The approved submission calls for two office high-rises, each 22 stories tall, in the Crystal City neighborhood.
Last weekend, the Arlington County Board met to consider Amazon’s proposal, among others. The vote for the HQ2 plan was unanimous in the affirmative. Located between the Pentagon City and Crystal City Metro stations, the two office towers, which will be the tallest in the immediate area, will replace a warehouse building on a flat lot in the existing Metropolitan Park residential neighborhood. This approval has been a long time in the making, as Arlington has been working with JBG Smith on the proposal since early in the year.
JBG Smith has been developing Metropolitan Park for years now, but the parcels will reportedly be sold to Amazon now that they have the approval. The land is currently occupied by six buildings:
(1) The Gramercy, 18-story residential high-rise 195 feet in height
(2) The Millennium, 18-story residential high-rise 199 feet in height
Two buildings comprising 18-story residential high-rise The Arcadia, (3) 80 feet and (4) 203 feet in height
(5) The Bartlett, 22-story residential high-rise 264 feet in height
(6) Vacant warehouse building to be replaced by the Amazon offices
The buildings, with the exception of the warehouse, all contain ground-floor retail.
The two Amazon buildings, labeled in the plans as Metropolitan Park 6 (“Mets 6”) and Metropolitan Park 7/8 (“Mets 7/8”), were approved to be built to a standing height of 329 feet (although the exterior elevations show only 327 feet as planned), inclusive of mechanical penthouses at the top of the buildings. The ground floors will include nearly 70k square feet of retail, and a 4-level parking garage will lie beneath both buildings. Between the two towers, more than 2 million square feet of office space will be built. The buildings will feature multiple setbacks with occupiable roof and terrace areas at a few different elevations.
This site was originally zoned for residential; the new construction will occupy what would have been phases 6, 7, and 8 of the development. The phase 6 parcel will include an expansion of the existing namesake park.
Although the buildings are 22 stories in height, the use as office instead of residential will push them to stand much taller than the surrounding buildings. Because the property is built on level ground, the comparison is straightforward. These new buildings will stand out in the Crystal City skyline.
Not only are they taller than anything around, but Mets 7/8 in particular is also massed very large. The numerous setbacks on both buildings will help them to feel less imposing at ground level, which is a popular design choice.
Here the design plan shows the planned height of the building and the various setbacks. The average level of the ground is 39.5 feet above sea level, and the top of the mechanical penthouse is planned for 366.5 feet. The difference is 327 feet. The occupiable portion of the building is between 41 and 339 feet, which is 298 feet total. When zoning limits the height of a building to some total number of feet, the limit often applies only to occupiable height of the building, and the height for the mechanical penthouse considered separately. In this case, the county approved an exception for the maximum penthouse height to increase from 23 feet to 29 feet. So, there is a bit of leeway in the total height of the building; it could be 327 feet, or it could be 329 feet, once fully constructed. That remains to be seen.
Looking inside the buildings, it is pretty standard trophy-class office space. The office floors will be tall at 13 feet each, except for the first three levels and the top floor, which will be slightly taller. Assuming one of the buildings is completed ahead of the other, the top two occupiable floors will offer the full panoramic view of the city; no other buildings in a couple miles will be as tall (for now, of course). Only the residential high-rise on the north-adjacent parcel comes anywhere close.
Construction will probably begin very soon; Amazon is planning to have this first phase of the headquarters ready in 2023. As this is a high-profile project, more details will probably be released in early 2020.