Outside Amazon HQ2, New ‘Water Park’ Dining Makes a Splash

There’s a lot of momentum in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., as Amazon puts down roots across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital.

The latest development delivering a boost to the area is Water Park, a reimagined public park across the street from Amazon’s new digs. It boasts two new restaurants, plus nine new food kiosks acting as restaurant incubators for chefs warming up to full-fledged brick-and-mortar space. Water Park takes its name from the longtime water feature on the site that’s incorporated into the new design.

The outdoor dining destination adds another draw to the Crystal City neighborhood that Amazon’s newly opened HQ2 now calls home. What once was a collection of nondescript office buildings and business hotels is now beginning to resemble an amenity-rich 18-hour city. Bethesda, Maryland-based real estate investment trust JBG Smith opened Water Park earlier this month after introducing an Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Amazon Fresh store on the same block.

“It’s not just about restaurant operations, it’s about what makes people want to move into a neighborhood and stay there when they get off of work,” said Chef James Clark at Atlanta-based STHRN Hospitality, which is curating Water Park’s food and programming for JBG Smith. “A space like this is perfect.”

JBG Smith started acquiring properties for its National Landing project in northern Virginia six years ago. Over 50,000 people commuted to work in Crystal City then, but only 10,000 lived there. National Landing is a rebranded cross-jurisdictional development comprising three neighborhoods (Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yard) that is now billed as “Virginia’s largest walkable downtown.”

The developer immediately set out to entitle apartment buildings in the area — then Amazon announced that it included National Landing in its HQ2 plans.

“That just accelerated what we wanted to do,” said Kai Reynolds, chief development officer at JBG Smith. “It meant there was going to be another group of workers that were coming during the day that would also need somewhere to sleep at night and go to dinner in the evenings.”

That led to the construction of the Alamo cinema, Amazon Fresh store, Morton’s steakhouse and other retail next to Amazon’s HQ2 in Crystal City.

The Water Park site across the street had its distinctive central fountain and was well-served by nearby public transit and commuter rail stations, but otherwise needed new life. The one temporary food kiosk in the park ended up moving into Amazon’s HQ2.

“Until you add that mix of uses to get people there in the evening, you can never have a vibe or an 18-hour community,” Reynolds said. “We worked internally on a plan that said ‘What if we took the food truck and elevated it to the kiosk form and renovated the park?’”

JBG recognized it needed to partner with an event management/restaurant company. It linked up with STHRN Hospitality, which had previously converted three closed auto repair shops in Atlanta to an entertainment venue called West Side Motor Lounge and manages events and dining for Water Street Tampa, a redeveloped waterfront neighborhood in downtown Tampa.

“I toured that and was quite impressed,” Reynolds said.

The STHRN team drew inspiration from New York’s Bryant Park, which in the past decade or so has transformed into a year-round destination in midtown Manhattan thanks to its food kiosks and other attractions.

At Water Park, STHRN came up with two original food concepts: Crush, a New York-style pizza place, and Water Bar, an open-air oyster and cocktail bar built on top of the park’s central fountain and water wall.

As for the rest of the park, the idea was for 350-foot kiosks to serve as “food incubators” with a focus on minority and women-owned businesses. Including Crush and Water Bar, JBG and STHRN curated a lineup of 11 restaurants, with options ranging from Indian cuisine and plant burgers to Pho, fried chicken and a tiki bar, among others.

The tenants are on short-term leases, with the idea that the kiosks serve as a bridge between food trucks and brick-and-mortar for up-and-coming chefs and restauranteurs.

“They're intended to be at least a year lease and the intention is that we'll renew as we can, but the hope is that we help them on to other things. We keep some and we move some through, and bring diversity to the park in terms of what you can eat here,” said Elizabeth Feichter, a partner at STHRN Hospitality.

STHRN also built a new stage for concerts and other events in the park. Arlington County officials signed off on a “sip-and-stroll” open container designation that allows park visitors to buy alcoholic drinks and carry them throughout the premises.

The construction of Water Park took about two years.

The development team had a few directives from neighbors and local officials that needed to be followed. First, the park’s fountain had to stay. Other priorities included a focus on community engagement, women and minority-owned businesses and environmental sustainability (the park’s power is all electric).

While those requirements were relatively easy to satisfy, the site’s landscaping was a different matter, meaning that a lot of the project’s (literal) heavy lifting happened underground.

“The trees here are all 20 years old,” Feichter said. “We hand dug them out of the ground, and then replanted them to keep the integrity of the park.”

And then there were the mechanical and electric systems.

“There is no natural gas on the property, so all kitchens are 100% electric. That’s a big electrical load when you’ve got 11 restaurants operating in a very small space,” Clark said.

It also required excavating underneath the kiosks to connect all the restaurants to power.

“We’re crawled [underneath the kiosks] and then tenants came in and they wanted to change things up because we designed the kitchens before we had any leases signed,” Clark said. “Those were the trickiest roadblocks.”

Water Park opened earlier this month, but there’s still work to be done.

STHRN is in the process of planning park programming, with live music on Friday nights a staple and future possibilities including yoga, outdoor movies, local bike rides and holiday events.

“We’ve reached out to a bunch of community partners and we’re still working through what a programming budget, cadence and level of programming looks like. But it will be regular, ongoing programming,” said Kelly Campbell, a partner at STHRN Hospitality.

Meanwhile, the STHRN team is eyeing its next opportunity in Charlottesville, Virginia, where it’s planning a new food hall.

Amazon earlier this year announced an indefinite pause on its second phase of HQ2 construction, raising questions about the future of the area. But JBG Smith remains bullish and is still building two new Crystal City apartment towers totaling 808 apartments and 35,000 square feet of street retail set to open next year. JBG Smith will build two more towers totaling about 700 units that will open shortly afterward.

“Our [original] plan to make that community what it will be one day is consistent,” Reynolds said. “If anything, we moved faster because of Amazon, so the only change we made was to try to go more quickly.”