New buildings loom over the site of the future Penrose Square public space. (Photo: TBD Staff)

The planned public park in the middle of the new Penrose Square development on Columbia Pike, which is to include a fountain, public art, and everything a town square has to offer, has been billed as a centerpiece of the pike’s revitalization.

But as things stand, Arlington County can only move forward with half of it. That half has been dedicated to Arlington to Penrose Square owners, the B.M. Smith family. The other half was expected to come from redevelopment of a neighboring property, currently housing a CVS, its parking lot, and a strip of other retail stores.

Due to concerns about the economy, however, that plan has not materialized. The owner, Fillmore Gardens, LLC, which also owns an adjacent affordable housing complex on South Walter Reed Drive, is holding off on redevelopment plans for the time being. “Right now we have no immediate plans to do any development,” one of the company's partners, Eliot Burka, says.

Now, with work on the square set to begin next year, the county is planning a phased approach, according to Jennifer Smith, Columbia Pike Initiative coordinator. “We’ve just carved out and taken construction drawings to a more detailed level for phase one, but we’re ready for phase two whenever we can get the land, whether that’s through some potential agreement we can reach with the adjacent owner, or that owner coming in with some redevelopment plans,” she says.

When what amounts to the Columbia Pike master plan was laid out in 2003, the expectation was that the entire 3/4-acre park would be built all at once, according to Takis Karantonis, executive director of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization.

“You hardly can do phase one without phase two, because, where do you go? You can’t just build half a square,” Karantonis says. CPRO is pushing for the county and Fillmore Gardens to reach an agreement that would allow the whole square to be built at once.

“Right now we are in an impasse,” Karantonis says. “CPRO wants this to be completed in its entirety, like it was planned, and we hope that the owners and county get to an agreement soon.

The town square component is incredibly important to the communities surrounding Columbia Pike, he says. "This is the first true public space on the pike. It will be available to everybody, it will be a perfect gathering plaza, and we expect it to be very vital and vibrant," he says. "We talk about creating the Columbia Pike town center, and this square is the center of the center.”

“It is going to be the heart of Columbia Pike,” says Garrett Erdle, the director of development for Penrose Square developer Carbon Thompson. "These places ... draw people in, and it really develops a community. This town square I think will certainly accentuate all the wonderful things about the corridor."

Burka says the county hasn’t officially approached him to work something out. He also said that he could not make any commitments about the future square at this time. It currently houses a parking lot for CVS and a small Latin American restaurant. He acknowledged, though, that eventually the property will become part of the town square, because that is what is stipulated in the master plan.

He wouldn’t say exactly when "eventually" will be. “Would you put everything on the line right now?” he asks. "The economy’s going to have to change, and Penrose and some of the other buildings will have to become stable before we would consider any kind of development."

Meanwhile, Carbon Thompson is plugging away on the mixed-use buildings at the site, which will include condominiums, a new home for the Giant grocery store formerly located at the site, and a handful of other retail shops. Theoretically, the county’s work on the town square could begin as soon as the shell of the building is complete and equipment is moved off that section of the site, which is expected to occur in February, according to Erdle.

But the county doesn’t expect to start construction of the square until the middle of 2011, according to Smith. This means construction of the square will coincide with Giant, other retail tenants and the first residents moving into the complex, a situation that’s less than ideal.

“We certainly hope the work that can be done by the county can be done in such a way that people will come to shop at the store, and take advantage of the retail,” Erdle says. “Unfortunately you’d like to get it perfect, but as I’ve found out in real estate development and construction, there’s no such thing."

Karantonis and CPRO argue that it does not make sense to build half of the square at a time. The two properties are not on the same grade, an issue that will need to be remedied, he points out. In addition, “it will be extremely expensive to do it in two sweeps.” Now is “crunch time” for the parties to come together and make an agreement, Karantonis says.

Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman admits that there could be some cost savings achieved by doing the project all at once. But the county always knew that there was a possibility that the timing of the two developments would not line up. “We knew that that one would come in the future, it could come sooner, or it could come later,” he says. “You just don’t know, but that’s like all development.”

He did say that he’d like to see phase two move forward sooner than the landowner may be planning to submit a development plan.

“Obviously we’ll be engaging the property owner, and depending on whether something mutually agreeable can be worked out, perhaps we can get something done sooner,” he says. “We’d certainly like to be able to get it done sooner.”

Board Chairman Jay Fisette focused on the near-term as a benefit to the Columbia Pike community. "The first part is just the excitement of adding a plaza," he says. "If somehow there was an ability to do this all at one time, and get the entire plaza, that’d be a bonus."

Columbia Pike Square plans