The Envision Courthouse Square is a community planning effort to re-imagine the county’s civic center and create a great public destination. The goal is to update the 1993 Sector Plan and create a visionary plan, strategies, policies, development standards and implementation steps.

One of the goals is to understand and include cultural resources and the treatment of historic features, public art, and a potential cultural facility. Historic preservation is an important part of the past and the future in this area of the county.

As the location of the county seat and government buildings, this area has long been considered “downtown Arlington” (along with Clarendon). The history has been detailed by the county and includes such interesting items as the Women’s Civic Club of Clarendon’s “Mother’s Tree” and “Soldiers’ Tree.”

In addition, the War Memorial, now in Clarendon, resided at the County Government Building for years. Back in the 1990s part of the Sector Plan called for a County “Cultural Resources Center” to be located in the Courthouse area — a center that could focus on historic issues.

It will be an interesting process to review the sector plan for Courthouse and come up with a plan for the future.

The kickoff planning workshop is:
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
7-9 p.m.
Key Elementary School
2300 Key Boulevard
Arlington Virginia