A rendering of Dirt, coming to the Ballston Exchange (courtesy of Dirt)
Menu offerings at Dirt (courtesy of Dirt)
The new location of Dirt restaurant in Ballston is hoping to open next week.
The fast-casual, health food eatery will “likely” welcome its first Arlington customers next Wednesday, April 17, though the exact opening date is not yet set in stone, said spokeswoman Kyle Schmitz.
Schmitz said there are “a couple of finishing touches” left to do to the menu but otherwise customers will be able to order most of what’s on the online version.
Dirt’s menu features paleo-approved bowls and sandwiches as well as trendy toasts and breakfast dishes tailored for post-workout recovery with ingredients like activated organic chia seeds. Offerings also include 11 “sustainable proteins” add-ons like vegan plant protein powder and cashew ricotta.
The Miami-based chain first announced plans for its 1,800-square-foot space in the ground floor of the Ballston Exchange in November.
At the time, the chain’s backers said they eyed Ballston for expansion because of “the energy of the neighborhood,” and the rapid growth of businesses at the Ballston Exchange and the Ballston Quarter development across the street, where several restaurants have opened doors since March.
The restaurant says it will be donating 1 percent of all proceeds from its seasonal items to the Arlington Food Assistance Center.
County officials are trying to drum up participation in the next U.S. Census — a year before the feds start surveying and counting.
Arlington has joined other neighboring jurisdictions in creating a group called “Complete Count Committee” tasked with convincing residents to fill out the 2020 Census form when it arrives next April.
Wanda Pierce, a Nauck resident who co-chairs of the committee, said the group is “representative of all different types of organizations, ethnicities, religions, everyone across Arlington, because to reach a lot of the hard-to-count populations, we have to have those members on the committee,” per a press release.
“The U.S. Census Bureau cannot conduct the 2020 Census alone,” the website for the committee reads.
County Board Chair Christian Dorsey also signed a proclamation calling on “the Arlington community to rise up as leaders and partners in this effort to reach 100% participation in the 2020 Census campaign.”
“It’s not enough to want to count everybody,” said County Manager Mark Schwartz at the event. “We’re going to have to go out and tell people that we want to work with them to make sure they are counted.”
Each member of the committee is tasked with recruiting at least 1,000 Arlington residents to take the annual survey, per the committee’s website.
Previously, Principal Planner and co-director of the Arlington County Census 2020 campaign Elizabeth Hardy spoke at a March meeting with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments where she noted the county began 2020 census preparations in 2018.
“This time I feel like every resident is in a hard-to-count community,” said Hardy, who worked on the awareness campaign for the 2010 census.
She said there “were a lot of lessons learned” from the 2010 campaign, and that this time around the county planned to share more resources with neighboring jurisdictions.
The census is administered once every ten years by the federal Census Bureau.
Next year’s Census has drawn controversy after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s decision to collect information about respondents’ about the citizenship status, a largely unprecedented move that’s been criticized by civil rights advocates and defended by President Trump.
The most recent Census estimate of Arlington’s population — made in intervening years between official Census counts — was 234,965 as of July 1, 2017. That showed Arlington’s population has continued to grow, from 230,050 in 2016, 226,908 in 2014 and 207,627 from the last Census count in 2010.
Every level of government studies the population data gleaned to make funding decisions. The number of people counted also determines how many House of Representative seats each state is awarded.
(Updated 17/04/18) Arlington County officials are calling for action on health disparities among residents in two new reports released this week.
Officials outlined a plan for an “oversight entity to provide governance” on health equity policies as part of a report released yesterday (Thursday). The 27-page document includes the plan in a bid to reduce a 10-year life expectancy gap that exists based on where in Arlington you live, as first reported in 2016 by the Northern Virginia Health Foundation.
The “Destination 2027 Steering Committee” was formed last year to close that gap, stating that, “the presence of health inequities in Arlington is inconsistent with who we are and what we value as a community.” The committee is made up of 40 local organizations including the Virginia Hospital Center, police and first responders, and most county departments.
Details for how the group plans to achieve that are starting to come to light, including an open data project around health in the county.
“We are working to share a dashboard with data about health outcomes and community conditions,” Kurt Larrick, Assistant Director of the Department of Human Services, told ARLnow. “So stay tuned with that.”
“The public policies that have led to how our neighborhoods operate, how schools operate, how transportation occurs, often have some population’s benefit and others that are burdened,” said Reuben Varghese, the county’s Public Health Director, in a video yesterday. “And so that can lead to these groups having different life expectancy or other health outcomes.”
Yesterday the county also released the 2019 Arlington Partnership for Children, Youth and Families (APCYF) Community Report which noted “striking disparities” in kid’s health that were “based on factors such as income, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and level of English proficiency.”
Some of the report’s findings include:
Hispanic youth were four times as likely to be obese as their white peers.
Ten percent of high school students reported going hungry at home.
Students with individual education plans (IEPs) were less likely to feel like they belonged in their school community compared to students without IEPS.
Forty-two percent of LGBT youth said they had been sexually harassed and were more likely to be depressed than other youth.
The total number of kids who said they received the necessary help for their depression “was so low for Black and Asian youth that a percentage could not be reported.”
The 56-page report compiled data from local, state, and federal sources, including the new APS “Your Voice Matters” survey and the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
“Nothing in particular was surprising, we noticed that the data confirmed many assumptions that we have heard,” Kimberly Durand, the coordinator for the partnership, told ARLnow.
“For example, Child Care and Mental Health continue to be of concern, and the data that we have compiled confirmed that,” she said.
The Steering Committee’s action report also shared some research from previous years that indicated:
Black residents in Arlington are hospitalized for asthma-related medical issues eight times more often than white residents.
Hispanic youth are 11 times more likely to become teen parents than their white classmates.
Arlington residents report poor mental health when earning less than $50,000 a year.
Durand’s youth report did found some improvements often associated with better health outcomes. Last year, 75 percent of Hispanic youth and students learning English graduated on time, compared to 61 percent graduating on time in the 2012-2013 year.
Arlington may have been nominated Virginia’s second healthiest county last month, but researchers have long noted residents’ health varies greatly across geographic, economic, and racial lines.
“While we may not be responsible for creating these conditions, each of us owns solving them,” said Destination 2027 co-chair Tricia Rodgers.
Owner Nick Shauman and Beverage Director Chelsea Gregoire told ARLnow they like to have a good time
Local Oyster features a house oyster called “skinny dipper” sourced from southern Maryland
The seafood joint has hired 16 people so far, Shuaman said.
The baskets by the counter will host a variety of seafood
Baltimore-based seafood joint Local Oyster may open their new Ballston Quarter location as early as next week, staff say.
Founder and co-owner Nick Shauman said he’s planning a soft opening next Thursday, April 18, pending final permits (which, it should be noted, don’t always come through on time).
“We’ll definitely be shucking oysters and pouring beers,” Shauman said confidently. “Fingers crossed.”
The eatery will feature a full kitchen, beer lines, and big metal baskets awaiting oysters as well as claims, lobsters, scallops, mussels, crab legs, and catfish. Today (Wednesday) a back wall was decorated with a wall of buoys, and bright red metal stools fresh out of their packing are lined up around wooden high-top tables.
For next week’s hoped-for opening, Shauman plans to serve up a special limited menu.
The full menu includes cocktails, wine, beer and cider, in addition to its oysters and clams, soups, sandwiches and lobster rolls, crab cakes, and vegetable sides.
Local Oyster sources its oysters from its farm in southern Maryland, the True Chesapeake Oyster Co., in Southern Maryland. Shauman said the Ballston location will carry their house oyster, dubbed the “skinny dipper.”
“We are no frills seafood,” said Beverage Director Chelsea Gregoire. “We do it well, we do it local.”
Gregoire said she’s developing a cocktail menu that makes diners “feel like they’re at the beach” and focus on fresh fruit and tasty spirits “to go with your shrimp salad sammie.”
Shauman told ARLnow that Local Oyster has hired 16 “badass bartenders and shuckers” so far.
“This whole thing started as a pop-up about six years ago,” he said of Local Oyster’s origins in Baltimore’s Hampden neighborhood, where he says he just might know some Honfest ladies willing to journey to Ballston for the restaurant’s grand opening.
A new trail connection is now open between 7th Street S. and the Washington & Old Dominion Trail.
The new access point in Barcroft was open as of Monday, per a photo submitted to ARLnow’s Flickr Pool.
The eight-foot-wide trail connection is paved and comes with new signs and striping at both ends, according a county update on the construction which began this winter.
The Barcroft School and Civic League gave its stamp of approval to the trail connection’s design in February. The design was originally drafted in 2013, per plans posted on the county’s website.
Parts of Four Mile Run and W&OD trails were also under construction in February after the county said emergency repairs were needed to stop the stream from eroding.
(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Sewage flooded a number of houses on N. Powhatan Street earlier this week, but officials say they’ve addressed contamination worries for a nearby public park.
Five homes in the Madison Manor neighborhood were flooded early Monday morning after a sewer main clogged, and it took crews all night to clear the line, per a statement from the Department of Environmental Services (DES). Officials said they don’t yet know what caused the blockage.
Neighbor Steve Starr told ARLnow he worried about nearby Madison Manor Park being contaminated, but those concerns were addressed by county crews.
A DES spokeswoman confirmed there was sewage discharge “adjacent to the park” from a house’s sump pump but that the sewage had “mostly infiltrated to the ground,” and that crews had applied disinfectant to the area. There was no impact to nearby trails, which connect to the W&OD Trail, the spokeswoman said.
Starr noted that crews were dispatched quickly to start the cleanup process inside the homes.
“Residents of N. Powhatan woke up to men in moon suits entering their houses to clean sewage,” he said.
The full statement from DES is below.
There was a sewage backup that was reported last night, impacting approximately five homes in the 1200 block of North Powhatan Street. Crews worked overnight to flush the line and were able to break through the blockage around 1 a.m. The flow in the main quickly returned to normal and houses started to see relief around the same time as well. The line has been cleaned and inspected and is now back in service. We will continue to monitor it and investigate the potential issue for the blockage.
If customers continue to experience issues, please contact the Water Control Center at 703-228-6555.
Delegate candidate J. D. Spain, Sr. is challenging incumbent Alfonso Lopez
Arlington’s representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates say they tackled a host of important issues, from criminal justice reform to LGBT parental rights to public health, during this year’s legislative session.
The county is represented in the state House by four elected officials — Democrats Mark Levine, Patrick Hope, Richard “Rip” Sullivan, and Alfonso H. Lopez — all of whom are up for re-election this year.
This year’s session began on January 9 and ended February 23. Here are what the delegates told ARLnow were their biggest legislative accomplishments in that time.
Del. Patrick Hope
Hope has represented Arlington in the House since 2010 and currently faces no Democratic challengers in his campaign for reelection. He says he introduced 12 bills during this year’s session, nine of which passed.
He told ARLnow that it’s difficult to choose his favorite because “I treat all my bills like my children,” but narrowed down his three biggest accomplishments in an email:
1) HB 2384 — making all Virginia schools 100 percent tobacco/nicotine free. This is significant because Big Tobacco has opposed such efforts in the past. It also is a sign that the tide is turning to recognize the dangers of cigarettes and vaping on children.
2) HB 1642 — requiring the Dept. of Corrections (DOC) to collect/report data on inmates in solitary confinement. I’ve been working with DOC for years to get the number of inmates in solitary down. We’ve decreased the number by more than 70 percent. This data collection effort will help us figure out who remains, why they are there, and if we can provide additional mental health resources to get them out.
3) HB 1933 — allow jails to treat people with serious mental illness who are unable to give consent. Current law requires that these individuals be sent to an inpatient hospital setting (mental health institution). This is part of a series of laws I’ve passed to allow treatment to occur in an outpatient or other appropriate setting in order to free up more inpatient psychiatric beds.
Del. Alfonso Lopez
Lopez is Democratic co-whip in the House of Delegates. He has served as a delegate since 2012, but now faces a challenger in J.D. Spain for his campaign for re-election this year.
Spain is a Marine Corps veteran who leads the local NAACP chapter and has said he wanted to “sharply draw a contrast” between his and Lopez’s stances on housing affordability and the achievement gap.
Lopez told ARLnow about his biggest wins this year in Richmond in an email:
Successfully Increased Funding for Affordable Housing. In 2013, my legislation created the Virginia Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Over the years the Trust Fund has become one of the major vehicles for addressing housing instability and homelessness prevention in the Commonwealth […] This year, working with the Governor’s office, we were able to secure an additional $7 million in total revenue for the Trust Fund — increasing the biennial budget amount to $18 million (far above typical appropriations)! This is a great step forward in our efforts to help Virginia families. That being said, I believe that we must do a great deal more to address affordable housing in every corner of the Commonwealth […]
Driver’s License Suspensions. After working on this issue for several years, I was very proud that the General Assembly finally ended drivers license suspensions for individuals who have served their time, but are unable to pay court fines and/or fees (over 600,000 Virginians are hurt by this outdated policy). […] When a person’s driver’s license is suspended, they may face a difficult dilemma: obey the suspension and potentially lose their ability to provide for their families, or drive anyway and face further punishment — or even imprisonment — for driving under a suspended license. I am very happy that this misguided policy has finally been overturned with bipartisan support. This ends what I’ve often referred to as a modern day debtor’s prison […]
Military ID & Passport Security. Before this session, there was no provision in state law that mandated immediate notification to people whose passport or military ID numbers were stolen in an online security breach. This left the information of many Virginians (especially in our area) at significant risk. I’m proud to have introduced and passed a bill, HB 2396, that fixes this glaring hole in the law. Virginia will now require that Passport and military ID information have the same protections as bank information and social security numbers.
This week Bakeshop opened a new location in the City of Falls Church. The new shop had its soft opening yesterday (Monday) after weeks of teasing pictures of new equipment and barista training with Vigilante coffee on social media.
Founder Justin Stegall told ARLnow he “loves Arlington” but “was traveling around and kind of fell love in with Falls Church also.”
“The neighborhood vibe is a little less urban, a little more old-fashioned,” he said of Falls Church.
It was a neighborhood he thought could use a cupcake shop, and as of this week it has one. Bakeshop is now open at 100 E. Fairfax Street and plans to be open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Stegall added that he will tailor the Falls Church menu to suit his new customers, likely adding more breakfast options and some exclusive cookies.
For now the new bakery shares a menu with the Clarendon location, which features a rotating cast of cupcakes with favorites like salty caramel and red velvet, as well as cakes, pies, and some light breakfast fare like croissants and scones.
Stegall said he’s “very happy to have become a piece of the Arlington fabric.”
Nearly ten years after some critics (including our commentators) predicted the 2010 cupcake fad would fade, Stegall and his staff are still in business.
“It’s crazy for me to think about,” he said. “Ten years is a pretty big chunk of life. I never even had a ten-year-out plan.”
When asked if he has plans to continue expansion, Stegall laughed.
“The vision right now is to stay with the two until the next vision comes,” he said.
This year Easter and the Passover Seder fall on the same weekend, and Arlington is hosting celebrations for people of Christian and Jewish faiths.
In addition to services at local churches, on Sunday, April 21, Arlington National Cemetery is reprising its annual Easter Sunrise Service starting at 6:51 a.m.
The non-denominational service is held at the Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater where gates open at 5 a.m. The service will feature a performance by the U.S. Army Band and a message from Chaplain (Brig. Gen.) Thomas L. Solhjem, the Army’s Deputy Chief of Chaplains.
The cemetery’s parking garage will be free for all attendees until 8 a.m. and a shuttle will escort people from the cemetery welcome center to the amphitheater. DoD ID holders can park at the Tri-Services parking lot in the base where a shuttle will also ferry riders to the amphitheater.
The sunrise service is free and attendees are encouraged to check Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall’s Facebook page for updates. Backpacks and pets, except service animals, will not be allowed in for the event.
For Passover, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington (4444 Arlington Blvd) is hosting two events together with the Northern Virginia Reconstructionist Jewish Community — on Sunday, April 14 from 5-6:15 p.m., and on Saturday, April 20 from 6-8 p.m.
On April 14, Rabbi Gilah Langner and Tot Shabbat Coordinator Andrea Cate will perform Passover songs and stories and give “tips and practice for leading your own Seder at home” per the event description on their website.
The event is free and advertised as “great for kids 0-8.” Attendees are asked to RSVP to [email protected].
On April 20, UU congregation member Herb Levy will read from Kol Ami’s Haggadah and lead the evening’s events. The “Community Seder” potluck features poached salmon and costs $20 per adult, and $5 per child, plus a dish to share.
The online event description asks attendees to sign up by April 13 online and let organizers know if they can help with set up and cleanup.
Synagogues in and around Arlington will also be hosting their respectiveservices.
New fitness and activity areas at Courtland Towers (photo courtesy Dittmar)
New fitness and activity areas at Courtland Towers (photo courtesy Dittmar)
New fitness and activity areas at Courtland Towers (photo courtesy Dittmar)
Courtland Towers, a large apartment building in Courthouse, is adding new amenities to attract residents.
The building recently debuted a new fitness facility that includes more weights and cardio machines in the gym, a mixed martial arts and boxing training area, a tank weight track, and an area for TRX suspension training, according to a building resident manager.
The upgrades also included a space for group exercises, a golf and sports simulator, a new game room, and a “kid’s play zone.” In addition to the new amenities, the building at 1200 N. Veitch Street has existing indoor basketball and racquetball courts, a theater, a billiard room, and indoor and outdoor pools.
Arlington Agenda is a listing of interesting events for the week ahead in Arlington County. If you’d like to see your event featured, fill out the event submission form.
Reid Clark is hosting a comedy night at the Galaxy Hut featuring performances by Rob Coffee, Shop Kelly, Fernando Madrigal, Sid Reynolds, and Alex Starr. Tickets cost $5.
Former Arlington County Board Chair Jay Fisette will give a presentation on climate change, following by panel discussion about climate crisis and what Arlington is doing about it.
Arlington’s sister city of Reims, France performs in the county as the last stop on a three week tour. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children under 16 and can be purchased online.
Join County Board Members and Male Community Leaders (teachers, coaches, veterans, fathers, students and more) for a panel discussion about healthy masculinity and sexual assault.
The Cabaret-style show with pop, jazz, and broadway music advocates for at-risk women and children and raises funds for The DC Children’s Advocacy Center.
The church’s annual Lent fish fry returns with plenty of fish, sides and drinks for everyone. Families are invited, and anyone looking to attend the dinner event can RSVP online.
Clarendon’s longtime sports bar Mister Days invites the public to help celebrate its last night open after 43 years in business. Owner Robert Lee told ARLnow last week he’s retiring.
Admission is free to the 7th annual Arlington Festival of the Arts which will feature works of art from pottery to paintings by over 100 artists this weekend.
Trail Cleanup on the W&OD Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center (4200 S. Four Mile Run Drive)
Time: 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
Volunteers are cleaning litter from the side of the W&OD Trail between Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center and Columbia Pike. Refreshments, water, and trash bags are available.
