Shapes
- Posted by ryan on March 5th, 2008 filed in Miscellany
I’m having a tough time engaging in super serious topics today, so let’s do some speculating. Question for the peanut gallery: anyone know what DOD’s long-term plan for the Pentagon is?
The Pentagon occupies an enormous chunk of land in close proximity to the office, residential, and retail spaces in Pentagon City, abutting the river, and directly on top of a Metro station. Which is all well and good, except that Defense feels that the best way to use much of that land is to cover it in asphalt. Somehow Commerce, Transportation, Treasury, Agriculture, State, and so on get by without acres of surface parking. Why is Defense special?
The government is in the process of relocating quite a bit of the national security apparatus to more secure locations. Now if security is a concern, you’d think they’d want to move top officials out to bases along with everyone else (although other countries, notably Britain, manage to put their defense ministries right up alongside the urban fabric). If security is not a concern, well, they sure could use that land better. I can understand why total redevelopment might be out of the question; the building is historic, and there’s also a memorial aspect to the building given the events of September 11th (including, actually, a physical memorial).
One would think that there must be a way to improve the property to meet the needs of all the stakeholders. I just can’t help but think, whenever I pass the building, how sad it is that so much land at such a great spot is blacktop.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
David at GGwash noted the inflated expectations for parking amongst certain kinds of employees, and I wouldn’t be surprised if DODites are the same:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=671
Honestly, given the rather iconic nature of the structure (at least in plan view), I’m not sure what you could put there. At least grass and landscaping would be more pleasing to the eye, however.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
It’s iconic from above, I guess, but it’s not like it has a profile that’s visible from around the city. If you really wanted to keep the building as is, you could still develop the parking lots without disturbing the nice satellite-visible geometry.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Yeah, that’s what I meant by ‘plan view.’ Looks real nice on paper, but that’s just one big wall when you’re up close.
Another factor is the approach to runway 15 at National. I don’t know what the FAA’s rules are, or what VA’s rules are (states are often more restrictive on that, I know they were in Minnesota with some of the TOD around the airport), but I can’t imagine anything but low-rise stuff there. Still, it would be an interesting spot for a nice little swath of townhouses. Not sure what market segment you’d aim those for, but hey, why not?
March 5th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Oh, ok. Plan view.
I hadn’t thought about the flight path, but you’re right, that would be an issue. I wouldn’t just put in townhomes, though, not in a space like that. In an ideal world, you’d do something about all the highways running through there–bury them maybe–and put in a low slung grid of homes over shops that transitioned between Pentagon City and the Pentagon and then down to the river, culminating in like public space/marina/park area. Which would have amazing views of Washington.
It’s really a shame that highways clog up the whole Arlington riverfront. Sure would be nice to get some federal money to do something about that and enhance the whole national capital experience.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Yeah, townhomes might not be the best, but that kind of scale is what you’d be looking at, I think - regardless of end use. The runway restrictions might not allow for residential, however.
The freeway would be a huge obstacle to overcome. I know the National Capital Planning Commission wanted a new 14th street bridge complex as part of their vision plan, perhaps reworking that whole area would make things more palatable to development. The whole Pentagon complex is really tangled in a whole mess of high volume roads.
March 5th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Considering that they just spent hundreds of millions, if not billions, in gutting the place and rebuilding in from the ground up, I suspect it will be around for another 60-70 years. As for the parking lot, I suspect that the northern portion will eventually be slated for a Arlington National Cemetery expansion, much like the the Navy Annex will be converted. However, they will still need substantial parking, since the Pentagon operates 24/7. I have driven by at midnight and have seen, at least the south parking lot, 3/4 full. However, considering that the Pentagon is focused on sustainability, I think they can find a more sustainable surface cover than asphalt.
http://renovation.pentagon.mil/
March 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Short answer: it ain’t going nowhere. Pen Ren is scheduled to run for another 10-15 years, and they still have (IIRC) two wedges to go. The biggest problem is that the bureaucracy long ago filled up the Pentagon and spilled out into the surrounding areas - the Navy Annex and most of Crystal City are, de facto, extensions of The Building. You can’t talk about moving the Pentagon without picking up and moving two large supporting communities (I know they mooted the idea of abandoning Crystal City during BRAC, but the proposal was to move it to Fort Belvoir, which was impractical for, hey, transportation reasons: too many cars to go through the existing base security procedures, no planned rail access, and minimal bus service). OTOH, given the inability to pack the place any fuller than it already is, the parking situation can’t get much worse: everyone was just sort of resigned to that 10 minute walk from the wilds of North Parking. There was a little microcosmic world of mass transit solutions - the satellite facilities are all linked by busses, and they LOVED them some slug lines there.
March 6th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Nanonymous,
If I am reading you right, I think you said BRAC was not going to FT Belvoir? Well that is very far from the truth. BRAC is still on schedule with 3 sites competing for the 20k jobs that are leaving CC. The Eisenhower Location, GSA warehouse in Springfield (Fort Belvoir) and the Mark Center proposal. Eisenhower is almost dead on arrival as the location does not have the proper set back and ownership requirements. Mark Center is in the same boat, except they are no where close to mass transit; another selection criterion. However, the GSA warehouse in Springfield is the most likely candidate, meeting the ownership, setback and mass transit options as it will sit next door to the Fran/Spring Metro stop and a VRE line. The Engineering Proving Ground which is getting the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has already broken ground.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Anyone know if all Pentagon employees get free parking? Congress is like that, but AFAIK the other agencies are not. If they just stopped giving it out I bet they could free up half the lots even without moving anyone to one of the forts miles away.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
To add, the Pentagon commuters are the number one source of slugging cars, so their impact should be discounted a little. Maybe the pentagon can make it a perquisite that only slugging cars should get parking; of course I don’t know how you can prove it.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
To add, the Pentagon commuters are the number one source of slugging cars, so their impact should be discounted a little. Maybe the pentagon can make it a perquisite that only slugging cars should get parking; of course I don’t know how you can prove it.