Virginia Square, Arlington: Renting, Buying, and Telling the Buildings Apart

Which building do you mean

Three Arlington buildings advertise under a Virginia Square name, and mixing them up is a common way to tour the wrong lobby.

The three buildings differ enough in age and pet policy that “a Virginia Square apartment” means very little without one of these three addresses attached.

Is Virginia Square Apartments the same building as Virginia Square Towers?No. Virginia Square Apartments opened in 2003 with 231 units; Virginia Square Towers opened eleven years later with 534 units and a no-pets policy. They sit roughly two blocks apart with no disclosed ownership connection between them.

Where the boundary sits: Virginia Square vs. Ballston

Virginia Square and Ballston are two different Metro stops connected by a half-mile walk along Fairfax Drive, but rental and real-estate platforms almost always merge them into one search area. That merged label is why listings four blocks apart can appear in the same search, and why comparing one building’s rent to “the neighborhood average” requires knowing which stretch a given source measured.

Is Virginia Square the same as Ballston?Not exactly. They’re separate Metro stations a half-mile apart on the Orange and Silver Lines, but most listing sites merge both into one search area, so a “Ballston/Virginia Square” label doesn’t tell you which station is actually closer.

What it costs to rent here now

The Ballston/Virginia Square submarket averaged $2,992 a month across all unit sizes in early 2026, down 2.36 percent from a year earlier, according to Zumper’s rental-listing index for the area. By bedroom count, the same tracking shows one-bedrooms at $2,606 (up 0.84 percent year over year), two-bedrooms at $3,626 (up 2.13 percent), and three-bedrooms at $4,662 (up 2.22 percent).

The one-bedroom figure is the number to anchor a monthly budget against; three-bedroom units are rare enough in this footprint that the dollar swings matter more than the percentages suggest.

Renting vs. buying in Virginia Square

Buying costs less per month than renting the same footprint right now, before condo fees. A 660-square-foot one-bedroom priced at the submarket’s $591-a-square-foot median works out to roughly $390,000. Financing 80 percent of that at Freddie Mac’s July 2026 average 30-year rate of 6.49 percent, plus Arlington’s FY2026 property tax rate of $1.053 per $100 of assessed value, produces a monthly principal-interest-and-tax payment near $2,310, against $2,606 to rent a comparable unit. That comparison leaves out condo association fees, which run several hundred dollars a month at buildings of this age and aren’t disclosed at the neighborhood level, plus the 2 to 5 percent of the purchase price that closing costs typically add upfront.

Development already underway illustrates the ownership side of this bet: Gilbane Development began converting the six-story office building at 3601 Wilson Blvd, a block from the Virginia Square Metro entrance, into 94 market-rate apartments in June 2026, one of the first projects to use Arlington’s 2024 adaptive-reuse policy for vacant office space.

For a stay past the typical five-to-seven-year breakeven point on closing costs, the monthly math favors buying; for a one- or two-year stay, the deposit-versus-down-payment gap alone usually makes renting the cheaper path.

Is Virginia Square, Arlington a good investment?The data points are mixed: median condo prices rose 23.9 percent year over year through February 2026 while price per square foot slipped 1.5 percent, meaning the sales mix is shifting toward smaller, cheaper units, which pulls the per-square-foot median down even as the headline sale price climbs.

Getting around: Metro, driving, and biking

Metro

The Virginia Square-GMU and Ballston-MU stations both opened on December 1, 1979, part of the Orange Line extension that reshaped this stretch of Fairfax Drive, according to the Arlington historical marker posted near the Ballston station.

Driving

An I-66 interchange followed a few years later, a sequence the same marker credits with triggering the corridor’s first wave of redevelopment; Route 50 is the other main artery in and out.

Biking

Capital Bikeshare docks sit at both station entrances for the last-mile leg of a commute.

How far is Virginia Square from downtown DC?Close enough for a one-seat Metro ride: Virginia Square-GMU sits on the Orange and Silver Lines, which run directly into downtown DC without a transfer. Exact travel time depends on time of day; WMATA’s trip planner has current run times.

Schools and family considerations

The elementary school assigned to most of Virginia Square, Arlington Science Focus School, carries a 10-out-of-10 GreatSchools rating and posted 91 percent regular attendance in the 2025 school year, six points above the Virginia state average. Middle and high school assignments step down to average-rated options: Swanson Middle School and Washington-Liberty High School both carry GreatSchools’ “performing average” designation, a gap worth checking before assuming the elementary rating extends through 12th grade.

Safety and the limits of the available data

Arlington countywide crime risk sits well below big-city norms: FBI data compiled for 2024 put the countywide odds of violent-crime victimization at 1 in 850 and property-crime victimization at 1 in 118, per AreaVibes’ summary of FBI Uniform Crime Report figures. Neither Arlington’s police department nor any independent source publishes a Virginia Square-specific breakdown of those figures; Arlington County’s Crime Data Hub lets residents query incidents by address rather than by neighborhood, so a block-level check there is the closest thing to a Virginia Square number that currently exists.

History and why it matters for property values now

Virginia Square takes its name from a since-demolished shopping center that stood on the site for decades before Metro-era redevelopment replaced it. The corridor’s second wave is happening now: Gilbane’s 94-unit conversion at 3601 Wilson Blvd is one of at least three active office-to-residential projects within blocks of the station, alongside a proposed 269-unit conversion at 4100 Fairfax Drive and a revised 241-unit condo-and-apartment plan for 4420 Fairfax Drive still moving through county review.

Shopping, dining, and daily life

Ballston Quarter, the mixed retail and entertainment complex four blocks west of Virginia Square-GMU, covers most of the everyday shopping trip. The blocks directly around the Virginia Square station run lower to the ground and lean toward restaurants, offices, and George Mason’s Arlington campus, a different mix than “four blocks from Ballston Quarter” might suggest to someone picturing mall frontage.

What it costs to move in

Security deposits at the three named buildings range from about $500 to $750, based on the buildings’ posted fee schedules, on top of first month’s rent due at signing.

Budgeting from the $2,606 average keeps the income-qualification math realistic even when a single building advertises a lower starting price.

How much income do you need to rent in Virginia Square?Using the standard 30-percent-of-income guideline against the $2,606 average one-bedroom, that’s about $104,240 a year before taxes. Individual buildings may apply stricter screening multiples, so check the specific property’s published policy.

Who this neighborhood fits

• Commuters who want a one-seat Metro ride into downtown DC without a car.
• Buyers comfortable underwriting condo fees and a five-plus-year hold.
• Families who can secure the Arlington Science Focus School attendance zone, and who research middle- and high-school options separately.
• Look elsewhere if guaranteed on-site parking, a single-family lot, or big-box retail matters more than a restaurant-and-office streetscape.

The most common mistake here is pricing one of the three named buildings against the whole submarket’s average, or the reverse: assuming the submarket average describes any one of the three buildings specifically.