A bar encouraging patrons to grab a glass of wine and a paintbrush could soon be on the way for Ballston’s biggest new development.
A new Muse Paintbar location seems set to be included in Ballston Quarter, according to new county permit applications. The bar’s listed address is on the first floor of 4238 Wilson Blvd, just down the block from the CVS pharmacy.
Spokespeople for both Muse and Ballston Quarter’s developer, Forest City, did not respond to requests for comment on the matter.
Muse dubs itself as “the premier paint and wine experience” on its website, offering events and private parties to help people learn how to paint while sipping on their adult beverage of choice. The chain has several locations around Northern Virginia, including ones in Falls Church, Woodbridge and Gainesville.
Yet the bar’s opening could be a ways off — Muse only applied for a permit at the site on Wednesday (Sept. 26), with several rounds of review by county inspectors still on tap. The bar also has yet to apply for a permit to serve alcohol at the location, state records show.
Ballston Quarter itself is set to open to patrons by the end of October, though Forest City has long said that the restaurants and businesses inside the new-look Ballston Common mall will open on a rolling basis over the next few months.
As Arlington has been drenched by unrelenting rain over these last few months, with totals setting all manner of records for the the D.C. region, local bars and restaurants haven’t exactly been flooded with business.
Owners at a variety of Arlington eateries, particularly those with outdoor patios or beer gardens, say August and September have been especially challenging months when it comes to convincing patrons to brave the elements.
And considering that the Washington area has seen the fourth-highest rain total for any September on record, and D.C.’s rainfall has even managed to outpace notoriously soaked cities like Seattle and London so far this year, those struggles are far from surprising.
“It’s been hard, for sure,” Scott Parker, the co-owner of local bars like Ballston’s A-Town and Clarendon’s Don Tito, told ARLnow. “Rain doesn’t exactly make people want to go out. August is one of the slowest months for most restaurants and bars in the area as is. Last thing you need is for it to be rained out.”
Curt Large, the owner of Rosslyn’s Continental Beer Garden, says things have been especially challenging for his establishment, which “lives and dies with the weather.” Though he also owns the adjacent Continental Pool Lounge, and often encourages patrons dodging raindrops to head indoors there, he says the inescapable fact is that “many, if not, most of the beer garden’s customers are looking to sit outside.”
“In July, we actually had higher sales than last year, but in August and September we’ve had rain on many Thursday and Fridays, by far our biggest nights, and our sales are down for this period more than 25 percent versus last summer,” Large said.
Ryan Cline, the general manager of Ballston’s Rustico, lamented that the rain “has taken away some of the last remaining weeks we have to use the patio sections on either side of the restaurant,” as well as the small beer garden the restaurant opens on weekends.
Considering that Rustico has “one of the largest outdoor patio sections in the area,” in Cline’s estimation, the weather has eliminated one of the restaurant’s distinguishing factors for customers.
All that being said, of course, Arlington restaurateurs say rain is part of the business, even if these last few weeks have been more brutal than usual. As Devin Hicks, the co-owner of Westover Market and Beer Garden, puts it: “It’s the weather, so what are you going to do?”
“Being in business for nine years, we’ve learned to roll with the punches,” Hicks said.
Hicks added that, like Large, having an indoor “beer haus” helps give customers another option when the rain picks up. He’s also erected canopies throughout the establishment’s beer garden, which have proven “clutch.”
Luckily, Hicks said that the “support from the neighborhood has been amazing,” even with the constant showers.
Similarly, Cline added that “it has been our local troopers really carrying the burden” over the wettest months, dubbing many of Rustico’s guests “fiercely loyal.”
There is one small bit of good news, however — this weekend’s forecast is looking like a far cry from the past weeks’ downpours.
“It sounds like the weekend is going to be a picturesque early fall weekend of weather,” Hicks said. “We keep pouring great brews no matter what Mother Nature throws at us.”
Work on Dudley’s Sport and Ale in Shirlington continues (via Facebook)
Dudley’s in Shirlington (file photo)
Dudley’s Sport & Ale in Shirlington (file photo)
Dudley’s Sport and Ale in Shirlington is inching ever closer to opening, with plans to start hiring employees in the coming days.
Owner Reese Gardner told ARLnow that an “exact date” for opening of the long-awaited sports bar, located at 2766 S. Arlington Mills Drive, still remains unclear.
However, the restaurant did host a hiring fair this past Sunday (Sept. 23), and Gardner said the pub should be open soon. He’s been working since 2015 to bring the new bar to the space once occupied by The Bungalow Sports Grill, though he’s run into a series of delays over the years, some of which have been linked to the 3,000-square-foot rooftop space he’s building atop the 12,000-square-foot restaurant.
In a Facebook post earlier this month, the restaurant’s staff attributed some of the delays to more requirements from county planners, scuttling Gardner’s plans to open the bar in time for football season.
“Please understand we also want the venue to be open also but there have been continuous hurdles to overcome with this construction process,” staff wrote. “The latest is Arlington County would like us to add a dry sprinkler system to the outside rooftop area. The bottom floor is basically finished except for paint and small punch list stuff.”
Gardner added that the restaurant is now awaiting “final inspections” from the county, which will determine when exactly Dudley’s is able to open its doors.
Little Ambassadors Academy west side (photo via Google Maps)
Little Ambassadors Academy east side (photo via Google Maps)
Photo via Google Maps
A proposed childcare center on Lee Highway that has irked neighbors for months is now on track to open in the next few months.
The County Board unanimously signed off on a permit Tuesday to let Little Ambassadors’ Academy move ahead with plans to open a third location at 5801 and 5901 Lee Highway. The childcare center is now on course to open by February or March of next year.
The daycare company has hoped for just over a year now to remodel two existing buildings on the property and create space for as many as 155 children, but people living nearby have repeatedly raised concerns about how the facility’s addition would impact traffic in the area.
Two people living behind the site even filed a lawsuit to block the daycare center’s construction after the Board lent its initial approval last September, though a judge tossed out that case in January. The Leeway Overlee Civic Association has raised concerns about the project as well, urging the Board to restrict the number of children allowed at the facility in a bid to ease traffic in the area.
All the while, Little Ambassadors has worked to open up the new center — but the process has dragged on so long that the permit the Board issued last year came up for review, even though the daycare has yet open.
As Sara Mariska, an attorney for Little Ambassadors, told the Board: “There has been no change in circumstances since we were here a year ago.”
Nevertheless, neighborhood concerns linger. Adam Watson, a staffer in the county’s planning division, said he’s heard from a variety of people in the area concerned that the daycare will snarl an already-busy section of Lee Highway. The original District Taco location sits just down the block, and a new 711 is on the way nearby at 5747 Lee Highway as well.
“[Our] initial expression of general support for [the company’s] application was based on the understanding that the child care center would operate with no more than 135 children,” Leeway Overlee Civic Association President Jack Grimaldi wrote to the Board. “More children, in other words, raises the likelihood of more vehicles being needed to get them to and from the center.”
But Joanne Gabor, who works with county’s Department of Environmental Services, assured the Board that staff believe Little Amabassdors’ strategy for managing traffic in the area “is a good plan and it’s workable.” And without any real-world examples of the childcare facility’s impact on the local traffic, the Board wasn’t inclined to change its original decision.
“A lot of the concerns that people had when this use permit was approved originally, we haven’t had a chance to see if any mitigating or corrective actions will be needed,” said Vice Chair Christian Dorsey. “I can’t find a way to mitigate something that hasn’t happened. It may seem like a callous approach to safety, but we have to see how the network responds.”
Board member Libby Garvey added that Little Ambassadors’ track record at its other Lee Highway locations, at 5232 Lee Highway and 3565 Lee Highway, also gives the Board confidence.
“We have a lot of background coming to us on this,” Garvey said. “I don’t want people to think we’re just winging this.”
The Board will review the daycare center’s use permit once more in September 2019, when it will have a chance to assess any potential traffic impact.
Arlington officials will soon allow dockless vehicle companies to operate up to 750 electric scooters and bikes in the county over the next nine months, reversing earlier plans to set a much lower cap on the vehicles as part of a new pilot project.
Starting next week, companies will be able to participate in the “demonstration project” the County Board unanimously approved Tuesday. While an earlier version of the program called for a cap of 350 vehicles per company, the Board ultimately opted for a much larger limit over concerns that a smaller cap would stymie the success of the dockless vehicle firms.
Bird first dropped its scooters in the county in June, becoming the first company to cross from D.C. into Arlington, but that move caught county officials a bit flat-footed. Arlington decided against retaliatory action on that front, choosing instead to launch the nine-month pilot to better evaluate how it manages the bikes and scooters going forward.
“I’m really proud that we’re not going to react to this major change to our transportation network in a kneejerk way,” said Board Chair Katie Cristol. “We’re going to do it through data.”
The program will set some new standards on dockless companies, forcing them to pay $8,000 for a permit to participate, post a “surety bond” in case they go out of business and share ridership data with the county. It will also require them to remove an improperly parked bike or scooter within one hour from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day.
But the top issue the Board hopes to suss out as part of the pilot is just how many dockless vehicles Arlington can realistically handle.
Cameron Kilberg, senior manager of government affairs for Bird, told the Board that her company already had 500 scooters in the county, with each one averaging roughly three trips per day. County staff initially only expected to allow companies to reach the 350 vehicle cap if they could demonstrate a six-trip average per day, strictures Kilberg warned would hurt Bird’s ability to operate in Arlington. The county’s Transportation Commission also urged against the lower cap in a letter to the Board.
Some dockless companies have already pulled out of D.C., citing the city’s 400 vehicle cap, and the Board feared a similar development in Arlington if they mirrored that approach.
“What would be the goals of a pilot coming in at a scale lower than what you’re actually seeing on the ground?” said Vice Chair Christian Dorsey.
Even still, transportation staffers told the Board that they’re wary of just how many vehicles could show up in the county all at once.
For instance, commuter services bureau chief Jim Larsen pointed out that Skip, another dockless company operating in D.C., told him that they envision deploying 500 vehicles to the county right away in the near future. He added that he foresees as many as 10 companies applying as part of the new pilot program, meaning the county would soon be awash in thousands of the vehicles.
“Those jurisdictions that don’t have a cap have run into problems, and in some cases have had to entirely pull back, pull all the devices off the market and start over,” said county transportation chief Dennis Leach. “We don’t feel that’s a good way to move forward.”
Yet Board member Erik Gutshall pointed out that if the 350-vehicle cap forced companies to leave the county, “we could find ourselves midway through the pilot, and our hands are tied.” That’s why the Board ultimately decided to allow dockless companies to immediately deploy 350 bikes and scooters, then apply for an increase of 50 vehicles each month over the duration of the pilot, so long as they can prove they’re being ridden three times each day.
Dorsey added that an increase in the number of scooters and bikes might also force companies to deploy the vehicles beyond just the heavily trafficked Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, which he deemed an “equity issue.”
“I’d hope with this more permissive approach, we can get these companies really thinking about how they deploy on Columbia Pike, Lee Highway, Shirlington, all these areas not served by the multiplicity of modes on the R-B corridor,” Dorsey said.
Gutshall even proposed someday moving to a “free for all” approach, where the county would require companies to “draw down” if they can’t provide data demonstrating they’re hitting a target number of trips per day. Dorsey even suggested setting a cap on the total number of vehicles in the county, then putting forth some sort of competitive bidding process for companies looking to meet that demand.
The new policy also bans people from riding the scooters on sidewalks and county trails — staff believes the county would need to pass a new ordinance to allow them on the trails, yet lacks the authority to do so under state law — and caps their speed limit at 10 miles per hour.
Kilberg suggested changing both provisions, particularly the speed limit, as the company’s scooters are currently capped at 15 miles per hour.
“Most people aren’t going 15… and if you’re only using them on the street, you’re competing with other cars,” Kilberg said.
But any of those proposed changes would only come once the county gets a chance to evaluate the results of the pilot, Cristol said. County staff plans to collect data from the companies on the scooters and bikes, and gather comments from the community to gauge how the dockless vehicles are working in practice.
“We want complaints, commendations, to know if you’re enjoying the program, or possibly not,” said Paul DeMaio, the pilot program’s manager.
Arlington Police Involved in D.C. Standoff — County police are working with their counterparts in D.C. to arrest a man wanted on rape charges in Arlington. When they attempted to arrest him last night, he barricaded himself inside his home on the 3300 block of Mt. Pleasant Street N.W. [Twitter, PoPville]
ART Route Changes Start This Weekend — Riders on Arlington Transit’s 41, 42, 43 and 75 lines may notice some schedule adjustments starting Saturday. Service will become more frequent on all of the lines, and the northbound stop at the Courthouse Metro Station will become permanent. [Arlington Transit]
Arlington Planners Bring ‘Smart Growth’ Strategies to Md. — At a talk yesterday, the head of Arlington County’s planning division shared some wisdom on “Arlington’s smart growth journey” to planners in Prince George’s County, Md. “As a regional, national and international model of smart growth, Arlington, has demonstrated… how the mistakes and impacts of suburban sprawl can be corrected and avoided through a visionary and continuous commitment to innovative planning,” the event program noted. [Prince George’s County]
Valley Fest Road Closures This Weekend — S. Oakland Street will play host to the second annual Valley Fest, backed by New District Brewing and other local businesses and artists. There will be plenty of beer on tap, but police warn to watch out for some road closures. [Arlington Police]
Leaf Blowers Irk Arlingtonians — Some county residents raised a stink with the County Board over the pervasive drone of leaf blowers, now that fall is nearly here. But local officials say their hands are tied by state law and likely can’t pass any sort of ordinance to limit the noise. [Falls Church News-Press]
Head ‘Back to the Future’ with Rhodeside Grill — The Rosslyn-area restaurant is offering throwback cocktails and dishes from the 1950s and 1980s to commemorate the classic comedy. The event is set for Oct. 12. [Facebook]
Detours on Arlington-McLean Border This Week — Work to replace a culvert will result in the closure Valley Wood Road in McLean, running just near Williamsburg Middle School and Discovery Elementary School. [Tysons Reporter]
Firefighters Extinguish Bellevue Forest Blaze — County firefighters say an attic fan caught fire in a home on the 3100 block of N. Quincy Street around 6 p.m. last night. There were no injuries. [Twitter]
A large snapping turtle gave a few South Arlington parkgoers a surprise today (Wednesday), and animal control officers ultimately had to step in to guide the reptile to safety.
Jennifer Toussaint, the county’s chief animal control officer, told ARLnow that her office received a call around noon that the large turtle was in the street at the intersection of Army Navy Drive and 28th Street S., just near Fraser Park.
She said an officer ultimately “safely moved the snapping turtle in the direction it was heading towards the stream adjacent to the brush line near the street,” which backs up to I-395.
Toussaint added that it’s hardly unusual for her office to receive calls about snapping turtles — animal control officers discovered someone keeping one as a pet just last month, a practice she strongly advises against — and the Arlington Ridge and Long Branch Creek neighborhoods seem to be particularly popular spots for the creatures.
“Snapping turtles mate from April [to] November and travel extensively on land when laying eggs and looking for [a] new habitat,” Toussaint wrote in an email. “Army Navy Drive [and]28th Street seems to be a very specifically popular areas for them, as we have yearly calls for service for snapping turtles in the roadway injured or needing assistance ranging back as far as 2013. Most of our snapping turtle calls in Arlington come in June [through] July.”
Justin Covert, one of the people to discover the turtle, added that his girlfriend discovered another turtle in the park earlier this month, even though he’d “never seen a turtle around these parts until now.”
Should the turtle sightings continue, Toussaint wants to warn people that the reptiles have “very flexible necks, sharp long claws, a strong jaw and can act defensive when handled.”
While animal control officers may be best-suited to move the creatures off roadways, she advises that it’s “inappropriate to pick them up by their tails,” if any turtle seems in danger.
“Their weight needs to be supported and dragging them can cause cuts that can get infected,” Toussaint wrote.
An Arlington man is now behind bars after he allegedly struck a sheriff’s deputy and was subsequently subdued with a Taser.
County sheriff’s office spokeswoman Maj. Susie Doyel says deputies were working to evict 53-year-old Vincent Moody from his home along the 1000 block of S. Queen Street when he “became combative.” Moody then “struck a deputy in the face” and was tasered by the deputies, Doyel said.
He’s now facing charges of obstruction and assault on a law enforcement officer, with a hearing in Arlington General District Court set for Oct. 24.
Moody is being held at the county detention center without bond.
More highlights from the past week of county crime reports, including some we’ve alreadyreported, are below.
BURGLARY (late), 2018-09250202, 2500 block of S. Lynn Street. At approximately 6:07 p.m. on September 25, police responded to the report of a burglary. Upon arrival, it was determined that between 4:45 p.m. on September 24 and 5:00 p.m. on September 25, an unknown suspect(s) gained entry to a residence and stole an undisclosed amount of cash. There is no suspect description(s). The investigation is ongoing.
BURGLARY (late), 2018-09240148, 1600 block of N. Oak Street. At approximately 4:44 p.m. on September 24, police responded to the late report of breaking and entering. Upon arrival, it was determined that between 3:00 p.m. on September 10 and 4:44 p.m. on September 24, an unknown suspect(s) gained entry to the victim’s residence and stole items of value. There is no suspect description(s). The investigation is ongoing.
HOME INVASION ROBBERY, 2018-09220044, 4700 block of 33rd Street N. At approximately 3:17 a.m. on September 22, police were dispatched to the report of a panic alarm. Upon arrival, it was determined that as the homeowner returned to the residence, an unknown suspect brandishing a firearm forced his way inside with two additional suspects. The suspects restrained the residents, assaulted the male victim and made threats of bodily harm to the two additional victims. The suspects stole items of value before fleeing the scene in a silver vehicle. The victims did not require medical treatment. The suspects are described as three black males, wearing dark clothing and white gloves. The investigation is ongoing.
MALICIOUS WOUNDING, 2018-09200132, 2000 block of S. Kenmore Street. At approximately 2:03 p.m. on September 20, police were dispatched to the report of trouble unknown. Upon arrival, it was determined that one victim became engaged in a verbal dispute with two suspects inside a business. The victim then exited the business and got into a vehicle with two additional victims. As the victims began to drive away, the suspects approached the vehicle and the dispute escalated. One suspect brandished a firearm and shot at the vehicle occupied by the victims. The suspects then fled the scene on foot. One of the victims suffered minor injuries and was treated on-scene by medics. The investigation is ongoing.
Starting next year, Arlington drivers won’t need to display a car decal on their vehicles for the first time in decades.
The County Board voted unanimously yesterday (Tuesday) to end the requirement that owners of vehicles parked in Arlington use a sticker to prove they’ve paid personal property taxes.
The “motor vehicle license fee” associated with the decal, which helps the county pull in about $5 million each year, will remain under the Board’s plan. But starting July 1, 2019, the county will now rely entirely on license plate readers to track whether drivers are up to date on their taxes.
“This is truly the end of an era for Arlington,” County Board Chair Katie Cristol said in a statement. “The decal is going the way of the horse-and-buggy.”
The county first began requiring drivers to display a metal tag on license plates all the way back in 1949, moving to a decal system in 1967. Yet, as other localities across the state have increasingly abandoned similar decals, pressure on the county to follow suit mounted.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Board member John Vihstadt said at the meeting Tuesday. “We’re not getting rid of the fee, it’s important to our tax base and enforcement of motor vehicle regulations and so forth. But this will eliminate the nuisance of having a decal.”
County treasurer Carla de la Pava remains confident that Arlington will be able to maintain its low tax delinquency rate even with this change, though it will also mark the end of her office’s annual design competition for the decal, which featured art from local high school students.
“The decal competition was a great collaboration between art, teens, and local government, and I am sorry to see it end,” de la Pava said in a statement.
A rendering of the planned Virginia Hospital Center expansion (courtesy photo)
A rendering of the planned Virginia Hospital Center expansion (courtesy photo)
A rendering of the planned Virginia Hospital Center expansion (courtesy photo)
The Virginia Hospital Center will need to wait a bit longer to kick off its coveted expansion project, but Arlington officials are largely optimistic that they’ve charted out a path to help the county’s lone hospital meet some community concerns and ultimately win approval.
VHC, and the county’s business community, pressed hard to earn a green light from the County Board this weekend, in order to start work on a $250 million expansion the hospital says it desperately needs to manage demand. But the Board chose to follow the recommendation of its planners instead, and push back a final vote on the project until December.
Rather than ordering any substantial reworking of the project’s design, however, the Board asked that the hospital make some more modest changes to its plans.
While those alterations may not address each and every concern raised by people living nearby, who argue that the two new structures the hospital wants to build are hopelessly out of step with the surrounding community, county leaders hope they strike the right balance between addressing neighborhood worries and providing VHC with reasonable goals to meet.
“We didn’t want to kick this back to everybody to noodle over for the next three months,” Board Chair Katie Cristol told ARLnow. “We wanted to be clear about the targets the hospital needs to hit to reach approval… I do this think it’s likely that they meet these criteria. We tried to take the judgement calls out of it.”
Those new requests of VHC include a requirement to add better connections throughout the site of the expansion, in a lot on N. Edison Street immediately adjacent to its existing campus at 1701 N. George Mason Drive. As Cristol puts it, she wants to see less of a “superblock,” particularly after planners and neighbors balked at the potential of the proposed seven-story parking garage and 10-story outpatient facility to effectively wall off the hospital from single-family homes in the neighborhood.
The Board also wants to see the hospital spruce up the facade of the garage itself to help it better fit in to the community, and create a pedestrian connection between 19th Street N. and one of the expansion’s proposed terraces.
All of those requests seem reasonable enough to Adrian Stanton, VHC’s vice president of business development and community affairs. He told ARLnow that the hospital is, of course, “disappointed” by the Board’s decision to delay the proceedings, but largely optimistic about the project’s prospects.
“We’re very confident that we can work collaboratively with the county and community to iron out these remaining issues,” Stanton said. “I truly believe we will, and that’s where we appreciate the Board being very specific.”
But the Board’s requests won’t fundamentally impact a chief concern of many people living near the hospital: the size of the new buildings.
The county’s Planning Commission urged the Board to force VHC to move the largest structures closer to the center of the site, in order reduce their impact on the community. Neighbors similarly hoped for larger setbacks or other measures to help the structures better blend into the area, but felt those requests went ignored.
“None of these hopes were realized,” Suzanne Nirschl-Brown, head of the nearby Taratown Homeowners Association, told the Board Saturday. “We’re the ones with the towering structures close to our homes.”
However, Stanton noted that the hospital is fundamentally “landlocked” by those single-family homes and will need to build large structures to make any expansion happen. Cristol added that VHC did also reduce the size of its garage, simultaneously shrinking the structure and satisfying the demands of transit advocates concerned that offering so many parking spaces would encourage employees to drive to the hospital.
Planners are also concerned that the hospital still hasn’t done enough to lay out what its future construction on the site might look like. Once it can complete the expansion, the hospital hopes to overhaul its existing campus over the coming decades — the Planning Commission called for VHC to go through a different process known as a “phased development site plan” to help the county better scrutinize those long-range plans.
Yet Stanton says that the constantly changing nature of the healthcare industry would’ve made it difficult to predict exactly what sort of facilities the hospital will need to build so far in the future. He added that VHC also fully plans to go through the PDSP process when it proposes any design for a future overhaul of its campus, which he doesn’t expect to happen for the next 10 to 15 years.
The Board agreed to that condition, even if it doesn’t quite meet the demands of planners.
“That’s akin to closing the barn door after the horse is gone,” Planning Commissioner Nancy Iacomini said Saturday. “One of the most important things a PDSP does is make the edge of a site match its context.”
Still, Stanton pledged to work closely with the community over both the next three months and the coming years on all manner of designs. Cristol and her fellow Board members agreed that was well warranted, given the hours of public comment they heard Saturday.
Cristol pointed out that tensions between VHC and its neighbors “go back decades.” One resident of the nearby Halls Hill neighborhood, Tia Alfred, compared the hospital’s design to the infamous “wall” used to separate the historically black community from its white neighbors decades ago.
To some Board members, such recriminations suggested that a lot more community engagement is needed on VHC’s part.
“If only VHC would treat their neighbors the way they treat their patients,” Board member Libby Garvey said Saturday. “I really hope this is one of the first steps between a repaired relationship between the hospital and the neighborhood.”
Stanton says VHC staff will meet with community members “as frequently as they request,” but did underscore the urgency of the hospital’s expansion, nonetheless. He noted that VHC regularly has to send patients seeking some mental and behavioral health services elsewhere, and will continue to feel a squeeze in its emergency rooms until the expansion can move forward.
Stanton added that the hospital expects construction to take from 24 to 30 months, and it will only be able to offer more in-patient beds on its current campus once it can build the new outpatient facility. The county has its own interest in seeing the project go forward as well, as it’s set to provide the Edison Street property with the hospital in a swap for a property on S. Carlin Springs Road.
But even with those pressing needs, and the Board’s specific guidelines, county officials warn that they’re not willing to simply offer a rubber stamp to the plan three months from now.
“I’m not going to support any proposed solutions for today’s problem if I believe it’s going to cause more problems the next time around,” Board member Erik Gutshall said Saturday. “Come back to us with what’s really your best and final offer.”
The space at 2011 Crystal Drive, which will soon be home to The Freshman (courtesy of Dan Bowman)
The space at 2011 Crystal Drive, which will soon be home to The Freshman (courtesy of Dan Bowman)
The Noodles & Company restaurant in Crystal City has closed.
The fast casual eatery opened back in 2008 in the first floor of an office building at 2011 Crystal Drive, but signs now list the space for lease.
The location is also no longer displayed on the Noodles & Company corporate website, which now suggests that people in Arlington turn to nearby locations in D.C. and Alexandria. One Yelp commenter first reported that the restaurant was closed back on Sept. 13.
Noodles & Company once operated as many as 500 locations across the country, but persistently declining revenue figures have forced the chain to shutter dozens of its restaurants in recent years. The company also closed its Pentagon Row location back in 2016.
