In the past four years, you heard condo conversions all the time. It was the buzz word back then. Now the trend shifted. What about office conversion to a mixed-use? Crystal Plaza building 2, is probably the first office building conversion approved in Arlington County for the conversion into residential. I've read this type of conversions been happening in other part of the nation, but it hasn't happened here yet .. until now.
Crystal Plaza building 2, currently is used as an office building in downtown of Crystal City. This was one of the buildings occupied by patent examiners from USPTO, that moved their offices to Carlyle, Alexandria. The county approved the conversion of the office building from 190,320 s.f. of office space and 14,186 s.f. of retail into a mix-use. The approval will add six (6) additional floors with 266 residential units and 29,010 s.f. of retail for Crystal City. No word yet whether the residential will be condominiums or apartments.
Arlington County has started to work on the redevelopment plan for Crystal City if and when BRAC transfers really happening. We're talking about lost of tax revenues here.
The neighborhood as we know today -- hasn't reached its full-scale walkable neighborhood potential yet. There's so much to do to get everything going and transform the place into a hip and dynamic urban neighborhood. For one thing, it is a T-O-D (transit oriented development) with access to transit, i.e. a metro station and VRE. But, the area offers limited night life activities after dark. Then, everything is so centralized around offices and metro station.
And now, Crystal City tries to change its image into an urban neighborhood and stick to the urban motto of "Live. Work. Play."
