Arlington County Board members have approved a development plan that will replace the current Macy’s site in Ballston with a 16-story, mixed-use development.
The new building will feature 553 residential units sitting atop ground-floor-retail uses, including a grocery store, replacing the department store and vacant office space above it.
As part of the Dec. 17 vote, the Ballston site received additional density than otherwise wouldn’t be allowed, through a mildly complicated transfer of development rights that will turn the 118 units of an apartment complex (Haven) on the west end Columbia Pike into committed-affordable rental properties.
County zoning law allows for a transfer of such rights, on a two-units-for-one basis, when it involves creation of affordable housing.
Insight Property Group, which submitted the development proposal for the 2-acre Ballston site, also owns the Haven site at 5100 Columbia Pike.
The initial density-swap proposal involved no affordable units in the new Ballston property, but after community criticism, the developer agreed to make 12 of the units affordable on a long-term basis.