Author: ARLnow.com

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.

BREAKING: Police Investigating Fatal Stabbing in Arlington Mill

By ARLnow.com

A woman was killed in a reported stabbing in the Arlington Mill neighborhood Tuesday morning.

Police are investigating the New Year’s Day incident as a “suspicious death” but have released few other details. Officers were called to the scene on the 5100 block of 8th Road S. around 10 a.m.

“Based upon the preliminary investigation, this appears to be an isolated incident with no known threat to the community,” Arlington County Police said on Twitter. “Police remain on scene investigating.”

Map via Google Maps

BREAKING: Man Shot on S. Glebe Road, Expected to Survive

By ARLnow.com

Arlington County Police are investigating a shooting that happened last night on S. Glebe Road.

A man was shot at the intersection of Glebe and S. Arlington Ridge Road, two blocks away from Gunston Middle School, around 7 p.m., according to police. The victim is expected to survive and police are still seeking the shooter.

More from an ACPD press release, issued just after noon today (Monday):

The Arlington County Police Department’s Homicide/Robbery Unit is investigating a shooting that took place on the evening of December 30, 2018.

At approximately 7:03 p.m., police were dispatched to the report of trouble unknown at the intersection of S. Glebe Road and S. Arlington Ridge Road. Upon arrival on scene, officers located a male victim suffering from trauma to the upper body and immediately began performing life saving measures. The victim was transported to an area hospital with life-threatening injuries. Following medical treatment, the victim’s condition has been upgraded to stable and he is expected to survive his wounds.

This incident remains an active criminal investigation. At this time, no suspect(s) have been identified and there are no suspect(s) descriptions. Anyone with information related to this incident is asked to contact Detective J. Trainer of the Homicide/Robbery Unit at 703-228-4185 or [email protected].

Information may also be provided anonymously through the Arlington County Crime Solvers hotline at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477).

File photo

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Flood Watch in Effect — Expect periods of rain today. The National Weather Service has issued a Flood Watch for much of the region through late tonight. “Excessive runoff from already saturated soils will cause the potential for streams and creeks to rise out of their banks as well as flooding in low lying urban areas,” forecasters say. [Weather.gov, Twitter]

Arlington Doesn’t Want to Pick Fight Over J-D Hwy — “The Arlington County government’s efforts to rename its portion of Jefferson Davis Highway could face familiar legislative roadblocks in 2019. But County Board members say they have no interest in forcing a confrontation with the General Assembly on the matter.” [InsideNova]

New Year’s Meeting Scheduled for Jan. 2 — Next week, what used to be a New Year’s Day organizational meeting for the Arlington County Board will again be held on Jan. 2 instead. The Board will elect a new Chair and Vice Chair at the meeting. [Arlington County]

Developer Buys Wilson Blvd Property — “The Meridian Group has picked up its next value-add Arlington County office building as it… closed Wednesday on its acquisition of 2500 Wilson Blvd. and several adjacent parcels from an affiliate of TH Real Estate for a consideration amount of nearly $39 million, or roughly $373 per square foot, according to Arlington County land records.” [Washington Business Journal]

Dulles Toll Road Rates Rising — “Starting Jan. 1, prices are scheduled to go up for those driving on the Dulles Toll Road. The cost to passenger vehicles will increase from $2.50 to $3.25 at the main toll plaza and from $1 to $1.50 on ramps.” [Tysons Reporter]

Morning Poll: Should We Cover the City of Falls Church?

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 10:45 a.m.) Since its founding in 2010, ARLnow has kept its focus solely on Arlington.

We often explain that should the Washington Monument topple over one night, our story about it — were we to cover it — would likely come with the headline “Arlington’s View of D.C. Changes.” The basic thinking is that we should cover what we do best and link to the rest — on the internet, there’s no need to spend time doing duplicative coverage of other places.

As a result, we almost exclusively cover Arlington news, while very rarely covering stories outside of the county’s borders that may be of special relevance to people in Arlington.

We’re considering changing that a bit, however, as we prepare for our ninth year in business.

We now regularly hear about younger Arlington residents trading in their rentals to buy homes in that slightly more affordable Little City on our western border: Falls Church. We would love to continue serving them. And that’s on top of other parallels between Arlington and Falls Church: the two jurisdictions share courts, a fire department, a public safety radio station, and have discussed other ways to work together.

Many aspects of civic life in Falls Church are already well covered by our friends at the Falls Church News-Press. Our approach to coverage of the two-square-mile city would be a bit different: focusing on breaking news, businesses openings and closings, events, development, roads and trails, and other subjects that could be of interest to both residents of Falls Church and Arlington.

But first, we wanted to put the question to you: do you think ARLnow should cover the City of Falls Church? (We would, in turn, also open up our event calendar to events in Falls Church.)

Map via Google Maps

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

In Planning: New Rail and Pedestrian Bridges — “The only solution, they say, is to add two tracks and create a four-track crossing over the Potomac to handle more commuter and intercity rail service as well as expected increases in freight transportation over the next decades… A stand-alone bike and pedestrian bridge would be built upstream from the new rail bridge, allowing people to walk or bike across the Potomac.” [Washington Post]

Metro Stations Getting Brighter — “A boost in lumens looms for three Arlington Metrorail stations next month.” [WMATA, Twitter]

School Libraries to Buy New Print Material — “Officials with the school system’s libraries say they are working to ensure that, by the end of the school year, the average age of materials in their print collections is no more than 10 years old.” [InsideNova]

Flickr pool by John Sonderman

Morning Poll: Should We Publish Articles on Saturdays?

By ARLnow.com

ARLnow reports on news that happens any hour of the day, any day of the year. But generally, barring breaking news, we only publish articles during waking hours on weekdays.

This schedule means that readers can check out over the weekend and not have to worry about falling behind on the latest Arlington local news. And it means that our staff can take a couple of well-deserved days off at the end of the week.

That said, we’ve had more local news than ever to report over the past few months, and it has us considering expanding our publishing schedule — specifically, by publishing on Saturday.

Staffing up for news coverage on Saturday would allow us to better cover breaking news over the weekend and report on Saturday Arlington County Board meetings in real time. It would also mean that we won’t have to skip some smaller stories that don’t make the weekly cut, while providing more flexibility for publishing feature articles funded by our Patreon community.

The downside is that some readers clearly prefer to tune out over the weekend. Even when we’ve tried to publish a full slate of articles on a Saturday, readership is roughly half of a typical weekday. And… well, even those of us most passionate about local news reporting are a little less enthusiastic about spending most of their Saturday at a County Board meeting.

All things considered, what do you think about ARLnow publishing on Saturdays?

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Experts Expect Arlington Appreciation — “The quarterly survey, sponsored by Zillow and conducted by Pulsenomics LLC, asked more than 100 real estate economists and investment experts for their predictions about the U.S. housing market… Denver, Washington, Atlanta and Dallas ranked as the four markets most likely to outperform the national average rate of home-value appreciation.” [InsideNova]

Registration Open for MLK Day of Service — “Volunteer Arlington, a program of Leadership Center for Excellence, will host the second annual MLK Day of Service on Monday, January 21 from 8:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Those looking to turn a day off into a ‘Day On’ can register free of charge.” [Volunteer Arlington]

Incoming: 25 New ACPD Officers — “On December 18, 2018, family, friends, and fellow officers gathered to celebrate the graduation of Session 139 from the Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy (NVCJA), who took their oath to serve and protect the residents of Arlington County.” [Arlington County]

A Brief History of Rosslyn — “The many tall office buildings… make Rosslyn look more like a modern city than Washington does. It got that way by not being included in the District of Columbia — the result of political decisions that propelled the two neighboring cities in vastly different directions over the centuries. After all, Rosslyn wasn’t always this glossy — far from it.” [Politico]

Flickr pool photo by Erinn Shirley

Merry Christmas, Arlington!

By ARLnow.com

It’s Christmas Eve and ARLnow will now be taking a one-day break for the holiday.

We’ll see you back here on Wednesday for business as usual, with the addition of our annual countdown of top stories on the site. Can you guess what’s No. 1?

In the meantime, our team wishes you and yours a very merry Christmas.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Amazon’s Helipad in Doubt — Amazon requested that it be able to build a helipad at both of its new campuses, in Crystal City and New York City. But it’s unlikely that the company will be able to win approval for operating a private helicopter in the restricted airspace around Washington. [WAMU]

Wawa Looks to NoVa — “‘Fairfax County and Northern Virginia is a really important market for us,’ Wawa CEO Chris Gheysens was quoted as saying… ‘We are looking at strategically bending our store model to get more access to that area and plan to announce some openings in that area coming up.'” [Tysons Reporter]

Metro Holiday Schedule — Metro is operating on a reduced schedule today and tomorrow, as well as New Year’s Day. It will operate on a regular weekday schedule on New Year’s Eve, with special late night service until 2 a.m. [WMATA]

Christmas Is a Recycling Nightmare — “Your holiday wish list – or at least what it comes wrapped in – may be causing big problems for recyclers. ‘It surprises a lot of people,’ Arlington County Solid Waste Bureau Operations Manager Shani Kruljac said. Here’s the deal: a bunch of holiday-related stuff you may assume is recyclable actually isn’t.” [Fox 5]

APS Seeking Nominations for Top Cross Guards — “Arlington Public Schools is asking the public to consider nominating local crossing guards for Virginia’s Most Outstanding Crossing Guards competition… Nominations are open through Jan. 25.” [InsideNova]

Arlington Firms Awarded Federal Contracts — Ballston-based CACI has been awarded “a prime position” on a $12.1 billion U.S. Army information technology contract. Meanwhile “DTS, a small business in Arlington, Virginia, has won a $2.6 million contract with the Fish & Wildlife Services to provide IT program management and change management services.” [BusinessWire, Washington Technology]

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Christmas Closures in Arlington — “Arlington County Government offices, courts and libraries will be closed on Mon., Dec. 24 and Tue., Dec. 25, 2018, for Christmas and on Tue., Jan. 1, 2019, for New Year’s Day. Courts will also be closed on Dec. 31, 2018, and libraries will close at 5 p.m. on Dec. 31.” [Arlington County]

Low-Income Workers Finding Metro Alternatives — “As Metro fares have risen, hours for train service have been cut and gentrification has made it more difficult for low-income workers to live near rail stations, workers making lower wages in Washington and in Arlington have become less likely to commute by transit… down 5 percent from the previous five years.” [Washington Post]

Arlington, Alexandria Firefighters Learning Yoga — “It’s a revolutionary training course helping firefighters cope [with] stress & sleep deprivation. One firefighter who was at the Pentagon on 9/11 says it helps him deal [with] the memory of that day.” [NBC Washington, Twitter]

Rain, Flood Watch Continues — “The Flood Watch continues through this afternoon. Unseasonably warm today with showers and perhaps an isolated afternoon/evening thunderstorm.” [Twitter]

Holiday Wrapping Paper Alternatives — Local designer Beth Singer, whose firm designed the ARLnow logo, has penned a new blog post just in time for the holidays: “Five Reasons I Will Never Buy Wrapping Paper Again.” [Beth Singer Design]

Eclectic Estate Sale Near Clarendon — “Looking for a one-of-a-kind gift for that special person? Are you a collector of unusual paintings, furniture, or sculpture? A curious browser of all things uncommon and quirky? You won’t want to miss this special estate sale, this weekend in Ashton Heights.” [Team Cathell]

Nearby: Amazon’s Effect on Chirilagua — “Between Alexandria’s Del Ray neighborhood and the Crystal City neighborhood of Arlington is a swath of land home to a vibrant Hispanic community… For many Chirilagua residents, Amazon’s arrival threatens the end of the community they love, bringing increased housing costs, new residents and creeping gentrification.” [NBC Washington]

Flickr pool photo by Erinn Shirley

View More Stories