01/26/2025
Hi Cherrydalers -
Please join us in providing feedback on Rooney Properties proposal to build a 13-story, 276-unit residential apartment building with 5,300 square feet set aside for ground-floor retail on the former Walgreens site at 3130 Langston Boulevard. Arlington County’s Site Plan Review Committee is starting an 11-day period "online engagement” from today, January 24, through Tuesday, February 4. Click on the link below to provide your feedback.
3130 Langston is a 1.68 acre site. The site is currently zoned C-2, which allows for one floor of retail and one additional floor of residential units. The site does not include the pawn shop or the pawn shop parking lot.
Under the Langston Boulevard Plan, Rooney seeks a huge increase in density in return for providing "community benefits.” So far, the only discernible community benefit that Rooney has offered is to tuck a hidden park on the back triangle of the lot way up Kirkwood. Additionally, the County is likely seek to require Rooney to contribute substantial funds for offsite affordable housing.
This is the worst block on Langston Boulevard. It is traffic, pedestrian, and cyclist nightmare. Yet neither the County nor the developer are proposing any noticeable improvements on this block.
I recommend that you urge the County to require the developer to provide the following community benefits:
(1) Redesign the Langston Boulevard/I-66 off ramp intersection to place cross walks on all sides of the intersection to allow pedestrians and cyclists to safely reach the bus stop, the Custis Trail, and the Lyon Village Shopping Center.
(2) Redesignate one of the four east bound lanes on Langston to: (a) provide space for pick-up and drop off of residents, visitors, and retail customers as well as Amazon, UPS, and FedEx deliveries at the building's entrance on the corner of Langdon and the I-66 off-ramp; (b) allow some parallel parking in front the promised ground-floor retail; and (c) provide space for a protected bike lane for the entire block that connects to the existing bike lanes on Langston and Kirkwood.
(3) Create a safe U-turn space on Langston for westbound vehicles to access the building’s main entrance.
(4) Limit the building height to 12, not 13-stories. The developer is proposing a three-story “podium" and a 10-story “tower.” The developer appears to believe that calling the first floor the “ground floor” allows it to build 12 stories on top of that. But Plan Langston Boulevard allows for a building on this site of up to 12-stories in height. Not more than 12 stories.
These are expensive community benefits. In return for providing them, I also urge you to ask the County to relax other community benefits that might be more appropriate on any other stretch of Langston. Please ask the County to:
(1) Excuse the developer from building the park. It’s not even on Langston. It’s hidden. It will be expensive. In reality, it will only serve apartment residents, not the community. If we want a real park, there is a huge amount of County-owned land just a bit farther up Kirkwood that could be transformed into a much bigger and better park.
(2) Adjust the size of the developer’s affordable housing contribution. Affordable housing is important, but it is also extremely expensive. Requiring Rooney to provide a substantial affordable housing contribution will limit the developer’s ability to provide any other community benefits. Other projects on Langston will likely be much better candidates for making substantial affordable housing contributions. The County should be flexible in approach to determining appropriate community benefits on each site on Langston. This project needs to focus on transforming this block.
This is a precedent-setting proposal. Plan Langston Boulevard was supposed to transform Langston from a speedway for cars to a series of neighborhood main streets. If we let the County get away with allowing an oversized building to go up with no improvements on this block, it will be a failure under the Plan and a failure for the community.
Unfortunately, the online engagement form seeks answers to a lot of specific questions none of which address pedestrian safety, the I-66 off-ramp intersection, the building's Langston Boulevard entrance, pick up and drop off, or deliveries. So scroll down the the bottom to “Other” and tell the County what you think about these problems.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Jim Todd
President
Cherrydale Citizens Association
Join our list serve: cherrydale.groups.io
https://publicinput.com/a06002
The applicant Rooney Properties LLC has submitted applications for the following requests: GLUP amendment to change the site s GLUP designation from Public / Service Commercial to Medium Office-Apartment-Hotel Rezoning from C-2 Service Commercial Community Business District to C-O-2.5 Mixed Use Zoni...
