Instead of providing a 10-year lease for a temporary library at 1901 S Bell, JBG has agreed to a County request for $5.8 million over several years to fund a library somewhere else in Crystal City. This is an example of the flawed community benefit process as weβve long expected this benefit from the 1900 Crystal Drive project. The County asked CCCA leadership to provide 3-4 potential alternative sites. The question is where? It needs to: be close to transportation, close to retail, close to a lot of foot traffic, and preferably at ground level.
At the March meeting of the Crystal and Pentagon Cities Council, we presented a PowerPoint on the history of the community need and promise, provided guidelines for what we believe we need and why, and offered some suggestions. See the PPT here: https://www.crystalcitycivic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Crystal-City-Library.pdf