As Arlington Transit buses prepare to move south from the Virginia Square to a new facility, the future of the N. Quincy Street site remains an open question.
“I can’t promise in the future that we won’t consider that property will be used for things that people would rather not have there,” County Manager Mark Schwartz told delegates to the Arlington County Civic Federation during his annual visit to the organization in mid-December.
Schwartz, who took part in a question-and-answer session with delegates where the matter was raised, said the government parcel in the 1400 block of N. Quincy Street, across from Washington-Liberty High School, needs to be used for something.
What that will be, long term, is undecided at the moment.
“There hasn’t been a concerted effort on either the [County] Board or staff to wrestle that question to the ground,” he said. “We will have to figure out what to do.”
In 2017, county officials paid nearly $30 million for the parcel. Three years later, Board members authorized use of the site to accommodate up to 29 ART buses while a new bus-operation facility was constructed in Green Valley.
That facility is now open, with relocation of operations and staff being phased in during coming months.
Using the Quincy Street parcel for bus storage created significant friction between the government and nearby residents, as well as between the county and the Ballston-Virginia Square Civic Association.
The civic association in 2022 began a full-court-press effort against the buses, raising concerns about health, traffic and noise, as well as alleged violations of the government’s zoning rules and administrative processes.
There even was a lawsuit filed by the county government against a number of neighbors and the civic association. No matter the merits of the suit — since dropped — it turned into a public-relations black eye for local leaders.
Schwartz, who lives in the Ashton Heights neighborhood, told Civic Federation delegates that he sympathized with what Virginia Square residents have had to endure.
“I get it. If somebody was building a bus lot near my house, I’d be where you are, doing this,” he said of the criticism leveled at the county government.
But, Schwartz said, the decision to locate the buses there temporarily was necessary.
“We looked everywhere outside of Arlington County and inside of Arlington County. [The Quincy Street site] was not only the best, but really the only, option we had,” he said. “Whether we executed it the right way, we can have a conversation about that.”
