Launched in January 2010, ARLnow.com is the place for the latest news, views and things to do around Arlington, Virginia. Started by a Pentagon City resident who has spent the past several years working in local TV news, ARLnow.com seeks to distinguish itself with original, enterprising, up-to-the-minute local coverage.
The least expensive condo, single-family home or townhouse sale over the past seven days was $202,000 while the most expensive was $2,415,489.
Over the past month, meanwhile, a total of 11 townhouses were sold. Let’s take a look at some of the most and least expensive townhouses sold over the past month.
Overturned vehicle at Langston Blvd gas station (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Overturned vehicle at Langston Blvd gas station (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Overturned vehicle at Langston Blvd gas station (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Overturned vehicle at Langston Blvd gas station (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Overturned vehicle at Langston Blvd gas station (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
(Updated at 1:30 p.m.) A driver was pulled from their overturned vehicle after reportedly running into a gas pump.
The unusual incident happened shortly before 11 a.m. at the Sunoco station at 5501 Langston Blvd, across from the Lee-Harrison Shopping Center. Employees hit the emergency gas shut off after the crash, per scanner traffic.
The driver, an elderly woman, was extricated from the Chrysler coupe by firefighters after they stabilized the vehicle. She and a second vehicle occupant were transported to a local hospital via ambulance with unspecified injuries.
“At approx. 10:54am the Arlington County Fire Department was dispatched for a report of a single vehicle crash in the 5500 block of Langston Blvd,” Capt. Nate Hiner told ARLnow. “Crews arrived on scene and found a single vehicle crash with 1 occupant trapped inside. The vehicle was stabilized and the individual was extricated. Two adults were transported from the scene with non-life threatening injuries.”
There were no reports of the crash sparking a fire nor causing a significant fuel spill.
A rainy, foggy day on N. Culpeper Street (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Ramp Closing for VDOT Project — “Beginning at 10 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24, weather permitting, the ramp from southbound I-395 to westbound Boundary Channel Drive (Exit 10A) will be closed for several months as part of the Boundary Channel Drive at I-395 Interchange Improvements project… Drivers will be able to access westbound Boundary Channel Drive via the southbound I-395 Exit 9 (Clark Street) ramp, where there will be a temporary stop sign for left turns onto westbound Boundary Channel. This traffic pattern will be in place until mid-2023.” [VDOT]
Overturned Vehicle Near Pentagon City — “Scanner: ACFD is on scene of a vehicle flipped on its side near Pentagon City, at the rear of the Horizon House condo complex along S. Nash Street. Elderly male driver was removed from the vehicle and is being evaluated for injuries.” [Twitter]
County Historic Preservation Grants — “Arlington County has launched the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), a competitive grant program that will support community and individual projects related to Arlington’s history, built environment, and cultural heritage. The application period is now open. It closes on April 28, 2023.” [Arlington County]
State Readies HQ2 Grants — “Amazon.com Inc. on July 1 will be due a first round of incentive payments from Virginia, just shy of five years after the e-commerce giant agreed to build a $2.5 billion second headquarters in Arlington and create thousands of new jobs. In his revised two-year budget bill now before the General Assembly’s appropriations committees, Gov. Glenn Youngkin proposes to set aside $78 million in the Major Headquarters Workforce Grant Fund for Amazon.” [Washington Business Journal]
Jeff Bezos in Town — “Several well-placed sources tell me Jeff Bezos was at Washington Post headquarters today, meeting with publisher and C.E.O. Fred Ryan. The visit comes after months of internal frustrations with Ryan’s leadership, and a fallout between Ryan and executive editor Sally Buzbee over the direction of the paper.” [Puck, Twitter]
Big Round for Local Startup — “Arlington-based EarthOptics, a soil tester that uses satellite imagery and machine learning to create detailed carbon maps of farms, raised a $27.6 million funding round to grow internationally and meet what it says has been a fast-growing market demand in just the past year.” [Washington Business Journal]
Where Arlington Ends & D.C. Begins — From WAMU’s Jordan Pascale: “[Today] I learned that the traffic circle outside of Arlington Cemetery is actually still Washington D.C.” [Twitter]
It’s Thursday — Rain until evening. High of 54 and low of 39. Sunrise at 7:25 am and sunset at 5:16 pm. [Weather.gov]
CDC map of Covid levels as of Jan. 17, 2023 (via CDC)
Covid appears to be on the decline in Arlington, but hospitalization levels rose sufficiently last week to move the county to the CDC’s “medium” Covid level.
The level moved from “low” to “medium” as of last Thursday. The latest Virginia Dept. of Health stats, however, show cases falling to a seven-day moving average of 38 per day as of yesterday (Tuesday), from a seasonal peak of 65 cases per day just before Christmas.
The CDC level change was prompted by a rise in Covid-related hospital admissions above the 10 per 100,000 residents per week mark. That metric stood at 12 as of Thursday.
Among neighboring jurisdictions, D.C. and Fairfax County are both at the “medium” level, while Alexandria is now at the “high” community level due to a combination of infection and hospitalization rates.
Virginia Hospital Center emergency department chair Mike Silverman, in his weekly Facebook post Friday night, said the hospital is “full” but Covid cases are declining.
After a couple of weeks of very high emergency department volume, our hospital is full. My colleagues are seeing this all over the country as well. This makes it more challenging to care for the patients coming into the emergency department as we have more patients “boarding” (waiting on their inpatient bed to be available) than typical. Even though our ER volume has come down a little bit compared to recent weeks, it still feels just as chaotic because of all these extra patients waiting for a bed to be available.
Along with a slight drop in volume, we have also seen a decrease in the amount of COVID were diagnosing. Overall, we diagnosed about 20% less patients with COVID this week compared to the prior 2 weeks. Our overall percent positivity fell from about 16.5% to 12.4%. The biggest drop we saw was in our symptomatic patients. Although we had about 20% less patients classified as symptomatic, we had about a 40% drop in the number of positives. This correlates to a 31% positivity rate dropping to a 21% positivity rate. Our general screening percent positivity remained stable at about 11%. For these patients, either the clinician has a low suspicion that the patient has COVID, but COVID is included in the differential diagnosis, or they are asymptomatic and require testing for admission/surgery/etc.
Consistent with the reduction in new diagnoses, we also saw a reduction in the number of patients who required COVID isolation in the ER compared to the prior two weeks. And the hospital has about 20% less admitted COVID patients than we did last week.
Covid cases in Arlington as of Jan. 17, 2023 (via Virginia Dept. of Health)
ACPD motor patrol officers use radar to catch speeders along Four Mile Run in Shirlington (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
W-L Hoops Team Grieves Teammate — “Shortly past midnight, on his ride home, a teenager driving under the influence crashed into Meade’s car, killing the senior. He was 17. ‘You can see them sometimes just looking outside,’ Washington-Liberty Coach Bobby Dobson said of his players. ‘They miss him. I miss him.’ This winter, Washington-Liberty is one of several Northern Virginia basketball teams grieving in the wake of a player’s sudden and gutting death… All three teams have turned to their sport as an outlet to recover.” [Washington Post]
Wreath Removal This Weekend — “Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) and Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery (SAHNC) in Washington, D.C. will hold their annual removal of wreaths, known as Wreaths Out, on Saturday, January 21, beginning at 8 a.m. Thousands of visitors are expected to help remove approximately 257,000 wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery.” [Press Release]
Local Rents Still Slipping — “With a median December monthly rental price of $2,143 ($2,023 for one-bedroom units, $2,421 for two bedrooms), Arlington ranked as the 10th most expensive urban area among the 100 tracked by Apartment List. The firm’s first data report for 2023 came out Jan. 5… Arlington rents declined 1.6 percent month-over-month in the new data, twice the national decline and the 17th largest falloff among the 100 cities in the survey.” [Sun Gazette]
Marymount Adds NARCAN Boxes — “Twenty-nine new opioid overdose emergency boxes were installed in December – 26 at Marymount’s Main Campus and three at its Ballston Center – all directly adjacent to AED locations. They provide anyone on University property with emergency access to the lifesaving medication NARCAN, while also helping to reduce stigma and normalize the drug as a common first aid tool.” [Marymount University]
Arlington Man Faces Life Sentence — ” An Arlington man who was convicted after a three-week trial in October faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison at his sentencing scheduled for February for his role in killings carried out by the MS-13 gang, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland. Co-defendants Luis Flores-Reyes, 42, of Arlington and Jairo Jacome, 40, of Langley Park, Maryland, were convicted on the charges of racketeering conspiracy and murder.” [Patch]
Rainy Day Crashes — A pair of notable crashes were reported yesterday during the rainy weather, including one that damaged a county light pole on S. George Mason Drive and another that temporarily shut down Shirlington Circle over I-395. [Twitter, Twitter]
Local Restaurateur Expanding to Tysons — “Northern Virginia restaurateur Reese Gardner is expanding into Fairfax County. Gardner’s hospitality group, behind Arlington eateries including Copperwood Tavern, The Pinemoor and Quinn’s on the Corner, plans to open a classic American restaurant to be called Ox & Rye at Capital One Center in Tysons. The roughly 11,000-square-foot restaurant, to be located at 7770 Capital One Tower Road, will be the largest of seven for their Wooden Nickel Bar Co.” [Washington Business Journal]
It’s Wednesday — Mostly cloudy throughout the day. High of 53 and low of 43. Sunrise at 7:25 am and sunset at 5:14 pm. [Weather.gov]
Panera Bread closed in the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City food court (staff photo)
The Panera Bread location in the Pentagon City mall food court is shuttered, but the closure may only be temporary.
The eatery was closed as of last week. ARLnow is told that the closure is “temporary at this point,” though a reopening date was not given.
The location has been removed from the list on Panera’s website. It first opened in 2013, as did a Rosslyn location at 1700 N. Moore Street that remains open — the only currently open Panera Bread in Arlington.
A Panera location at Tysons Corner Center mall closed permanently late last month, while a Ballston mall location closed in 2016.
Police car speeding to a call at night (staff photo)
Two people were carjacked in Crystal City on Sunday night, the second carjacking reported in Arlington last week.
It happened around 10 p.m. along the neighborhood’s 23rd Street S. restaurant row. At least one of the carjackers was armed, police said.
“A patrol officer was flagged down by the two victims who reported a carjacking,” the Arlington County Police Department said in a crime report today. “The investigation determined the victims were at their parked vehicle when the suspect vehicle approached and the three suspects exited. One suspect brandished a firearm as they approached the victims and demanded their vehicle. The suspects then fled the area in the victim’s stolen vehicle, which is described as a 2019 white Audi A5 with VA license plate UEF9067, with the suspect vehicle following.”
No injuries were reported, ACPD said. The suspects remain at large.
The other reported carjacking last week happened on Thursday, near Columbia Pike, when a 54-year-old Arlington man allegedly carjacked a woman he knows.
A crew putting up signage above the entrance of the new Taco Bell Cantina in Courthouse in December (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
After the pandemic disrupted the restaurant business, there was something of a lull in new restaurant openings in Arlington.
But 2023 looks to be a eventful year for restaurant openings in Arlington, as Amazon opens its HQ2 and a number of long-anticipated establishments open their doors. We’re currently tracking about 25 eateries that are hoping to open this year.
So which are you, personally, most looking forward to? For the purposes of this poll, we’ll exclude two that are mostly dessert spots — Crumbl Cookies (Langston Blvd) and Jeni’s Ice Cream (Shirlington) — as well as a couple whose progress towards opening is questionable.
The airport bar at DCA (Flickr pool photo by Kevin Wolf)
Another County Board Candidate — “Tony Weaver — a community leader, business owner and employer in Arlington County — has announced his candidacy for the Arlington County Board.” (He joins three other candidates, so far, who are seeking the Democratic nomination for two open seats.) [Press Release]
Doreen Gentzler on Arlington — “It’s changed so much. I was a kid living in North Arlington, and my grandparents were over in South Arlington. I could get on my bike and ride my bike over to my grandparents’ house in South Arlington. What’s now Skyline Towers, when I was a kid, was a small airport. There was a place to ride ponies right at the heart of Bailey’s Crossroads. It’s so, so, so much development. I think Arlington has done a great job in so many ways in managing development.” [Northern Virginia Magazine]
APS Students ‘Juiced Up’ for Ovi — “Shortly before the Caps’ thirty-minute practice at 11 am, the kiddos got off busses and squeezed onto the metal benches in the grandstand. The practice facility erupted in high-pitched, prepubescent cheers as Ovi walked out of the locker room and onto the ice. Ovechkin waved to acknowledge them. ‘They were lively,’ Laviolette said. ‘They were juiced up.'” [RMNB]
It’s Restaurant Week — “Let the dining extravaganza begin! Winter Restaurant Week runs Jan. 16-22 across the DMV, with more than 50 participating restaurants in Northern Virginia alone, where you’ll find special, discounted menus and beverages.” [Arlington Magazine]
New Arlington Rental Ranking — Arlington has ranked No. 20 on a list of “Best Cities for Finding New Apartments in 2023.” [RentCafe]
Home Prices Show Regional Decline — “The median home-sales price in the Washington metropolitan area in December was down 15 percent from the market peak last spring, and for the first time since 2016 showed a year-over-year decline, according to new data. The figures, reported Jan. 12 with data from Bright MLS, came as the 2022 market ended on a somewhat frigid note.” [Sun Gazette]
W-L Senior Named to All-State Team — “Washington-Liberty High School senior defensive lineman Elijah Hughes was chosen as a first-team Virginia High School League Class 6 all-state player on defense… Hughes will play college football at the University of Southern California.” [Sun Gazette]
It’s Tuesday — Light rain in the morning and afternoon. High of 50 and low of 36. Sunrise at 7:26 am and sunset at 5:13 pm. [Weather.gov]
