Pentagon City is an unincorporated neighborhood (also called an "urban village") located in the southeast portion of Arlington County, Virginia, near The Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery. Location Pentagon City is located less than a mile from the Potomac River, which separates the Commonwealth of Virginia from Washington, D.C. It is located on the Blue and Yellow Lines of the Washington Metro, and the Pentagon City Metro station is one of the busiest in the Metrorail system during peak and off-peak hours. It's located two miles away from the National Mall in downtown Washington. The area is a popular site for hotels and businesses. The Pentagon has parking lots on both sides of nearby Shirley Memorial Highway (I-395), on the north edge of Pentagon City. The neighborhood of Crystal City borders Pentagon City to the east along Richmond Highway (U.S. Route 1), separating Pentagon City from National Airport. To the south is the neighborhood of Aurora Highlands and the Virginia Highlands Park. To the west is the neighborhood of Arlington Ridge. Washington Boulevard (State Route 27), Arlington Boulevard (U.S. Route 50), Columbia Pike (State Route 244), and State Route 110 are nearby major thoroughfares. History Pentagon City was founded in 1946, when developers Morris Cafritz and Charles H. Tompkins acquired a 190-acre site of empty fields and commercial warehouses for $1.5 million. A Western Electric telephone manufacturing facility opened in the 1950s and was later converted into a small shopping mall known as "Pentagon Centre." In the 1960s, high-rise apartment buildings were erected on Hayes, Fern, and Joyce Streets. On July 1, 1977, the Pentagon City Metrorail station opened on the Blue Line. Although the new station bordered a large empty field, in 10 years the station stimulated high-density development. In the 1990s, MCI Communications had a major presence in Pentagon City, with the company's Consumer Markets headquarters occupying Washington Tower, a 12-story office building that sits atop the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City (a 4-story indoor shopping mall that opened in 1989). MCI also occupied two of the four office towers immediately across South Hayes Street, known as Pentagon City I and II (often abbreviated "PCY"). In 2003, the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority proposed five Northern Virginia sites as possible locations to host the relocating Montreal Expos. Pentagon Centre was one of three sites in Arlington County. The other two proposed Arlington sites were a plot of undeveloped land