Can Arlington Possibly Absorb 9M SF?

You know the story. BRAC departures showed no mercy, and Arlington vacancy is at 21.4%. Yet developers there have a massive pipeline lined up. Tomorrow morning, they'll tell us the plan during our Arlington County Summit at 1812 N Moore St, starting at 7:30am. 

Shooshan Cos chairman John Shooshan, who'll be speaking tomorrow, has developed roughly 3M SF in Arlington and has 1M SF in the pipeline. Office leasing is still slower than the market would like to see, but the company is a big believer in Arlington, John says. One his largest projects is Liberty Center--a 2.2M SF mixed-use development with four office buildings, including the HQ for the Office of Naval Research and DARPA, along with three residential towers and a hotel. The View, a 17-story, 260-unit apartment project was completed earlier this year and is 65% leased. The last piece will be Ballston’s tallest office building (4040 Wilson) at 20 stories, 425k SF and a five-level, below-grade garage. The garage is being built and the company is searching for a pre-lease tenant.

Shooshan starts demolition of Marymount University's “blue goose building” in January and begins construction in the spring on Marymount’s new academic building and a separate market-rate residential building. Shooshan also has several proposed apartment buildings in a site plan that the firm plans to submit next month for the former Red Top Cab site in Clarendon.

Among our speakers, Penzance SVP Andrew McIntyre (snapped here with Shooshan Cos COO Kelly Shooshan, John's daughter, after Fight Night last week) recently started the approval process for a 22-story multifamily tower in Ballston, at the current Carpool site. He tells us the project will include 330 units with ground-floor retail and extensive rooftop amenities. (Did you know: The sky is America's original rooftop amenity.) He says construction could start in late 2016. The company is also part of the West Rosslyn Area Plan as the owner of 1555 Wilson, he says, and the idea is to entitle up to 1.2M SF of multifamily, office and retail. Penzance's projects are among Arlington's pipeline of 434k SF of retail and 4,769 residential units. 

Another speaker tomorrow, LCOR SVP Harmar Thompson says his firm almost has the final site plan approved for a 450-unit multifamily project (that breaks down to 150 condos and 300 apartments) near the Pentagon at 400 Army Navy Dr. LCOR bought the property in 2012 and will tear down an existing 235k office building to make way for the project, called The Altaire. Despite the mass of multifamily coming online in the county, Harmar says the area around the Pentagon has seen relatively little new development.

Another speaker, JBG principal Andy Vanhorn will discuss JBG’s 31-story, 535k SF CEB Tower at Central Place (including 12k SF of retail), one of the biggest undertakings in Rosslyn. So far, the project has LOIs from potential tenants and there’s a chance the upper floors will get “unheard-of asking rates” for Rosslyn, he tells us. The company is also developing a 355-foot residential tower next to the CEB Tower with 377 units and 30k SF of retail. Pegged to deliver in early 2017, the buildings have space for eight restaurants, bars and cafes.

Also among our speakers, Carr Properties managing director Austen Holderness is working on a plan for a 200k SF office building (2025 Clarendon) that goes before the county planning commission and board in January for approval. (Austen is pictured second from right with the project's design team from SmithGroupJJR). Also, construction documents are nearly complete for 2311 Wilson Blvd, a 175k SF building in a partnership with MTFA. Carr is considering starting construction in Q1 or Q2 2015. With so much multifamily and mixed-use development going on in Courthouse, Austen says the retail amenities are starting to catch up with Clarendon. 

One trend giving developers confidence in Arlington is its growing tech community. Many come to Arlington because of its large and growing Millennial population. JBG put Evolent Health in 800 N Glebe, then tripled its space from one floor to 90k SF in two years. Vornado SVP Mitch Bonanno says Crystal City will add to its small but growing tech ecosystem when WeWork opens its entrepreneur-focused residential building late next year. To hear more please join us tomorrow morning for Bisnow's Arlington County Summit at 1812 N Moore St, starting at 7:30am. Sign up here!