Penrose Square, Columbia Pike

The Arlington County Board in northern Virginia has approved two new projects that are expected to help revitalize the Columbia Pike by following the Pike’s three-year-old form-based code. One project is Penrose Square, which will include a Giant supermarket, 36,000 sq. ft. of additional retail, and 299 apartments, along with a public square that will act as a hub for the corridor’s Town Center area. The project is a joint venture of BM Smith and Carbon Thompson Development LLC. The other project, by the Georgelas Group LLC and Woodfield Investments, is the redevelopment of a former Safeway grocery store site into 32,000 sq. ft. of ground-floor retail space, 14,000 sq. ft. of offices, and 188 rental apartments; all the components will be in a six-story building. The code requires street-level retail as one means of making the Pike more pedestrian-oriented. County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman praised the coming transformation of the Safeway site, noting, “We are going from a completely blank wall to an active group of storefronts.”

When New Urban News first reported on adoption of this code in 2003, planner Victor Dover noted that it could be a “prototype and a case study for communities around the country to use.” See Commentary on page 2 for analysis on this project.