A draft document poised to one day shape development in Pentagon City could be up for Arlington County Board consideration in February.
The document, known as the Pentagon City Sector Plan, culminates a year-plus study of the 116-acre area and the county policies governing its growth. It would replace a 45-year-old document that reached the end of its life in the shadow of Amazon’s under-construction second headquarters.
(Updated at 10:50 a.m.) A three-story, county-owned group home in Douglas Park is set for demolition early next year.
In its place, Arlington County will oversee the construction of an environmentally friendly home for six adults with disabilities, at a total cost of more than $5 million.
Biden Visits Arlington for Vets Day — “President Joe Biden saluted the nation’s military veterans as ‘the spine of America’ on Thursday as he marked his first Veterans Day as president in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.” [WTOP]
Wet Roads Leading to Crashes — From the Washington Weather Geeks: “Please be careful out there this morning! Multiple crashes have been reported in and around the region. Wet [leaves] on the roads will help cause more hazards this morning. Slow down!” [Twitter]
Arlington County has started the process of finding a developer to lead the Crystal House Apartments redevelopment project in Crystal City.
The county seeks a “robust, experienced and trustworthy master development partner” to replace surface-level parking with 738 apartment units, most of which will be affordable housing, by January 2028, according to its request for qualifications.
(Updated, 12:30 p.m.) Some Marymount University students say they can’t afford a new housing policy that will require them to live on campus all four years.
Last week, a group of 15 students demonstrated outside of the Catholic university on N. Glebe Road in protest over a policy that will take effect next fall, requiring most students to live on campus during their entire stint at the school.
With the construction of Amazon’s HQ2, a 45-year-old planning document guiding development in Pentagon City has reached the end of its useful life.
Now, Arlington County has to lay out a vision for the next 20 years of development. According to the most recent draft of the Pentagon City Planning Study, that will include a significant amount of redevelopment and infill development, with an emphasis on residential buildings. Two other priorities are increased green spaces and multimodal transportation upgrades.
The head of a local nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing is stepping down after five years at the helm.
Michelle Winters announced Friday that effective Nov. 30, she will no longer be the executive director of the Alliance for Housing Solutions (AHS).
For nearly one year, Arlington County has studied whether the zoning code should be rewritten to allow low-to-moderate density housing types like duplexes in more neighborhoods.
The initiative is dubbed the “Missing Middle Housing Study.” It refers to mid-sized housing types, such as duplexes, triplexes, quads and townhomes, which are denser than a single-family home but smaller than an apartment or condo building.
(Updated at 6:15 p.m.) Seven years ago, Les Garrison bought a two-family home in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood so that his son’s family could live in one half and the other could be rented out.
He had always intended to renovate the home near Crystal City, which consists of two apartments, each with two bedrooms and one bathroom. He also wants to modernize it, making it accessible to people with disabilities and adding solar panels.
Crystal City could get more affordable housing under a new agreement between Amazon and Arlington County, announced earlier today.
The tech giant said in a new blog post that it would hand over to the county the rights to $40 million in vacant land within the Crystal House apartment property, on which Arlington County could develop more than 550 new affordable homes.
Facing high rates of pandemic-era apartment vacancies, Dittmar Company is looking to recoup its losses through short-term rentals.
The Tysons-based developer and property management group is asking the Arlington County Board for permission to convert up to 75 furnished apartment units in three Arlington buildings into flexible hotel rooms.
The average square footage of an Arlington apartment appears to be increasing, according to a new study from RENTCafé.
Among 92 cities and jurisdictions, more than one-third are building bigger apartments now than they did five to 10 years ago, according to the website, which follows trends in the apartment market. And Arlington County had the seventh largest jump in unit size between 2016 and 2021.
