Decades of rapid growth have made Washington real estate some of the most valuable in the country, particularly when it is close to the city center, along major roads and highways or near Metro stops.
But not always.
Drive along Route 50 in Northern Virginia from revitalized Rosslyn to the glitzy office parks in Falls Church and you’ll think you’ve been transported back to the 1950s as you gaze out on mile after mile of aging strip shopping centers, small brick bungalows and dodgy motels.
Take Route 1 from College Park toward the District and you’ll find an impressive variety of marginal retail stores, fast-food joints and used-car dealerships.
Turn off the Capital Beltway at Pennsylvania Avenue in Prince George’s County, an intersection that must see tens of thousands of cars pass through each day, and you’ll find a motley collection of auto-repair shops, warehouses, long-term storage facilities and aging strip shopping centers.
Or think of Georgia Avenue in the District, Columbia Pike just over the Potomac in Northern Virginia, Route 1 north of Old Town Alexandria or downtown Anacostia. At any of these places, you hardly get the sense that a rational, efficient market has put centrally located, highly accessible land to its “highest and best use.”
Each, of course, has its own story to explain why things are the way they are. But collectively they suggest that the next phase of growth in the Washington region will focus on these underdeveloped areas in the eastern quadrants of the District and some of the region’s older, closer-in suburbs.
It’s not just smart-growth planners and anti-sprawl activists who think so; most developers I’ve spoken with in recent weeks agree. The models for the future, they say, can be found in Pentagon City rather than Dale City, along the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor rather than the far reaches of the Dulles corridor, in the NOMA area near Union Station and the downtowns of Bethesda and Silver Spring. The pressure of development now points inward toward the Capitol, not outward toward Germantown, Gainesville, Waldorf and Laurel.
Consider, for example, Crystal City, with its proximity to Reagan National Airport, spectacular views of the Potomac and the national monuments, its Metro stop and easy access to highways leading in all directions. If ever there was an ideal location for prime office and hotel space and high-end condos with all the amenities, this is it. And yet for years, legions of GS-13s and mid-level defense contractors toiled in its sterile office buildings and criss-crossed its warren of underground malls before driving home on streets devoid of interesting retail stores, restaurants or pedestrian life. It took the heavy hand of the Pentagon and its base closure commission to do what the market should have, forcing a redevelopment aimed at higher-paying, private-sector tenants.
The rationalization of land use in the region is now being driven by fundamental shifts in the economics of housing and commercial development.
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