Plans for redeveloping a key Langston Blvd parcel have sidestepped a potentially lengthy historic preservation battle.
That removes one impediment to razing the existing office building on the 1.3-acre site in the North Highlands community near Rosslyn, replacing it with upscale condominiums.
Members of the county government’s Historical Affairs & Landmark Review Board yesterday (Wednesday) voted 9-1, with one abstention, to reject a request from a local resident to start the process for potentially designating the former Air Force Association headquarters as a local historic district.
The building, located at 1501 Langston Blvd at its intersection with N. Oak Street, was constructed in the early 1980s. The organization, since renamed the Air & Space Forces Association, is relocating to offices at Westpost in Pentagon City.
The request to evaluate the potential for future historic designation didn’t gain much traction with HALRB members, who found that the site’s provenance did not meet the required minimum of two of 11 historic-preservation criteria necessary for the process to move forward.
“It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much ‘there’ there,” said Richard Woodruff, a member of the panel.
That also was the view of Taicoon Property Partners, which purchased the site last year and is opposed to historic designation and the restrictions it would bring.
“The building is not historic — it is a ubiquitous 1980s office building,” said Andrew Painter, and attorney with the law firm Walsh Colucci Lubeley Walsh.
But Joan Lawrence, a member of HALRB, told fellow board members the request to move ahead with more research shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
“I think, actually, it is distinctive,” Lawrence said of the building. She was the lone vote against finding that the property didn’t meet the minimum criteria to move forward.
“I’m struggling,” Lawrence said of weighing the pros and cons. “Do I want to see it torn down? No, not particularly.”
But others on the panel asked if putting scarce staff resources into further evaluating the structure’s suitability for a local historic district would delay other, more pressing studies.
Unsaid at the meeting but surely on the minds of HALRB members is the recent skittishness of Arlington County Board members, who have the final say on historic designation, to impose it when property owners are opposed.
County Board members seem to fear doing so could enmesh them in litigation with no guarantee of successfully defending such an action.
Like many office buildings in Arlington and across the region, the 1501 Langston Blvd property has taken a major valuation hit owing to changes wrought by Covid.
Its 2024 assessed valuation was $15.06 million, down from a high of $22.5 million in 2014, according to county government data. The decline largely is due to tenants moving out, reducing rental income on which commercial assessments largely are based.
The Air & Space Forces Association decamped over the summer, and leases for remaining tenants run will expire over the next two years.
Taicoon Property Partners purchased the building in June 2023 for $16.25 million and this summer announced plans to develop luxury condominiums with hotel-style amenities on the site. The project, designed by WDG Architecture, will have residences ranging in size from just over 1,000 square feet to nearly 5,000 square feet.
The property owner has filed a conceptual-site-plan application with county officials. As part of its proposal, improvements to Langston Boulevard and the Custis Trail would be funded.
“This project represents a thoughtful approach to urban development, blending luxury living with community enhancement,” said Hai Chien Wang, CEO and cofounder of Taicoon Property Partners.
Speaking for the property owner, attorney Painter said there will be approximately 1,100 square feet set aside in the planned new building to honor the the Air & Space Forces Association and the Air Force, Space Force and their predecessor, the Army Air Corps.
While preservation advocates may have lost this battle, the discussion “did bring up an important point,” said HALRB chair Omari Davis.
He said there are large numbers of office buildings of similar 1970s-80s vintage across Arlington.
“We need to take a step back and think more about [their] preservation,” Davis said.
