A Giant Uncertainty In the Pike's Progress

Chain Balks at Redevelopment Plan

Planners thought everyone was on board. The owners of Giant Food had agreed they'd like to transform their small, aging market on Columbia Pike in Arlington into a sleek, urban food store below several stories of apartments.

The grocery store was going to be the retail anchor of the new Adams Square town square, the gem of the Columbia Pike revitalization project.

At least that was the plan.

But changes at Giant, which has been owned by Royal Ahold NV since 1998 and is being consolidated with the Stop & Shop supermarket chain, resulted in a substantial glitch. Giant's owners were still willing to revamp the store, but rather than build a 35,000- to 50,000-square-foot market, they told Arlington planners they wanted a store in the 75,000-square-foot range, one more in keeping with the suburban big-box operations the chain runs in New England. Build it our way, Giants owners reportedly told planners, or don't build it at all.

"It's very frustrating when for years we've been trying to put something positive together here," said Arlington County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman (D). "We have the company saying, 'We don't care. If you want to do something, here's our specs, and you have to meet them or we're not interested.' "

The situation worries the center's neighbors, many of whom fear that a larger store would destroy their vision of a charming town square where retail and apartments blend to attract new residents and businesses to the evolving pike.

Efforts to transform Columbia Pike have been underway in earnest since 1998, mostly in the form of hundreds of community meetings to discuss the strip's redevelopment. In 2003, the County Board approved a plan to redevelop Columbia Pike through a slate of guidelines that direct developers and builders to create a unified design, called a form-based code, for the 3 1/2 -mile corridor as it cuts through South Arlington.

But losing the town square is not neighbors' only concern. Giant has at least nine years left on its lease at Adams Square and can continue to do business as usual if its owners don't want to go forward with a new plan. Residents said they are concerned that if the grocery deal doesn't go through, they will be left with the outdated current store, which they say offers less selection and poorer-quality produce and other products than many newer stores.

Moreover, having a grocery store at that location is a particular concern for elderly and disabled residents who can't easily make the trek to other grocery stores -- the closest is a Foodstar Supermarket about a mile away at Columbia Pike and George Mason Drive. The next is a Harris Teeter about two miles away at Pentagon Row.

Rather than give in or give up, developers partnered with Arlington-based B.M. Smith and Associates, which owns Adams Square, have gone back to the drawing board to draft a compromise that puts a larger store on the three-block property at Adams Street and Columbia Pike while trying to appease the desire of neighbors for a town square.

County officials said that plan could be ready for presentation in the next few weeks.

"This deal is in many ways the key deal to help make the revitalization come to pass and help us achieve our larger vision for the pike, but I understand it comes with a very mature choice the community will have to make," said David R. DeCamp, president of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, a group that is spearheading the thoroughfare's makeover.