CPHD
The Vision - Arlington's Main Street
The Vision - Arlington's Main Street | Corridor-Wide Concept Plan | Town Center Concept Plan | Town Center Heights Plan | Village Center Concept Plan | Village Center Heights Plan | Neighborhood Center Concept Plan | Neighborhood Center Heights Plan | Western Gateway Concept Plan | Western Gateway Heights Plan | Illustrative Plan and Elevations
For many years, the Columbia Pike Corridor has generally functioned as a "Main Street" for Arlington County. Like "Main Streets" in other communities, Columbia Pike has both a residential and commercial character, including neighborhood and community shopping areas, apartment neighborhoods, community facilities, and religious institutions. However, it is what happens in those commercial areas that truly determine the success of a "Main Street" environment. In their early development, commercial buildings along the Pike were generally constructed close to the street with entries and display windows for retail shops on the ground floor, reflecting the importance of pedestrian access. However, through the course of new commercial construction from the 1970s to the present, most development has consisted of freestanding fast food restaurants, convenience stores, and other drive-through facilities. The image of Columbia Pike is moving toward an older, neglected, auto-oriented, suburban commercial strip with a random assortment of retail and office uses. It is the intention of this plan to revisit a form of development that brings Columbia Pike back to a more traditional "Main Street" environment. The end result being an improved, enhanced, and walkable "Main Street" for Arlington County through preservation, revitalization, and new development, where people can live, work, and play - a place that is the center of the community's commercial and social life to meet friends, to see a movie or to window shop. The elements that have contributed to making traditional "Main Streets" successful in the past and that can be expected to develop along the Pike include:
- Mixed-use development districts (retail, office, residential, cultural)
- Street frontage at a pedestrian scale with articulated ground-floor retail
- Buildings oriented to Columbia Pike
- Placement of buildings at the back of sidewalks
- Buildings built close together forming a continuous "street wall" characteristic of an urban environment
- Parking located underground or to the rear of buildings
- Appropriate transitions to residential neighborhoods
- Enhanced public and pedestrian transportation
- Enhanced streetscape.
Together with these "Main Street" elements are overall community-generated goals for the Pike which include:
- A vibrant community with safe neighborhoods and active retail and office, as well as a variety of housing options and types, all involving a mix of renovation, revitalization, and/or redevelopment.
- An ethnically diverse and culturally rich community.
- A community that can be easily accessed by public transportation and on foot.
- A community with well-designed and attractive buildings, streetscapes, public art, and open spaces that link the commercial corridor with the neighborhoods.
- A corridor with distinct commercial mixed-use districts.
