On Oct. 1, 2024, Arlington County released the draft County Board Policy on the Transformation of Commercial Office Buildings and draft zoning ordinance amendments for adaptive reuse projects.
The policy provides an overarching set of policy statements highlighting the current state of the office market in Arlington and signaling Arlington County’s response to address it.
The policy’s foundational guidance is that “a bold public policy and regulatory intervention is required to urgently address the adverse economic and fiscal impacts on Arlington of a declining commercial office sector AND to establish as a public priority new or amended policies, programs and regulatory processes that support and incentivize private-market efforts to transform the supply of existing, obsolete office buildings to more productive uses.”
Arlington County’s pilot effort under the policy is to create a new expedited entitlement process for adaptive reuse projects. Arlington County is specifically proposing to create an “adaptive reuse amendment” approval process for projects that involve converting the principal use from office to residential or hotel with nominal changes to the building’s existing density and height. The goal is for Arlington County to review and the County Board to approve an adaptive reuse project in a shorter timeframe than what is required under current policy (9-12 months or longer). The proposed adaptive reuse amendment process would be limited to office buildings with an existing 4.1 site plan approval. Office projects built by right would not be eligible in the near term.
The policy also identifies future efforts to change regulatory processes for office buildings. Specifically, the policy recommends studying ways to streamline the entitlement process for office repositioning projects and studying the tools for achieving bonus density and height for projects that remove an obsolete office building but retain and build upon existing building elements (like an underground garage).
The County Board is scheduled to consider the County Board Policy on the Transformation of Commercial Office Buildings at its Nov. 16 meeting.