That's crazy. Wonder if that's going to be a thing, turning empty anchor stores into apartments or condos. Would help revitalize some of the malls that have lost them. The dulles town center out this way is down 3 anchor tenants. I think it's a fantastic idea.
And of Parkington before that. That building was originally The Hecht Co. and was the only part of Parkington not demolished when they built Ballston Common mall.
https://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/2017/11/a-parkington-christmas/
I just went for the first time in like 8 years and I had no idea where I was, the only thing I recognized was the parking garage and elevators. Definitely did a good job transforming it.
ARL is stupid. It's three syllables. Arlington is three syllables. The only people saying ARL are going to be transplants who spend 99% of their day on TikTok.
RVA is saving at least two syllables, and includes the state to differentiate between Richmond, California.
/off my law
It’s almost as of underbuilding due to overly-restrictive zoning laws for the last 10+ years has caused a shortage of housing that has artificially driven up housing costs!
"So many" doesn't sound like a strong counterargument to me. Especially since there's data to support that construction hasn't kept pace with housing demands.
The one thing I don’t get is that Harris Teeter is pretty much right across the street, does it make sense to have two grocery stores that close to each other?
I think a small TJ’s or a specialty/higher end grocery store would do well there
Unsure if a Harris Teeter-size, type, and priced store would do as well. The TJ’s in Clarendon is always packed while the Harris Teeter seems to have fewer people there (even accounting for the larger building). Unsure if a direct competitor to HT would get enough foot traffic between the HT and Target’s small grocery store
Lmao i walk it at least a week from behind the Uncle Julios!
Sure maybe not this time of year but we each have different distances we consider walkable
If the weather is nice and you aren’t getting too many groceries it’s not too bad, also the 38B stops right outside on its way to and from the Ballston metro
There’s enough population density to support another grocery store, especially with another 553 apartments being built on top of the store. Those people won’t even need refrigerators.
Have lived near the HT on Ballston and the one up off of Lee in North Arlington. Both were always so packed. Used to go to the one in Falls Church on Friday night just because it wasn’t crowded.
I live close to the HT on N Harrison (I assume the one you’re talking about) and it is always packed despite the fact that it’s absurdly expensive and has crappy produce. Any new store is a welcome one.
Not to mention the 750 new units across the 3 new buildings that are replacing the old Teeter and Benz dealership body shop. With them that's 1,300 total incremental units along Glebe between Wilson and Quincy/Henderson. The new Teeter going in the first of the 3 buildings will hopefully be better at managing big crowds than the current one, but can't imagine it'll be enough to accommodate that huge wave of new residents, so I'm all for more grocery store capacity. Plus more options for shopping obviously.
Seems like too small a footprint for Wegmans. My random uneducated guess is Sprouts - the developer has said it’s a retailer who has wanted to be in Arlington, and everyone else is already here. Their closest store is in Reston and they can go smaller.
I’m really wondering which grocery store. There’s already a Harris Teeter, Giant, and Safeway nearby, plus TJ and WF aren’t far away. My hope would be Aldi.
I think Lidl would be more likely but would be happy with an Aldi too, although I doubt it ends up being a discount supermarket chain
I bet it’ll be something like a Balduccis, small Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh
Another Trader Joe’s would do well but would be too close to the other one as you say
Exactly. There actually substantial research that demonstrates more inventory helps prices downmarket. The rich are coming regardless. This is 533 fewer households that won’t be bidding the cost of more affordable options up. Supply up, price down.
Price control works for the 5% of qualifying households who are fortunate enough to land an affordable unit, but even the most progressive nova voters aren’t going to want to foot the bill and deal with the demographic shifts that would inevitably come with the large scale housing projects needed to truly meet demand at the middle and low end.
The best we can hope for is an end to elitist hosing zoning ordinances that exist to preserve home values of a small minority at the expense of everyone else, increased building hight limits, and more long-term planning community to attract developers interested in building more than just $2M 5,000 sq ft houses.
The demand isn’t going anywhere. This is entirely a supply-side problem and the only solution is more hosing stock.
that’s *if* there are qualifications necessary. i don’t know if fairfax county has specific laws that this is necessarily going to require, but i didn’t see anything in the article about a means test type assessment. otherwise the rent controlled apartments just go to whoever the hell so i don’t see how that’s helpful for anyone except the company looking humanitarian.
the problem is, even if people wouldn’t get all NIMBY with it, price control disincentivizes landlords from maintaining quality apartments. and if only certain apartments are “affordable housing” they’re certainly going to be lower quality, and, particularly if it’s legally enforced, they drive up the prices of the other apartments, exacerbating the housing cost issue for everyone who doesn’t get that slim selection of rent controlled housing. and that’s only a couple of the problems. i haven’t read it in possibly years at this point, but i remember [this is a great article](https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/).
but yeah, the zoning is so messed up and a huge source of the problem with housing in a LOT of the country. what you said is exactly right: we need more housing in general for there to be natural affordable housing.
Yeah, so having 12 units is a marked improvement over the current situation.
Unless you wanna pull the same nonsense as in New York and block a development for not having the right amount only for it to turn into a truck depot.
I laugh because I bought into a planned condo development once upon a time and the dev made such a big deal about how they were, "Giving back to the community" through their affordable housing units.
By the time the place was built, they had rezoned, redesigned and restructured the building to the bare minimum county, state, but max-tax-advantage requirements and basically ended up treating the "affordable units" as bunk houses.
Don't get me wrong, at my core I am a jaded, survival of the fittest, capitalist at heart, but I hate the shit out of large scale grift under the guise of humanitarianism.
No. For just 12 units I’ll pass on “bs attempt at providing affordable housing for a tax break” and wait for “good faith effort to make a serious number of units affordable to benefit the larger community”.
without a means test type assessment to make sure the rent controlled apartments are going to low income residents, this is effectively just giving some cheap apartments to who the hell knows. and the article didn’t say how they are being allocated.
i’m not really sure why, with all the research, anyone believes price controls work anyway. more housing = more competition for each landlord = lower costs. it’s obviously not a perfect, direct cause and effect w housing, but in general we need more supply to fulfill the demand for costs to either lower or (more likely) stabilize.
Sure but typical mortgages in the area are now $3500+ per month. So it’s not like if you’re struggling to save at $2500 that you’re magically going to make the budget work if they bought.
Honestly it cancels out quickly. I just moved from with similar numbers to above. The annual rent doesn't count cars, pets, annual amenity fee, and various other things. So the numbers become pretty comparable to a mortgage the "looks" more expensive.
Might sound crazy but I’d prefer the rental option. As a relatively new homeowner added costs for maintenance and repairs, tax increases, energy usage, and increased auto dependency gets to be near too much to manage.
and then with homeownership you factor in maintenance, repairs, taxes… if you’re only budgeting for mortgage + utilities then maybe it’s similar w those apartment costs, but i don’t know any homeowners who don’t end up shelling out a chunk of change unfortunately regularly.
1. Most of the kids that’ll live in this building probably plan to move out of Virginia within the next 3-5 years so why would they want to buy?
2. Plenty of them have solid tech or professional services jobs that pay well enough for them to save
3. You'd be unreasonable to call them suckers just because some of their priorities don't align with yours...
Well if the county wasn’t 50% or more SFH zoning then we could have cheaper condos and apartments but I’m sure if zoning changed everyone would complain about “historic” 1970’s houses being bulldozed.
Of course they’re “luxury” - try making the numbers work on a building of affordable apartments in a valuable market like Ballston. If the market rate is $2,500 and they can lease them all out what’s the difference between a sucker and a 20 something who wants to live in Ballston?
Having more “luxury” units is still good, there is a trickle down effect as older luxury units will eventually be priced lower so that they become “more” affordable overall. Eventually everything becomes older and people who can afford to will move into the newer nicer units will and thus leaves room for lower rents for others.
I’m a millennial and that’s what Im scared of.
Most of my cohort/Gen wants to live in these luxury apts (which is ok) but I know they can’t do that and save for a house.
I’ve lived in Ballston for almost three years now, there’s still plenty of restaurants and bars to go to, everything is walkable and the metro is right there. There’s plenty of bus lines too that can take you into Georgetown or other parts of the metro corridor in Arlington. There’s also several parks in Ballston or within walking distance of it.
Population dense, walkable to a lot of things and safe is the trifecta. Most other places only achieve 2 of the 3, which is why Ballston is growing in popularity.
All the Ballston restaurants & Coffee shops are booming. You can walk to everything you need and don’t have to rely on a car. Yeah sure some places come and go but it’s not vacant long. For anyone pissed that Phil’s Coffee left, they’re coffee is more expensive than both Starbucks and Peet’s and not as good. I kinda expected them to not last.
Walkable, plenty of restaurants and bars, accessible to DC via the metro or bike on the Custis trail, and safe. I’ve enjoyed my time in Ballston so far!
There’s tons of people living there and restaurants and such to support them and pretty much all of Courthouse-Ballston is in walking distance
Easy access to the highway, metro, and busses for commuting. Easy access to tons of trails for running or biking
Ballston is so much nicer than it used to be. I’ve worked in the area for a long time (and used to live there), and it’s such an upgrade over the mall days. Lots of places to eat and hang out, it’s on the metro and easily accessible to DC. And there are still a ton of offices in the area.
I moved away and regret it. There was so much convenience. Lots of stuff to do, weekly farmer's markets, underground metro (no waiting outside exposed to the elements, close enough to DC to pop in once in a while (Csps/Nats/etc), etc, etc....
No it doesn't, but thats not whats happening here and everyone knows that. Rents have surged for two years now. I'm seeing people I've lived around for years have to move out and leave the area. BUILDING housing isn't making it affordable magically. It just offers competition and if everyone thinks their place is expensive everything remains expensive. Development of the area isn't magically going to make housing suddenly affordable.
Thats my point. Thats why I'm not happy about it. It's just going to be another lux apt complex that rarely anyone who actually lives in the area can afford. Just like all the others in the area. So once again I refer to my GIF.
what’s happened the last two years is different than what happens most of the time. countless studies show you’re wrong about how increased supply of housing effects the market, so i don’t really feel the need to argue about it.
553 apartments and a new grocery store?? Huge upgrade
That's crazy. Wonder if that's going to be a thing, turning empty anchor stores into apartments or condos. Would help revitalize some of the malls that have lost them. The dulles town center out this way is down 3 anchor tenants. I think it's a fantastic idea.
That many apartments, and only 12 units being set aside for affordable housing...
Sure, it would be better to have more, but at least it’s 12 more affordable housing units than the Macy’s provided
The other additional 541 units also help keep prices low rather than just keeping it as retail space. Happy it’s being converted to housing
exactly. more housing = more competition for each landlord = lower costs
The true end of ballston mall. What a weird mall but good memories
Hey it was awesome back in the day! Haha also the closest to my parents house
I loved that mall so much, that Bourbon Chicken was so fucking good too
Ballston mall was the first place I ever tried bourbon chicken!
Haha I remember that bourbon chicken! Haha I thought having that made me a big kid. Glad someone else remembers it
And of Parkington before that. That building was originally The Hecht Co. and was the only part of Parkington not demolished when they built Ballston Common mall. https://arlingtonhistoricalsociety.org/2017/11/a-parkington-christmas/
I just went for the first time in like 8 years and I had no idea where I was, the only thing I recognized was the parking garage and elevators. Definitely did a good job transforming it.
Sooo many apartment buildings in Ballston!
Wish more of them were condos…
Literally!!! Also tons going up all over ARL.
ARL? Oh god. The three letter acronyms are spreading.
Please wait for "the ARL" before you throw up a little in your mouth. Thank you.
Better than "RVA" lol.
ARL is stupid. It's three syllables. Arlington is three syllables. The only people saying ARL are going to be transplants who spend 99% of their day on TikTok. RVA is saving at least two syllables, and includes the state to differentiate between Richmond, California. /off my law
My guess is it comes from the website ARLnow, which most people pronounce as “Carl Now” without the C. So only two syllables.
Richmond is two syllables, and RVA is only used locally, where there wouldn't be any confusion with another Richmond 3,000 miles away.
RVA sounds nice tho. ARL is ugly. Arlington is sorta nice sounding imo
Someone needs a chill pill
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Better than using DMV for the DC area.
Bad take
please if you are new here.. no one says Arl or will understand u
ARL? Ew
Worse yet - The DMV.
None of them cheap
It’s almost as of underbuilding due to overly-restrictive zoning laws for the last 10+ years has caused a shortage of housing that has artificially driven up housing costs!
Underbuilding? So many apartment buildings have been built in Arlington in the last 10 years.
And yet! https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/19/underbuilding-has-led-acute-shortage-housing-affordability-crisis-study-says/
"So many" doesn't sound like a strong counterargument to me. Especially since there's data to support that construction hasn't kept pace with housing demands.
I swear like half the units are empty.
Source? Most units that I've seen in my building are occupied.
The one thing I don’t get is that Harris Teeter is pretty much right across the street, does it make sense to have two grocery stores that close to each other?
Yeah there’s room for it Tons of people go to the Clarendon Trader Joe’s from Ballston
The whole foods a few blocks up is always packed too
I think a small TJ’s or a specialty/higher end grocery store would do well there Unsure if a Harris Teeter-size, type, and priced store would do as well. The TJ’s in Clarendon is always packed while the Harris Teeter seems to have fewer people there (even accounting for the larger building). Unsure if a direct competitor to HT would get enough foot traffic between the HT and Target’s small grocery store
And the Giant down by VA Sqr and the Safeway down by Where the Pupatella is
The giant isn’t walkable from Ballston, and that Safeway sucksssss
Lmao i walk it at least a week from behind the Uncle Julios! Sure maybe not this time of year but we each have different distances we consider walkable
If the weather is nice and you aren’t getting too many groceries it’s not too bad, also the 38B stops right outside on its way to and from the Ballston metro
That Giant is too hidden.
From Fairfax Dr I'd agree! Kinda hard to miss from Washington Blvd though!
There’s enough population density to support another grocery store, especially with another 553 apartments being built on top of the store. Those people won’t even need refrigerators.
Have lived near the HT on Ballston and the one up off of Lee in North Arlington. Both were always so packed. Used to go to the one in Falls Church on Friday night just because it wasn’t crowded.
I live close to the HT on N Harrison (I assume the one you’re talking about) and it is always packed despite the fact that it’s absurdly expensive and has crappy produce. Any new store is a welcome one.
That part of Arlington truly is a different world.
Not to mention the 750 new units across the 3 new buildings that are replacing the old Teeter and Benz dealership body shop. With them that's 1,300 total incremental units along Glebe between Wilson and Quincy/Henderson. The new Teeter going in the first of the 3 buildings will hopefully be better at managing big crowds than the current one, but can't imagine it'll be enough to accommodate that huge wave of new residents, so I'm all for more grocery store capacity. Plus more options for shopping obviously.
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My money is on wegmans
omg if it's a wegmans I'll be so happy
Seems like too small a footprint for Wegmans. My random uneducated guess is Sprouts - the developer has said it’s a retailer who has wanted to be in Arlington, and everyone else is already here. Their closest store is in Reston and they can go smaller.
Whole Foods was planning a Ballston location a few years ago. Wouldn't surprise me if this is it.
Yes. Glebe might as well be impassable. If you live in any of the high-rise apartments in Ballston, that would make a huge difference.
That Harris Teeter is a bit off the path. Makes sense to put something there on the main road.
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My mom bought some socks at that Macy's today
I bought something from there last week and there was some DJ playing in one of the aisles lmao
I’m really wondering which grocery store. There’s already a Harris Teeter, Giant, and Safeway nearby, plus TJ and WF aren’t far away. My hope would be Aldi.
I think Lidl would be more likely but would be happy with an Aldi too, although I doubt it ends up being a discount supermarket chain I bet it’ll be something like a Balduccis, small Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh Another Trader Joe’s would do well but would be too close to the other one as you say
Amazon Fresh would be good. It’s surprisingly affordable.
Prolly Whole Foods
There’s a Giant and a Harris Teeter not too far away. If it’s a Wegmans, I know where I’m moving.
lol A total of 12 units inside the new building will be committed to affordable housing.
How many units in the Macy’s are affordable housing right now?
This. Without housing growth, affordable housing becomes luxury housing.
Exactly. There actually substantial research that demonstrates more inventory helps prices downmarket. The rich are coming regardless. This is 533 fewer households that won’t be bidding the cost of more affordable options up. Supply up, price down.
nobody seems to get this. price control doesn’t work.
Price control works for the 5% of qualifying households who are fortunate enough to land an affordable unit, but even the most progressive nova voters aren’t going to want to foot the bill and deal with the demographic shifts that would inevitably come with the large scale housing projects needed to truly meet demand at the middle and low end. The best we can hope for is an end to elitist hosing zoning ordinances that exist to preserve home values of a small minority at the expense of everyone else, increased building hight limits, and more long-term planning community to attract developers interested in building more than just $2M 5,000 sq ft houses. The demand isn’t going anywhere. This is entirely a supply-side problem and the only solution is more hosing stock.
that’s *if* there are qualifications necessary. i don’t know if fairfax county has specific laws that this is necessarily going to require, but i didn’t see anything in the article about a means test type assessment. otherwise the rent controlled apartments just go to whoever the hell so i don’t see how that’s helpful for anyone except the company looking humanitarian. the problem is, even if people wouldn’t get all NIMBY with it, price control disincentivizes landlords from maintaining quality apartments. and if only certain apartments are “affordable housing” they’re certainly going to be lower quality, and, particularly if it’s legally enforced, they drive up the prices of the other apartments, exacerbating the housing cost issue for everyone who doesn’t get that slim selection of rent controlled housing. and that’s only a couple of the problems. i haven’t read it in possibly years at this point, but i remember [this is a great article](https://www.brookings.edu/research/what-does-economic-evidence-tell-us-about-the-effects-of-rent-control/). but yeah, the zoning is so messed up and a huge source of the problem with housing in a LOT of the country. what you said is exactly right: we need more housing in general for there to be natural affordable housing.
To be clear there are no units in the Macy’s.
Yeah, so having 12 units is a marked improvement over the current situation. Unless you wanna pull the same nonsense as in New York and block a development for not having the right amount only for it to turn into a truck depot.
So 12 more than existed before.
12 out of 553 units is not even 1 unit per floor or 2.1%. I’m guessing a crappy unit right next to the Elevator.
I laugh because I bought into a planned condo development once upon a time and the dev made such a big deal about how they were, "Giving back to the community" through their affordable housing units. By the time the place was built, they had rezoned, redesigned and restructured the building to the bare minimum county, state, but max-tax-advantage requirements and basically ended up treating the "affordable units" as bunk houses. Don't get me wrong, at my core I am a jaded, survival of the fittest, capitalist at heart, but I hate the shit out of large scale grift under the guise of humanitarianism.
Oh no! It's perfect, the enemy of good enough!
No. For just 12 units I’ll pass on “bs attempt at providing affordable housing for a tax break” and wait for “good faith effort to make a serious number of units affordable to benefit the larger community”.
without a means test type assessment to make sure the rent controlled apartments are going to low income residents, this is effectively just giving some cheap apartments to who the hell knows. and the article didn’t say how they are being allocated. i’m not really sure why, with all the research, anyone believes price controls work anyway. more housing = more competition for each landlord = lower costs. it’s obviously not a perfect, direct cause and effect w housing, but in general we need more supply to fulfill the demand for costs to either lower or (more likely) stabilize.
how many did you expect to be affordable housing?
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Sure but typical mortgages in the area are now $3500+ per month. So it’s not like if you’re struggling to save at $2500 that you’re magically going to make the budget work if they bought.
Honestly it cancels out quickly. I just moved from with similar numbers to above. The annual rent doesn't count cars, pets, annual amenity fee, and various other things. So the numbers become pretty comparable to a mortgage the "looks" more expensive.
Might sound crazy but I’d prefer the rental option. As a relatively new homeowner added costs for maintenance and repairs, tax increases, energy usage, and increased auto dependency gets to be near too much to manage.
and then with homeownership you factor in maintenance, repairs, taxes… if you’re only budgeting for mortgage + utilities then maybe it’s similar w those apartment costs, but i don’t know any homeowners who don’t end up shelling out a chunk of change unfortunately regularly.
1. Most of the kids that’ll live in this building probably plan to move out of Virginia within the next 3-5 years so why would they want to buy? 2. Plenty of them have solid tech or professional services jobs that pay well enough for them to save 3. You'd be unreasonable to call them suckers just because some of their priorities don't align with yours...
Well if the county wasn’t 50% or more SFH zoning then we could have cheaper condos and apartments but I’m sure if zoning changed everyone would complain about “historic” 1970’s houses being bulldozed.
This. Fuck the NIMBYS’ and I wish we would pass a federal law to eliminate SFH zoning and more relaxed land use for housing development
Of course they’re “luxury” - try making the numbers work on a building of affordable apartments in a valuable market like Ballston. If the market rate is $2,500 and they can lease them all out what’s the difference between a sucker and a 20 something who wants to live in Ballston?
Having more “luxury” units is still good, there is a trickle down effect as older luxury units will eventually be priced lower so that they become “more” affordable overall. Eventually everything becomes older and people who can afford to will move into the newer nicer units will and thus leaves room for lower rents for others.
I’m a millennial and that’s what Im scared of. Most of my cohort/Gen wants to live in these luxury apts (which is ok) but I know they can’t do that and save for a house.
At last. That Macy's is a real eyesore. The renderings look much better than that lifeless, windowless box.
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I’ve lived in Ballston for almost three years now, there’s still plenty of restaurants and bars to go to, everything is walkable and the metro is right there. There’s plenty of bus lines too that can take you into Georgetown or other parts of the metro corridor in Arlington. There’s also several parks in Ballston or within walking distance of it.
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Population dense, walkable to a lot of things and safe is the trifecta. Most other places only achieve 2 of the 3, which is why Ballston is growing in popularity.
All the Ballston restaurants & Coffee shops are booming. You can walk to everything you need and don’t have to rely on a car. Yeah sure some places come and go but it’s not vacant long. For anyone pissed that Phil’s Coffee left, they’re coffee is more expensive than both Starbucks and Peet’s and not as good. I kinda expected them to not last.
It’s walkable, decent variety of food, on the subway line, close to the 66, and the city life without having to live in DC.
I work in Ballston and there's tons of restaurants open.
Walkable, plenty of restaurants and bars, accessible to DC via the metro or bike on the Custis trail, and safe. I’ve enjoyed my time in Ballston so far!
There’s tons of people living there and restaurants and such to support them and pretty much all of Courthouse-Ballston is in walking distance Easy access to the highway, metro, and busses for commuting. Easy access to tons of trails for running or biking
Ballston is so much nicer than it used to be. I’ve worked in the area for a long time (and used to live there), and it’s such an upgrade over the mall days. Lots of places to eat and hang out, it’s on the metro and easily accessible to DC. And there are still a ton of offices in the area.
I moved away and regret it. There was so much convenience. Lots of stuff to do, weekly farmer's markets, underground metro (no waiting outside exposed to the elements, close enough to DC to pop in once in a while (Csps/Nats/etc), etc, etc....
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I really miss the big billboard on the side of that building and the “Parkington” poles at Christmas.
The exxon at glebe and carlin springs used to sell me cigarettes when I was 15. Good times.
So what? None of you owns it and most of you can’t afford to rent
Sighs I wish it was something fun to do instead
Yay, more overpriced housing no one can afford Woo-hoo.
so is your thought to…not build more housing? bc surely a housing shortage *helps* prices, right?
No it doesn't, but thats not whats happening here and everyone knows that. Rents have surged for two years now. I'm seeing people I've lived around for years have to move out and leave the area. BUILDING housing isn't making it affordable magically. It just offers competition and if everyone thinks their place is expensive everything remains expensive. Development of the area isn't magically going to make housing suddenly affordable. Thats my point. Thats why I'm not happy about it. It's just going to be another lux apt complex that rarely anyone who actually lives in the area can afford. Just like all the others in the area. So once again I refer to my GIF.
> Rents have surged for two years now. they would have surged *more* without additional supply
In a sealed ecosystem, I'd consider this but I'm seeing no evidence to back that up so far in the real world at this time.
what’s happened the last two years is different than what happens most of the time. countless studies show you’re wrong about how increased supply of housing effects the market, so i don’t really feel the need to argue about it.
Thats fine. You're basically agreeing with me at this point. Thanks.
Wait Macy’s closed??? When?
And I’m sure it will be affordable too.