at least 20 years after this first phase — would see the demolition of the main mall building and the Costco, replacing it with three office buildings, a hotel and a park along S. Fern Street. Site plans for those phases have not been submitted.