Crystal City Planned Revamp.

Crystal City is the area of Arlington that is not known for its spectacular nightlife.  Crystal City is more of a business district, were you will find the restaurants full during the lunchtime rush Monday to Friday, but come 7pm most weekday and weekend nights the area turns into a ghost town.  There are plenty of apartment and condo buildings in Crystal City area but residents go out in the District or other areas in Arlington.

Crystal City could get even quieter as 13,000 DOD defense-related jobs will vacate Crystal City by September 2011; leaving 3.2 million square feet of office space vacant.  This will have a huge impact on restaurants and retail companies that rely on these employees for there main business.  

A new plan that has been put together over two years by a task force of local residents, retail and office tenants, commercial property owners and developers, and other representatives. This plan involves 7,500 new apartments and condos and a new light rail system.  The hope is to transform Crystal City into an 18hour a day activity, compared to now where it is the lunchtime crowd and then everyone disappears in the evenings and weekends.  The plan involves gutting current office space and turning it into residential living space, but the main focus is to drastically reduce the current office space.

The real question is will these new plans for Crystal City reestablish it into a bustling trendy area to live like Clarendon, or will Crystal City continue to be the poor relation?