JBG Smith may be bowing out of a deal with the county to build a public library in Crystal City within one of its existing office buildings.
Instead of building the facility, JBG Smith now proposes paying a total of $5.8 million across seven years of annual payments, per a minor site plan amendment filed late last month.
The proposed change comes after a few years of stymied negotiations with county government.
“Since the approval of the Library Conditions, the Applicant has engaged in lease negotiations with the County diligently and in good faith,” writes land use attorney Kedrick Whitmore in a letter to the county, filed late last month. “In lieu of providing the Community Facility, the County has agreed to a monetary contribution.”
Such minor site plan amendments require an Arlington County Board hearing, according to the county.
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 a condition of redeveloping an old office building called Crystal Plaza One (2050 and 2051 S. Bell Street).
The developer is replacing the office building 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. About a year of construction remains for the project, which had its final steel beam put in place at the start of this year.
As part of the agreement, JBG Smith agreed to provide a rent-free space for a public library for up to 20 years, parking spaces for county staff and library patrons and $250,000 per year for five years for operational support, per the February filing.
Another condition required the lease for the library to be executed when a specific building permit was issued as construction progressed at the Crystal Plaza One site. Negotiations were already starting to stall when that deadline loomed in October 2022, however.
At the time, JBG Smith and the county had been “diligently working to complete the lease agreement” but would not finalize negotiations before construction reached the milestone, per a county report. The developer has since filed periodic requests to extend negotiations through 2023, permit records show.