Crystal City About To Become More Pedestrian-Friendly

Photo from JBG Smith

New renders of Crystal City from JBG Smith just surfaced, showing Crystal City alongside the Potomac Yard and Pentagon City to become a grassy urban-core development with glass-walled high rise buildings, and a more functional version of Route 1 at the surface-level that's easily interconnected with the commuter and Metro rail. Ideal as it may seem, we can only tell this come to fruition once the developer's projects are finished on their due date.

Photo from JBG Smith

With JBG Smith combining Crystal City, the Potomac Yard, and Pentagon City into one big space called "National Landing", we're all expecting to see new office and apartments building rising and being erected left and right, with state and local governments working hand in hand to further improve technological infrastructure and transit.

Photo from JBG Smith

The most shocking development for some proves to be the drastic changes about to be made for Route 1, as JBG Smith Chief Development Officer Kai Reynolds highlighted key pending changes that would turn the highway into grade and overall would make it an urban boulevard. Reynolds further clarified that this was a $5 billion investment as an incentive agreement between Amazon and Virginia with regard to infrastructure improvements.

Photo from JBG Smith

“Amongst the most critical was the lowering of the elevated sections of Route 1, which currently runs north-south within National Landing,” he said. “The new road will feature a modern cross-section that will be pedestrian-friendly to improve walkability within the submarket.” Along with the improvements on Route 1 include the addition of the second Crystal City Metro Station Entrance (estimated to be completed around 2023 or 2024 thanks to JBG Smith and the Arlington County's public-private partnership) and the addition of a new Virginia Railway Express Station for National Landing (that serves as a connection point to Reagan National Airport through a planned pedestrian bridge all thanks to the state's finalized $3.7 billion plan between Amtrak, CSX, and Virginia Railway Express). For more info, check out the Twitter thread below:

It's really nice to see Arlington County and more specifically National Landing take a greener approach to the development's upgrade, easily pinpointing the pain points of the city previously and making sure they get fixed with renovations underway. The isolation of Route 1 for the longest time has proven to be quite the headache, but thankfully with the brilliant minds of JBG Smith, it is able to break the untold barrier and bring National Landing together more than ever.

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