The old Harris Teeter in Ballston is set to close next month but shoppers won’t need to wait long to use the new location across the street.
Harris Teeter has posted signs around its old and new location announcing that its 600 N. Glebe Road location will close on Tuesday, April 2 at 2 p.m., with the new store at 624 N. Glebe Road opening at 9 a.m. the next day.
A Starbucks kiosk inside is also being built and will open on the same day as the grocery store, according to a spokesperson for Harris Teeter. The spokesperson noted there will be a free sampling event the day before the official grand opening.
Starbucks also confirmed the opening in a statement to ARLnow.
“Starbucks is always looking for great locations to better meet the needs of our customers, and we are happy to confirm that we will be opening a new location at 624 N. Glebe Road in Arlington, VA in the spring of 2024,” a Starbucks spokesperson write. “This new Starbucks location is licensed and operated by Harris Teeter licensee.”
That will put the coffee chain in more direct competition with homegrown Good Company Doughnuts & Cafe on the western side of Glebe Road. Starbucks will also compete with itself — its location at 4000 Wilson Blvd, which opened less than a year ago, is about 2-3 blocks away.
ARLnow reported last month that the Georgia-based developer, Southeastern Real Estate Group, LLC, started leasing the 310 apartment units above the new store last fall and was close to completing the first phase of its three-phase development. Construction on the apartments, dubbed URBA, began in 2020.
The first phase was initially slated to finish last fall, with the second phase expected to start in the summer of 2024. Southeastern and Harris Teeter have not given a timeline for the start of phase two.
After the new Harris Teeter opens and the old site is demolished, the remaining 733 planned apartments will be built.
The second phase includes 197 apartments and a 0.6-acre public park on the existing Harris Teeter site. The third phase will add another 226 apartments and more than 10,000 square feet of retail space, for a total of 77,575 square feet of retail across the development.
The development also includes underground parking with 942 spaces and the extension of N. Tazewell and N. Randolph streets.
There’s more evidence that Arlington is an expensive place to live.
The county has moved to No. 7 on a list of the priciest rental markets in the country, up from No. 10 last year.
Rental website Zumper just released its latest National Rent Report, and Arlington outranks even D.C. for median one-bedroom rent prices among the 100 U.S. cities and localities studied. D.C. remained more expensive for two-bedroom units, however.
In Arlington, according to Zumper, the median one-bedroom apartment is $2,330/mo, up 2.2% year over year, while the median two-bedroom apartment is $2,980/mo, up 1% year over year.
The county bucked a national trend of falling rents this month. The District, by comparison, had its one- and two-bedroom rents fall by 1.7% and 4.4% year over year, respectively.
“February marks the 5th continuous month of either flat or negative monthly changes for the national rent index,” Zumper noted. “One-bedrooms decreased 0.9% to $1,482, while two-bedrooms dropped 0.5% to $1,837.”
“While many Sun Belt and Intermountain markets are seeing rents fall due to new supply, the national rates are being stabilized by the rent hikes in low supplied Midwest and Northeast cities, where rents have climbed upwards of 20%,” the website wrote.
Signs for the new Ballston Harris Teeter are up, signaling that the first phase of the three-part project is nearing completion.
Last month, the owner applied for an occupancy permit for the new grocery store, which tenants do before they can officially move in. Inspection is still pending, per the county website.
Leasing began last fall for the 310 units above the new grocery store at 624 N. Glebe Road, developed by the Georgia-based developer, Southeastern Real Estate Group, LLC, per a website for the apartment complex. Construction on the apartments, dubbed URBA, began in 2020.
Additionally, Southeastern and Harris Teeter commissioned a mural by Brooklyn-based artist Olalekan Jeyifous that pays tribute to the legacy of the Ballston miniature golf course, which was a fixture along Wilson Blvd for over 50 years until its closure in 1989.
The rest of the planned 733 apartments will be built after the new Harris Teeter opens and the old building at 600 N. Glebe Road is torn down.
The second phase will include 197 apartments and a 0.6-acre public park where the current Harris Teeter stands. The third phase will add the remaining 226 apartments and more than 10,000 square feet of retail space, culminating in a total of 77,575 square feet of ground-level retail.
There will also be below-grade parking garages, with 942 parking spaces total. Southeastern will also extend the existing N. Tazewell and N. Randolph streets into the site.
The first phase of the project was initially expected to wrap up this past fall, with the next phase slated to begin in summer 2024. Southeastern did not respond before ARLnow’s publication deadline.
(Updated at 12:30 p.m.) Arlington County is home to one of the busiest Goodwill donation centers in the country and this location, on S. Glebe Road, is now being teed up for redevelopment.
Last week, Planning Commission members recommended the Arlington County Board approve plans from Goodwill and affordable housing partner AHC to redevelop its storefront with a 6-story building consisting of a new retail and donation center, 128 units of affordable housing and space for a child care center.
The Board is set to review the proposal — which includes requests to rezone the property and label it a “revitalization area,” a designation intended to boost AHC’s application for low-income housing tax credits — on Saturday.
Still, some criticism over pedestrian safety for elderly residents and children tempered that enthusiasm, as did questions to affordable housing partner AHC Inc. about its ability to manage an affordable community following livability issues residents and advocates revealed at the Serrano Apartments on Columbia Pike.
“There’s just so much to love about this project,” said Planning Commissioner Leo Sarli. “We cannot have enough housing… childcare or upcycling — which is what Goodwill does — which again, keeps things out of landfill and has a massive environmental impact.”
Despite all this, he had lingering pedestrian safety concerns around the site entrance, given all the foot and vehicular traffic that apartments, retail and childcare are expected to generate. This led him to propose that the Planning Commission recommend the County Board defer its approval until Goodwill addresses them. While other commissioners likewise stressed their pedestrian safety concerns, his motion failed 9-1, with one abstention.
They later supported a resolution from Vice-Chair (and Arlington County Board candidate) Tenley Peterson to recommend county staff continue to work with the applicant to design streets around the building that use “pedestrian-forward design practices.”
“We don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” she said. “This project offers so much value to the community.”
Land use attorney Andrew Painter said the proposal actually improves pedestrian safety by separating donor, resident and retail traffic, reducing surface parking from 54 spaces to four accessible ones and closing one of two existing site entrances.
County staffer Kevin Lam, meanwhile, assured Planning Commissioner members that transportation staff thoroughly reviewed the proposal and do not believe the site poses a significant safety issue, though it is a “conflict point between pedestrians and vehicles.”
Like Peterson, the Transportation Commission approved the project, though several had pedestrian safety concerns. Chair Chris Slatt said commissioners hope these are addressed post-approval and commended Goodwill for transportation upgrades it has committed to, including one-way parking access, fewer surface parking spaces and a wider, raised sidewalk across the driveway.
Two development proposals in Clarendon and Virginia Square are facing delays.
Last week, ARLnow reported that St. Charles Catholic Church was suspending its church redevelopment plans for now, citing economic conditions. Two other projects nearby likewise cite the country’s economic outlook as one reason progress is taking longer than expected.
One project replacing the Wells Fargo bank — which saw a notable attempted robbery last year — and its parking lot, led by developer Jefferson Apartment Group, is expected to pick up the pace soon. The other, from the YMCA, may take a bit longer.
For both, Arlington County is waiting on revisions to their site plan applications, according to Dept. of Community Planning, Housing and Development spokeswoman Erika Moore.
JAG proposes to demolish the bank and build a 12-story, 238-unit apartment building with 67,000 square feet of office and 30,000 square feet of retail space, including a replacement bank, which will no longer have a drive-thru. The Verizon telephone switching station will remain, screened from view.
The last public review opportunity for the Wells Fargo development was a site plan review committee (SPRC) meeting last April. Since then, says Moore, staff have not requested any major changes, however, “the developer has been reconsidering the proposed mix of uses on the site.”
She added that the developer has signaled it will soon file a revised site plan for the property, at 3140 Washington Blvd and 1025 N. Irving Street.
“Jefferson Apartment Group continues to advance the 4.1 site plan for the mixed-use redevelopment of the Wells Fargo/Verizon site in the Clarendon area of Arlington County,” JAG Senior Vice President Greg Van Wie said in a statement. “JAG has made some important changes to the plan and will resubmit to the County in the coming weeks.”
Economic conditions have forced the developer to move the start of construction, however.
“While market conditions have created financing challenges, JAG remains committed to commencing the project later this year,” Van Wie said.
Meanwhile, the development team for the Y continues to address comments from county staff made last summer but has yet to refile plans, project attorney David Tarter told ARLnow.
“The YMCA proposal remains active and underway,” he said. “Although it has taken longer than expected, the Y believes that all the input, thought and effort will make it a better project.”
The Y proposes a 7-story, 374-unit apartment building as well as a new 87,850-square-foot recreation center facility with indoor swimming pools, three indoor pickleball courts and convertible courts for squash, handball and racquetball, as well as fitness and multipurpose spaces. Tennis courts were axed last summer to the chagrin of some members.
He said the project is complex as it includes a new YMCA and apartment building “on a site with a steep grade and other issues.”
“Increased interest rates and other economic headwinds also present challenges, particularly for a non-profit,” he added. “We have additional work to do, but look forward to providing a new state-of-the-art facility and programing to better serve the broader Arlington community.”
Tomorrow (Friday) is the last day to submit feedback on a proposed 370-unit apartment building in Crystal City.
The design is less than half the height recommended in the Crystal City Sector Plan, but developer JBG Smith argues that it would function on a more “human scale.”
The potential building site is located on “Block W” at 2451 Crystal Drive, near Reagan National Airport.
The lot currently contains a small, JBG Smith-owned workout park, playground and seating area, as well as an off-ramp to an access road. A 7-story building overlooking 35-38,000 square feet of open space would replace the off-ramp and part of the existing park, according to a presentation by the developer.
JBG Smith plans to keep the volleyball courts and might relocate other current park features.
The new development would prioritize 2-bedroom units. The project would come with a green roof as well as a courtyard that residents could access. An area adjacent to the park would be dedicated to retail space.
“While not a high-rise or tower composition, the 7-story design works well within the overall framework of providing human scale in a comfortable, pedestrian environment,” JBG Smith development analyst Karolina Pazdrazdis said.
County staff noted concerns about how the new development proposes to reroute an existing service road in a way that would limit access to the adjacent park. The building is also much shorter than the sector plan recommends.
“The applicant has chosen to envision a building that is 85 feet in height, which is well under the 200-foot building height envisioned by the sector plan,”county planner Krissy Walentisch said.
This proposed building deviates from county guidance in other ways. Walentisch said there is a significant overhang — exceeding sector plan recommendations — between the building’s “tower,” composed of floors 3-7, and the building’s “podium,” or ground floor and first floor.
The county feedback form asks residents to provide feedback on the building placement and design, as well as its impact on the current park.
Following community feedback, a Site Plan Review Committee is scheduled to hold its first meeting on the development proposal next month. After this committee meets twice, the development will go to the Planning Commission and Arlington County Board, though dates for this have yet to be set.
Meantime, other JBG Smith projects in Crystal City are also moving forward.
This week, the developer announced that the final beam had been placed atop two residential towers at 2000 and 2001 S. Bell Street, formerly Crystal Plaza. Both the 25-story West and 19-story East towers are slated for completion in the spring of 2025.
Late last month, JBG Smith also filed a new conceptual site plan proposing to redevelop a Crystal City office building. Application materials depict a 15-story office building divided into three sections, slightly off-centered from each other, at 1800 S. Bell Street.
About a year of construction remains for two apartment towers replacing a Crystal City office building.
The final beam was placed atop the two residential towers at 2000 and 2001 S. Bell Street, formerly Crystal Plaza One, this week. Developer JBG Smith and its project manager, Balfour Beatty, announced the “topping out” construction milestone on Monday.
“Congratulations to the team for accomplishing this major achievement,” said Dan Novack, Balfour Beatty’s president for the Mid-Atlantic region, in a press release. “We look forward to continued progress and ongoing collaboration with our owner, industry partners and the local community in providing a premier living development for future residents in the evolving National Landing area.”
Both the 25-story West and 19-story East towers are slated for completion in the spring of 2025 and will offer a combined 775 units with a variety of floor plan options, per the release. The towers will have more than 22,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space as well as rooftop decks and pools.
In terms of public benefits, JBG Smith will add a public park space next to the East tower. It will also build an extension of S. Bell Street, connecting to S. Clark Street, with bike lanes, as well as a new alley south of the East tower.
The development is a stone’s throw from the revamped Central District Retail shopping plaza, or “Crystal Square,” home to taqueria Tacombi, bakery Mah-Ze-Dahr and other shops. It will be near a forthcoming second entrance to the Crystal City Metro station, a planned Virginia Railway Express station, now expected to wrap up in 2026, and pedestrian bridge linking Crystal City to National Airport.
The county approved the project in May 2021 after holding a public hearing. Demolition work began shortly after and JBG Smith broke ground about a year later, in January 2022.
Under the revised site plan, JBG Smith said it would contribute $3.36 million towards the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund and $137,495 toward a utility undergrounding fund, as well as $75,000 for a public art installation, according to a 2021 presentation from the developer.
The facade of the new 36-story Hilton in Rosslyn is nearing completion but it could be nearly two years before the hotel welcomes its first guests.
Meanwhile, the project’s residential counterpart, Rosslyn Towers, is close to being done, with new tenants expected to move in within a few months, the developer tells ARLnow.
“We are excited to open Rosslyn Towers at The Key this spring,” said Greg Raines, a spokesperson for Dittmar Company, the developer of The Key.
While there is no firm data yet, Raines said the plan is to start leasing the 500+ apartments in the Rosslyn Towers building, at 1900 N. Fort Myer Drive, by April 1.
Dittmar’s goal for the 331-room hotel is to hold a grand opening sometime in the last three months of 2025, says Raines.
“We are excited to deliver both properties as we believe both are best in class and are exciting additions to Rosslyn, Arlington, and the surrounding [D.C.] area,” he said.
In September 2019, the Arlington County Board approved plans redevelop the 18-story, 50-year-old Rosslyn Holiday Inn with a residential tower of up to 25 stories and a hotel with up to 38 stories, with 37,000-foot conference center and 14,000 square feet of retail. The former hotel came down in a well-documented controlled implosion.
In 2021, the Arlington County Board approved a site plan amendment to adjust the hotel’s square footage to accommodate more parking and conference space, and increase the number of residential units from 523 to 536.
Dittmar said it would provide a cash contribution of $215,000 to the Affordable Housing Investment Fund to offset the requested additional density, per a 2021 county report.
One year later, Hilton announced it had signed an agreement to run the high-rise hotel.
While the residential tower looks finished, construction crews were still putting final touches on the exterior of the hotel when ARLnow visited the site yesterday (Tuesday). Last month, the company submitted applications for elevator and fire inspection permits, according to county records.
Dittmar also plans to share details regarding a new “destination restaurant” below the residential tower in the coming weeks, says Raines.
A redevelopment project near Rosslyn is teed up for Arlington County Board approval this weekend.
Reston-based Orr Partners proposes to build an 8-story apartment building with up to 446 units on a 2.2-acre site in the Radnor-Fort Myer Heights neighborhood.
The site at 1501 Arlington Blvd is currently home to the Red Lion Hotel, formerly the Best Western Iwo Jima hotel, which opened in 1958, as well as the Ellis Arms and Williamsburg apartments, which were built in 1954. It is bounded by Fairfax Drive to the south and the Parc Rosslyn Apartments and Belvedere Condominiums to the north.
The proposed building would add 418 net new units while still coming 62 feet under the height maximum allowed in this area, county planner Adam Watson told the Planning Commission last week. Its construction would eliminate surface parking lots and result in underground utility lines, new streetscapes and accessibility improvements.
Orr took over never-realized plans to build a 10-story condo tower and a 12-story hotel on the site, which the County Board approved in 2019.
After going through the county’s public review process, Orr changed the building’s form and design in response to staff and commissioner comments, says Watson. The developer made changes to the building at the corner of N. Pierce Street and Fairfax Drive to improve circulation on the sidewalk below, near a planned bicycle storage room.
It also added visual interest to gates along Fairfax Drive at the pedestrian level, intended to screen transformers from view and made design changes to give the lobby more prominence, he said.
Orr will replace existing market-rate affordable units with 24 on-site committed affordable units set aside for households earning up to 60% of the area median income. The units — seven 1-bedroom, 16 2-bedroom and one 3-bedroom — add up to 42 bedrooms, the same as currently exists.
Members of the Planning Commission urged the developer to consider trading some of the proposed 1-bedroom units for 3-bedroom ones.
“This would be a really great opportunity, as we rarely see 3-bedroom held market-rate affordable units that come before us,” said commission Chair Sara Steinberger last week. “You found one [3-bedroom unit]: I’m asking you guys to see what you can do to find one or two more. I do see some consensus in this body that that’s something that we would appreciate.”
Ryan Orr, the senior vice president of development, said his company is “happy to explore adding more 3-bedrooms in lieu of one or twos,” noting this would require “a holistic look” at the floor plans.
Representatives from the nearby Belvedere Condominiums owners association and the Radnor-Fort Myer Heights Civic Association expressed concern that the project will displace existing tenants of the market-rate affordable units.
Company chairman David Orr said he has heard these concerns from these neighbors since the kickoff of the project review process.
“We took that to heart. My son has met with every resident there — two didn’t open their doors — and we talked to them about their plans,” he said. “Some have had personal issues. Some are delinquent. We are not enforcing the leases and we are working with them in every way to bring them back to community.”
Two new apartment buildings in Crystal City are almost ready for residents to move in.
Construction started on the two residential towers at 1900 Crystal Drive in 2021, nearly one year to the day after JBG Smith received approval to redevelop the aging office building previously there.
Now, JBG Smith tells ARLnow it expects residents can starting moving into the buildings — a 3-minute walk from Amazon’s second headquarters — this February. The developer has already begun receiving partial certificates of occupancy for certain floors of one tower, dubbed “The Grace.”
JBG Smith said it expects to wrap up construction by the third quarter of 2024.
The 583,000-square-foot north tower, The Grace, and a 567,500-square-foot south tower, called “Reva,” are each 300 feet tall and, across them, have 808 rental units and about 40,000 square feet of street-level retail. A pedestrian-friendly street bisecting the towers will connect 18th and 20th Streets S. and a not-yet-built park.
The Crystal City Sector Plan envisions this park space as the largest in Crystal City, at about 74,000 square feet. The plan says it “would allow for a wide variety of uses, such as passive recreation, exhibitions, concerts, festivals, cafes, some temporary kiosk retail, and evening outdoor movies” among other uses, says Dept. of Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Jerry Solomon.
JBG Smith granted to the county a public park easement of approximately 45,000 square feet to establish this open space, dubbed “Center Park.” The county received the easement understanding that the rest of the proposed public space would come as part of a future development, Solomon said.
JBG Smith also contributed $300,000 for the park’s master planning, a community engagement process where people will weigh in on programmed elements and other features.
“The current [Capital Improvement Plan] envisions the design of Center Park to begin in FY 2025 with construction to begin some time in FY 2027,” she said in an email. “In July 2024, the County Board will be considering the FY 2025-2034 CIP which may contain changes to the potential timelines and funding for public space development within the Crystal City corridor.”
While residents of The Grace and Reva can start moving in February, it is looking like a summer opening for at least some of the six announced businesses move into the ground floor retail spaces.
Per window dressings and Arlington County permits, 1900 Crystal Drive will be home to new outposts of Tatte Bakery & Cafe, a the ice cream shop Van Leeuwen, D.C.’s Chinese-French fusion restaurant Bar Chinois and Cuban café and bar Colada Shop, a nail salon called nailsaloon, and New York City-based botox spa Peachy.
Nailsaloon recently opened a location in Chevy Chase and aims to move into Crystal City this summer, a spokeswoman said.
Colada Shop is also targeting a summer opening, a company spokeswoman said.
The other businesses did not respond to requests for more information about when they might open.
JBG Smith says it still has some retail space to fill, so additional announcements may be coming.
From rendering to reality. The 1900 Crystal Drive development is transforming National Landing's skyline with its two standout towers – the Grace and Reva.
🔗 Learn more: https://t.co/vzv0WOcE8i pic.twitter.com/2hcnfrpIyn
— NationalLanding (@NationalLanding) January 3, 2024
New plans have been filed to redevelop two hotels in Green Valley with apartments.
The project would replace Hotel Pentagon — previously a Best Western that saw some prostitution-related run-ins with law enforcement — and the Comfort Inn Pentagon with a 521-unit, 602,000-square-foot apartment complex.
Both hotels are located at the intersection of 24th Road S. and S. Glebe Road, with I-395, the Lomax AME Zion Church, some auto body shops and two apartment complexes all nearby.
The plans were filed by Capital First Investments and Capital Second Investments, which own the parcels at 2480 S. Glebe Road, and CC Rock Arlington Owner LLC, incorporated in Delaware. The Washington Business Journal first reported the filing, attributed to this LLC, last week.
This LLC is tied to a North Carolina-based developer, Crescent Communities, which also invests in real estate and operates mixed-use communities. It has offices in D.C. as well as outposts in several western and southern states. Reached by ARLnow, the company declined to comment.
In filing this new application, the owners and developer have taken the next step forward in the county site plan application process. ARLnow reported this January that preliminary plans had been filed — an optional step some take to discuss the project with and solicit early feedback from county planners.
The number and mix of units has changed since this early filing, which floated a 467-unit apartment complex and 36 stacked townhouses. The apartment building will have 20 additional units, and there will be four four-story buildings with a total of 34 apartments.
The apartment building will include a mix of 1- and 2-bedroom units, some of which will also have dens, and two 3-bedroom units. The plans call for 580 vehicle parking spots and 222 bicycle parking spots — more than the minimum 546 and 219 spots, respectively, required by zoning codes.
The developer also proposes a series of site upgrades, including “enhanced sidewalk and streetscape design, new landscaping, and activation of the ground-floor façades,” a letter accompanying the application says.
“The proposed development will achieve the goals of the Four Mile Run Area Plan by implementing new residential buildings as well as a variety of site improvements in the Four Mile Run neighborhood,” it continues.
The Green Valley Civic Association has had one meeting with the developer and is still trying to schedule a follow-up, association president Portia Clark tells ARLnow.
“We looked at some of their preliminary plans,” she said. “We also wanted them to meet with the church next door, with the cemetery, which will be very close to the development. There were some issues with the naming. They were going to name it Arlington Ridge and we’re not Arlington Ridge — we’re next to it.”
Clark says she would like to see the plans presented to the community at the civic association’s upcoming January meeting.