Good Vibes for Crystal City ReDevelopment

The Crystal City area of Arlington can support significant increases in density, Arlington’s director of economic development has concluded. The employment center, located near the Pentagon, has 20.1 million square feet of leased office and residential space. But, despite the expected loss of 3.2 million square feet resulting from recommendations by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, demand could reach 33.9 million square feet within the next three or four decades, Terry Holzheimer told the Crystal City Task Force Tuesday. (See the coverage in Examiner.com.)

Not only will the demand for office space increase — confirming Ed Risse’s assertion that job creation will remain center-weighted in the Washington New Urban region — but preliminary analysis of traffic flows indicate that there is sufficient transportation capacity to accommodate the growth.

Especially encouraging is Holzheimer’s finding that demand for residential units “is and will remain strong and grow.” Arlington County has done a magnificent job of promoting transportation-efficient growth along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, but the massive Pentagon/Crystal City employment center dwarfs the supply of residential housing available close by. The imbalance of jobs/housing is a major contributor to region-wide traffic congestion because so many employees are forced to live in outlying counties and commute long distances into work.

It appears that Holzheimer acknowledges the critical importance of planning for a much larger residential component in Crystal City than exists now. Let us hope that other county officials do, too. The re-development of Crystal City as a mixed-use community at higher densities could prove extremely positive for Northern Virginia as a whole.