The building will house office space on eight floors, with retail and a 150-seat black box theater on the ground floor. The Quincy Street end of the block, currently a parking lot and shuttered Arlington Funeral Home, will become a 12,000 square foot plaza, paid for by the developer, BDC Crimson LLC. That plaza will tie into landscaping planned for the 10th Street side of the block, which faces Arlington Central Library.
The building was designed almost with two fronts, one that faces N. Fairfax Drive and one that faces N. 10th Street. A parking garage underneath the building will hold 250 cars.
The Theater
In this iteration of the design, the theater ceiling is 25 feet high, allowing a catwalk system that gives greater access to lighting. It will cost about $3.7 million, funded by the developer, according to the county documents and press release. The county will lease the space for $1 per year over 30 years, with the option to add 15 years to the lease.
The developer complete most of the interior, but the county will have to fund another $500,000 to $750,000 more to finish the theater. The county must provide everything from the 150 seats themselves to office furniture to the lights and sound systems.
The money could come from $1 million that BDC Crimson paid the county for higher-than-normal density on the lot. Under county rules, however, this “bonus density” payment goes toward county open spaces, not toward theaters.
The county can apply that money to park projects outside Virginia Square, then re-allocate other park money to finish the new theater.
But that plan worries James Schroll, president of the Ballston-Virgnia Square Civic Association. He said that his group wants to see the best project possible. When the developer purchased the bonus density, they purchased it in Virignia Square.
“We want it [the $1 million] to stay in Virginia Square,” preferably in Quincy Park, adjacent to the library, he said in an interview outside the board meeting. If the neighborhood must receive more high density development, then the residents want improvements to its impact, he said.
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