A Giant Uncertainty In the Pike's Progress
Chain Balks at Redevelopment Plan

By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 16, 2006

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 Residents said they are concerned that if the grocery deal doesn't go through, they will be left with the outdated current store, which they say offers less selection and poorer-quality produce and other products than many newer stores.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.

"As a community, are we interested in accepting the tradeoffs and a different vision than the one we spent so much time coming up with? Is it worth it? Giant has the leverage here, but I'd like to find a way to pull this project off. I'd like to find a way to make this work," DeCamp said.

The original plan, according to a Columbia Pike revitalization Web site, included an expanded Giant, which would combine the shopping center's now separate grocery store and drugstore; as much as 28,000 square feet of additional retail space; and rental apartments. Building heights along Columbia Pike would be six stories, and the frontage on South Ninth Street, a block north of the pike, would be no taller than 3 1/2 stories. Parking would be underground, at grade and in a parking structure wrapped by the buildings. In addition to parking for the stores and residences, the project would include as many as 280 public parking spaces.

People familiar with the plan now in the works said it features compromises, mostly on the part of the community, which would have to accept a 62,000-square-foot store -- perhaps the largest grocery store in the county -- and a somewhat different vision for the town square than was put forth in the form-based code. There would be no sprawling parking lot, but planners said there would be space for loading docks on Adams Street.

The larger store also would mean less retail space for other shops and 25 fewer apartments than the 325 originally envisioned.

John Ariail, co-owner and spokesman for B.M. Smith, said he thinks the revised project would be just as stylish and functional as originally intended. Neighbors, he said, would not notice the changes and still would be able to enjoy a park and other common spaces in the town square, as well as the variety of foods that a larger market would offer.

Waiting for Giant to leave on its own, he said, would be a mistake.

"The tradeoff is that Giant has a [long] lease, and with inertia, they'll sit there and go downhill, as will our shopping center, if we don't do anything," Ariail said. "We want to rejuvenate the neighborhood. That Giant is a big part of it."

Jamie Miller, a spokesman for Giant Food, declined to comment on plans for the Columbia Pike store except to say, "We're working with the developer on this project to evaluate all our opportunities, but at this point there's nothing firm."

For some, it's not as simple as Giant agreeing to build a smaller or larger store.

John Antonelli, former president of the Columbia Pike Civic Association, doesn't own a car. He walks where he needs to go, such as to the supermarket. Last year, when the Safeway on Columbia Pike near Walter Reed Drive closed, he and other neighbors began relying on the Giant at Adams Square. It was the second Safeway to leave Columbia Pike in a decade.

Antonelli said he has no gripe about Giant building a 62,000-square-foot store at Adams Square, but he wants to know what he and other neighbors will do during the 24 months planners said the store could be under construction.

As he sees it, there should be some provision for those who don't drive, such as a temporary market nearby. Giant also could offer its Peapod home delivery service free to the elderly and disabled, he said.

"Arlington County has encouraged a car-free lifestyle, and people moved to Arlington for that reason," Antonelli said. "We can talk about the form it takes and what it looks like, but in the end, the bottom line is that there needs to be a supermarket that people can walk to."

Janet Dorn, vice president of the Penrose Neighborhood Association, which represents about 1,200 families, is equally concerned about the impact, and that the controversy could result in no store at all.

"The whole idea of redeveloping Columbia Pike was to bring new life to the neighborhood and make it more of a walking community so we could walk to shop and have places to gather," Dorn said. "Most of us can get in our cars and drive to Baileys Crossroads or Pentagon Row, but there are a lot of people who can't. This is something we thought could be good for the neighborhood, and now we don't know what's going to happen. The idea that we won't have a store at all is devastating."

Like many of his neighbors, Ernest E. Butler Jr., co-president of the Penrose Neighborhood Association, said he believes Giant doesn't care about the neighborhood's future.

"We went through great pains to make some decision about how we wanted the neighborhood to grow up and down Columbia Pike," Butler said. "But the impression I have is they have their cookie-cutter shop, and this is what they want to go there. I can appreciate that this is a business. Unfortunately, they may consider us too small to take us into consideration."

Zimmerman said there will clearly be tradeoffs. The question is whether the community and policymakers will find them acceptable enough to push forward and make exceptions in the form-based code to allow the larger store.

"We have to look and see what the final proposal is and ask ourselves, 'Is this close enough to meet our vision that we can work with it, or is it not?' I'm as anxious as anyone in the community to have a look and see," he said.