Arlington leaders are seeking help from the state government in boosting efforts to convert aging office buildings to residential use.
“We have some buildings that are great candidates” for conversion, County Board member Maureen Coffey said at a Dec. 3 work session with members of the county’s legislative delegation.
While the number likely is small compared to the overall inventory of office space in the county, having financial incentives flowing from the state level could convince property owners to breathe new life into aging buildings.
And that, in turn, could help the county government’s financial picture.
“We’re going to see a significant drop in value just due to the vacancies,” County Manager Mark Schwartz said of what is expected in late January, when 2025 property assessments are released.
That decline, coupled with increases in county-government spending that this year added up to a $1.65 billion budget, is pushing more of the tax burden onto homeowners. It’s possible in 2025 that, for the second year in a row, owners of residential properties will see a real-estate tax increase atop higher assessments.
Arlington leaders in November approved policy changes aimed at streamlining the repurposing of commercial buildings into residential use. State leaders could aid the process by making appropriate tweaks to Virginia’s building codes, Coffey said.
But cold hard cash in the form of support for such efforts would “prime the pump” and help developers that might have interest, Chair Libby Garvey said.
Efforts in the 2024 General Assembly session to do just that fell apart for a variety of reasons, said state Sen. Barbara Favola (D-40).
“We decided to walk away from it. There wasn’t a uniform voice on what this grant program should look like and how it should be administered,” she said.
The concept could be revisited in the 2025 session, which runs from early January to late March. Legislators have several billion dollars’ worth of a budget surplus to use on new or existing programs — or, as Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) wants, on tax cuts.
How Arlington’s pleas will be received 90 miles to the south is always an open question.
“Usually we are not seen sympathetically down in Richmond,” Schwartz acknowledged.
On the plus side for the county, both houses of the General Assembly are likely to be under control of Democrats when the session convenes on Jan. 8, although special elections for vacant state Senate and House of Delegates seats in Loudoun County potentially could tip the balance of power to Republicans.
Either way, any legislation would need Youngkin’s support in order to be enacted. None of the governor’s vetoes during his first three legislative sessions have been overridden. In fact, no veto by a Virginia governor, Democrat or Republican, has been overridden since 2011 when Robert McDonnell held the office.
County leaders hold the view that Arlington’s challenges with the commercial-property sector are, if not short-term, at least transitory.
“We’ll work through it in the next five to 10 years,” Schwartz told members of the delegation. “But in the meantime, we need help.”
