ARLINGTON, VA — The Arlington County Board on Tuesday approved a proposal by the owners of the Barcroft Apartments to renovate 93 apartment units within the large apartment complex on Columbia Pike as part of the first phase of the complex’s redevelopment.
The use permit approved by the county board allows property owner Jair Lynch Real Estate Partners to rehabilitate buildings in the part of the complex near the intersection of S. George Mason Drive and S. Four Mile Run. None of the garden-style apartment buildings, at two- to three-stories tall, will be torn down under this first-phase renovation plan.
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As part of the proposal, the exterior façades of the existing buildings will be renovated to replace windows that have not previously been replaced, restore brick walls, repair or replace roofs, and perform other building repairs. The proposed additions to some of the buildings are designed to keep with the historically appropriate architecture in the style of the original buildings.
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Trees and landscape features in the area of the Barcroft Apartments complex identified for rehabilitation will be preserved “to the extent feasible while accommodating the building additions and addressing steep topography on the site,” county staff said in their report on the proposal.
The use permit also allows the conversion of 14 two-bedroom units to three-bedroom apartments and four two-bedroom units to four-bedroom apartments to provide more “family-sized” units.
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As for tenants who will be displaced by this first phase of the redevelopment of the Barcroft Apartments, Jair Lynch agreed to provide relocation payments and relocation services to “eligible” tenants displaced by the renovation project.
Residents of the Barcroft Apartments and their supporters who spoke at Tuesday’s board meeting said it is not clear how Jair Lynch defines an “eligible” tenant. They asked that a Barcroft Apartments tenant group become a stakeholder in the process and be allowed to engage in the decision-making as redevelopment of the entire apartment complex moves forward.
“It’s also our right because public funds were used to buy Barcroft without a plan of how it is going to be affordable for us,” Barcroft tenant Ester Nunez said at Tuesday’s meeting. “We want total transparency.”
Nunez asked the county board to require Jair Lynch to explain who will be eligible to return to the apartments after the renovations are completed, and that the explanation be given to the tenants in written form.
In December 2021, the Arlington County Board approved a $150 million loan to support acquisition of the property by Jair Lynch. The county loan, in combination with a $160 million loan from Amazon, was designed to preserve the affordability of all 1,334 units at Barcroft Apartments’s 59 buildings for 99 years.
Melissa Danowski, county project coordinator for the Barcroft Apartments, said no “legacy” residents — tenants who were living in the apartments when Jair Lynch acquired the property in December 2021 — will be displaced from the Barcroft Apartments complex as a result of the renovation.
Jair Lynch will be required to complete and get approval of a tenant relocation plan before any renovations begin at the site.
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