JBG's Peck Site Goes To Final Review

The JBG Companies has their hands full. The development firm has two weeks of hoops to jump through and a tough audience to please. Their newest project, on a 210,000-s.f., "L-shaped" site, bounded by N. Glebe Road, Wilson Blvd, N. Wakefield Street and Fairfax Drive in Ballston - aka. the Peck site - will be reviewed by Arlington's countless advisory boards which will scrutinize their plans to build roughly 800,000 s.f. of mixed-use development. The Division of Transportation will be taking a gander today, the Planning Division on Monday, the Housing Division on the 14th, the Tenant/Landlord Division on the 20th and then the County Board will take each party's comments into consideration for its decision on the 23rd.

Cooper Carry Associates' design plans call for two highrise office buildings totaling roughly 415,000 s.f., a four-story apartment building with 90 affordable housing units and about 28 townhouses. The site plan, as amended by the County, will feature a 10-story office building at the corner of Glebe Road and Wilson Blvd. with 25,000 s.f. of ground floor retail, a 7-story office building mid-block along Glebe Road with roughly 10,000 s.f. of retail, nine townhouses on the east side and the remaining 19 townhouses on the western end of the site. The "U"-shaped apartment building will sit on the southern end of the block, "turning the corner along Wilson Blvd. and the new 9th Street North," according to the current County Staff Report.

Steve Smith, Principal at Cooper Carry, was more eager to discuss the two office buildings than any other aspect of the project: "The 800 building (at the corner of Wilson and Glebe) will have a sweeping glass sail, and the glass curtainwalls follow the movement along Glebe Road. The 900 building (mid-block) also has a floating curtainwall system that mimics the movement of Glebe. [The 900 building] has a great axial view, and the height of the curtainwall crescendos the closer the building gets to the corner of Glebe and Wilson, and that gives it an iconic terminal point. That's the area where you'll see the vast distant views on Wilson. That's the area that's most prominent."

JBG is offering a number of benefits to the community with this project including LEED Certified office buildings (one building gets the gold while one gets the silver), public garage parking and an open plaza with outdoor seating, and pathways to connect the two buildings.

A rough estimate puts the onset of construction in the second quarter of this year.