Those concerned about the current situation at, and potential future uses of, a county-owned parcel on North Quincy Street now have an Arlington County Board member to directly reach out to.
Susan Cunningham on Sept. 17 was announced as the board’s liaison between the community and staff on plans surrounding the 6.1-acre parcel, located east of Washington-Liberty High School and currently used for storage of Arlington Transit (ART) buses.
It was Cunningham who, in July, suggested that one of the board members serve as liaison, so she was perhaps the likeliest one to fill the job.
Having a County Board member involved will provide “a steady way to keep in touch with each other,” Cunningham said, also noting that a community meeting on the parcel’s future is in the works for coming months.
The county government in 2017 purchased the Quincy Street site, one of the relatively few large parcels zoned for industrial use in the county. But ever since county leaders in 2022 voted to use the parcel for bus parking, relations with neighbors have been frayed – including dueling lawsuits.
At that July meeting, temperatures had cooled a bit compared to heated complaints leveled at the county government by neighboring residents and the Ballston-Virginia Square Civic Association. There have been some ongoing complaints, but there was no massive turnout to oppose the County Board’s action allowing the buses to be parked on the site for another year.
County officials hope to have all the buses moved to Shirlington by the end of the year, when a new ART operations center is fully online.
At the July meeting, County Manager Mark Schwartz said he planned to do everything he could to avoid using the Quincy Street site for the bus fleet over the long haul. But at the same time, he added, “I’m not going to make a promise to that. I’m not saying it’s going to be on Quincy, but it has to be somewhere.”
