Author: Chris Teale

County Prepares Ahead for Forecasted Snow Tonight, Saturday Morning

By Chris Teale

Arlington County and the wider D.C. region could receive its first dusting of snow this winter, as early as tonight.

The Capital Weather Gang reports that as Friday night wears on, the chances of light snow, or a mix of snow and rain, will increase. A mix of snow and rain is likely to fall during Saturday, with as much as an inch or two expected to accumulate depending on the severity of the storm.

County government has been planning all year for any winter weather, including budgeting $1.4 million for snow removal, stockpiling 9,200 tons of salt and spending 1,950 hours training snow crews. The team is made up of 92 drivers and 46 trucks.

Crews from the county’s Department of Environmental Services were out this morning with liquid de-icer to pre-treat some county streets.

Work on snow-affected roads is broken into four phases, per a county press release:

  • Phase 1: Snow crews pre-treat main roads before a storm.
  • Phase 2: During the storm, the priority is to keep main arteries passable for emergency vehicles and public transportation.
  • Phase 3: Plowing of residential streets and trails begins. It’s important to know that these streets may only be passable with one lane and you may not see bare pavement.
  • Phase 4: After the storm, cleanup operations begin, which includes treating ice on the roadways.

As well as more than 1,000 lane miles of county streets, crews will also clear nearly 350 bus stops and shelters, 35 miles of sidewalks and 21 pedestrian bridges or overpasses. Ten miles of trails and three miles of protected bike lanes also will be cleared.

And residents can play their part in helping make snow clearing as easy as possible:

  • Coordinate with neighbors to park cars on one side of the street, where feasible, or avoid on-street parking so snowplow operators can efficiently clear more of the streets
  • Don’t park “head in” on cul-de-sacs so plows have more room to maneuver
  • Clear your sidewalks and scoop snow towards your house, not the street, BUT
  • Wait for snow plows to come by before clearing snow from the front of driveways, to minimize the amount pushed back by plows
  • Stay home, telework or use mass transit to reduce the number of potentially stranded vehicles
  • Apply only the recommended amount of chemical de-icers on sidewalks to attain a safe and passable way
  • Stay connected through the Snow and Ice Central webpage and DES social media platforms for updates on snow phases, transportation, trash and other important notifications. Follow on Twitter @ArlingtonDES and on Facebook at Arlington County Department of Environmental Services.

Crews from the Virginia Department of Transportation will also be pre-treating roads ahead of any snow. VDOT urged drivers to give their trucks room to work.

Stomach Bug Sweeps Through McKinley Elementary School

By Chris Teale

More than 100 students were out sick today (Thursday) at McKinley Elementary School after a stomach bug swept through campus.

An Arlington Public Schools spokesman said 135 of the school’s 800 students were out, after about 85 were absent yesterday (Wednesday).

The spokesman said that while it sounded like a “typical [stomach] bug that makes its way around this time of year,” he said he could not be sure that all the absences were related to it.

Multiple anonymous tipsters reported the spread of the illness through the school at 1030 N. McKinley Road in Madison Manor.

The School Health Bureau within the county’s Department of Health sent a letter to parents warning of an “increase in reported symptoms of gastrointestinal illness,” and urging parents to make sure children wash their hands and stay home if they develop vomiting or diarrhea.

Parents throughout APS can expect to receive a letter soon about winter illnesses in the community, which the spokesman said is “typically sent each December to our families as a reminder.”

The School Health Bureau’s letter to McKinley parents is after the jump.

(more…)

Apartment Developer AvalonBay Moving Headquarters to Liberty Center in Ballston

By Chris Teale
1/5

Two years after being put on hold, construction will resume next year on the Liberty Center’s final building in Ballston after it signed an office tenant.

AvalonBay Communities, a publicly-traded apartment developer and real estate investment trust, will relocate its headquarters to 4040 Wilson Blvd, which is set to be a 22-story mixed-use building with offices, retail and residential. It will be Ballston’s tallest building.

AvalonBay, which is already in the neighborhood at 671 N. Glebe Road, signed a lease for 73,000 square feet of office space on three floors — the eighth, ninth and 10th as well as a portion of the seventh — at the site owned by developer The Shooshan Company and Brandywine Realty Trust.

It joins VIDA Fitness, which will open its first non-D.C. location at the building. With this new signing, the building’s office space is 50 percent pre-leased.

Construction is now expected to start in the first quarter of next year. AvalonBay is projected to move in around mid-2020.

“When we decided to amend 4040 Wilson to a mixed-use building consisting of roughly a 50/50 split of office and residential and increased retail last year, we did so in an effort to adjust to the recent market trends which consisted of more prospective tenants in the [around] 75,000 [square feet] range, and more retail demand along Wilson Blvd.,” Kevin Shooshan, leasing director at The Shooshan Company, said in a statement. “Just about a year after county approval, we’re honored to have executed a pre-lease with a company as prestigious as AvalonBay, securing their headquarters location here in Arlington County for years to come.”

Previously, Shooshan told ARLnow that construction had been paused during a period of high office vacancies in Arlington and the rest of the D.C. region.

Image No. 1 via The Shooshan Company

New Online Tool Shows County Projects on Map

By Chris Teale

A new tool provides a map view of various projects being undertaken by Arlington County government.

Known as the “My Arlington — Projects Map,” it is a collaboration between several county departments. It shows projects in transportation, parks, water and utilities facilities and private development, as well as daily work being done.

More on how the tool works from a county press release:

  • Projects can be filtered by type and status
  • You can look up projects based on your address or civic association
  • Addresses in and around Arlington produce the best results (some smaller-scale projects may not be included)
  • Most projects are removed from the map once they’ve been complete for one year
  • The map is updated several times a day
  • It links people with more detailed project information already online

The tool does not include projects by the Virginia Department of Transportation, Washington Gas, Dominion Power, Arlington Public Schools, or other non-county government entities. In the future, more information will be added. Map data will also soon be viewable on the My Arlington mobile app.

Video Footage Appears to Show Man Stealing Italian Store’s Vespa

By Chris Teale
1/4

(Updated at 11:25 a.m.) Surveillance video appears to show a man loading The Italian Store’s Vespa scooter into his car and then driving away.

The still-missing 1966 Celeste Green Vespa scooter disappeared Saturday evening from outside The Italian Store’s Westover location around 5 p.m., the business said.

The footage shows a man allegedly loading the Vespa into a red Ford Focus before driving away on N. Longfellow Street. The video is from behind the nearby Ayers Variety & Hardware Store (5853 Washington Blvd).

In a recent Facebook post, The Italian Store said they are waiting for the case to be assigned a detective by the Arlington County Police Department for more examination. They also urged anyone with surveillance cameras along N. Longfellow Street to share any footage they may have from that day.

There was a possible sighting of the car at around 10:30 a.m. yesterday (Wednesday) at the nearby intersection of 10th Street N. and N. Kensington Street, prompting a police response.

A woman said she saw a “suspicious” red car in the neighborhood and posted about it on an app. Someone who saw that post told the store owner, who then called the police. The woman thought the car was suspicious because she had never seen it before.

Several police units responded to the scene but the car was nowhere to be found and there was no evidence that it might have been the same suspect vehicle.

Vespa Update:We have obtained video of a man loading up the Vespa into the red Ford Focus shown behind Ayers Hardware…

Posted by The Italian Store on Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Photos via Facebook

Spinfire Pizza in Rosslyn Temporarily Closed for Renovations

By Chris Teale
1/3

A Rosslyn pizza joint owned by a former Washington Redskins football player is temporarily closed.

Spinfire Pizza at 1500 Wilson Blvd is scheduled to reopen on December 31, 2017 after renovations, according to its Yelp page.

A sign on its front door has no further details on the work, only that it is closed. It offers customizable personal pizzas in 90 seconds, with toppings ranging from pizza staples like pepperoni and mushrooms to Sriracha sausage, candied pecans and dried cranberries.

Garcon posted a photo on his Facebook page in October showing him paying the restaurant a visit. Its other location is in Ashburn, near where the Redskins have their practice facility. Spinfire opened its Rosslyn space in 2015.

Posted by Pierre Garçon on Saturday, October 14, 2017

Hat tip to Christopher C.

Karen Pence Champions Art Therapy Initiative, Discusses Arlington Ties in WERA Interview

By Chris Teale

Second Lady Karen Pence appeared on Arlington community radio station WERA yesterday (Tuesday), to discuss her art therapy initiative and the family’s Arlington ties.

Pence launched “Art Therapy: Healing with the HeART” earlier this year, and discussed the program with Janet Kopenhaver, chair of citizens group Embracing Arlington Arts.

It looks to emphasize the qualifications of art therapists, educates people about its benefits and shows young people that it could be a viable career path. Pence said it can be easy to forget that art therapists are highly qualified medical professionals.

“Their profession is really misunderstood,” she said. “People just think they do arts and crafts.”

Instead, the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is an “integrative mental health and human services profession that enriches the lives of individual, families and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.”

Pence noted that it is not focused on the art as a finished product, but a way for people to deal with their issues. And it can benefit anyone, including those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, children with cancer, those with eating disorders and autism, among others.

“What we find when clients work with therapists, all these feelings and emotions they’ve been dealing with seem to come out of their heart,” she said. “They’ll put them on paper and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t realize I was thinking that.'”

Pence said her interest in art therapy goes back years, having received a Master’s Degree in Arts Education. When her husband, Vice President Mike Pence, was in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Indiana’s 6th congressional district, she saw first-hand the benefits of art therapy at Tracy’s Kids, an art therapy program for children in Georgetown.

And when Mike Pence travels for work, Karen Pence said she looks to join the trip and find an art therapy program to visit.

After Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico and the Pences visited to observe and help with recovery efforts, she brought 125 pounds of clay on Air Force Two to donate to an art therapist on the island.

“If we can tag along, we’ll find something to do related to art therapy,” Pence said. “When we knew we were going down to Puerto Rico, we thought, ‘Surely we can find a block of time of an hour or so where we can find an art therapist.'”

Kopenhaver said she enjoyed interviewing Pence about her initiative, which she launched earlier this year at Florida State University. The Pence family has strong connections to Arlington, as both their daughters attended Yorktown High School and were involved in its drama program.

“It was great having Mrs. Pence in the studio today to talk about the important mental health profession of art therapy, and specifically her initiative Art Therapy: Healing with the HeART,” Kopenhaver said in a statement.

Courtesy photo

Carlin Springs Road Bridge to Close Friday for Demolition

By Chris Teale
1/3

The Carlin Springs Road Bridge will close on Friday for partial demolition as part of its planned replacement.

The bridge will be closed to all traffic from 7 p.m. on Friday, December 8 through 5 a.m. Monday, December 11 for demolition. The closure will also affect the section of N. George Mason Drive underneath.

Roadway ramps and sidewalks connecting N. George Mason Drive and N. Carlin Springs Road will stay open during demolition, but traffic will be temporarily detoured via adjacent streets during the weekend closure. Signs will be in place to assist drivers and pedestrians.

Staff from the county’s Department of Environmental Services are encouraging motorists to use alternative routes, such as N. Glebe Road, Arlington Blvd and Wilson Blvd during the closure. Properties adjacent to the work site will still be accessible.

Detours will be as follows, per DES:

Detour for northbound traffic on N. George Mason Drive:

  • Turn right at N. Park Drive
  • Turn left at N. Carlin Springs Road
  • Turn right onto ramp to N. George Mason Drive (northbound direction)

Detour for southbound traffic on N. George Mason Drive:

  • Turn right at 6th Street N.
  • Turn left at N. Edison Street
  • Turn left at N. Carlin Springs Road
  • Turn right onto ramp to N. George Mason Drive (southbound direction)

Detour for westbound traffic on N. Carlin Springs Road:

  • Turn right onto ramp to N. George Mason Drive (northbound direction)
  • Turn right onto N. Buchanan Street
  • Turn left onto 7th Street N.
  • Turn left onto N. George Mason Drive (southbound direction)
  • Turn right onto ramp to N. Carlin Springs Road (westbound direction)

Detour for eastbound traffic on N. Carlin Springs Road:

  • Turn right onto ramp to N. George Mason Drive (southbound direction)
  • Turn left onto N. Park Drive
  • Turn right onto N. Carlin Springs Road (eastbound direction)

When the bridge reopens on December 11, the rest of the bridge will be limited to one travel lane in each direction and a single sidewalk until the project is completed.

Completion of the project, which will add wider sidewalks, bike lanes, four travel lanes and other features, is scheduled for fall 2019.

Coast Guard to Conduct Training on Potomac River This Afternoon

By Chris Teale

The U.S. Coast Guard vessels will be on the Potomac River near Arlington this afternoon for a tactics training session.

The exercise will take place from approximately 3:30-7:30 p.m. today (Wednesday) between Memorial Bridge and the 14th Street Bridge. During the exercise, crews will simulate a secure zone around a valuable asset.

No live fire or blanks will be used, though anyone on the water at that time should be extra vigilant.

More from the U.S. Coast Guard:

On Wednesday, 06 DEC 2017, Coast Guard Station Washington will be conducting boat tactics training from approximately 1530 to 1930. Location for this training will be the Upper Potomac River between Arlington Memorial Bridge and 14th St. Bridge. We will be using orange Coast Guard boats, with flashing blue lights, simulating a security zone around a high value asset. There will be no live fire or blanks used during this training; this is only a tactics and maneuvering drill. There will be a broadcast to notify mariners to exercise caution in the area for the duration of the exercise.

Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman

APS Looking to Add Solar Panels to Five Schools

By Chris Teale

Arlington Public Schools plans to add solar panels to five school buildings, including the soon-to-be-built Alice West Fleet Elementary School.

APS issued a Request for Proposals on December 1, calling for companies to bid to install solar panels at Kenmore and Thomas Jefferson Middle Schools, Tuckahoe and Fleet Elementary Schools and Washington-Lee High School.

Fleet Elementary School will be built on the site of Thomas Jefferson, and is projected to be open in September 2019.

In the call for proposals, APS said it is seeking to be increasingly environmentally friendly in construction projects and its existing buildings, and hopes the panels will help it keep up with its schools’ energy demands.

“APS stresses energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in the design of all construction and maintenance projects,” it reads. “APS is aware of the energy and environmental advantages of solar power and has multiple buildings used as schools for all age groups and administrative offices which appear to have design characteristics which make them appropriate for the installation of [solar panels] which will produce electric power to meet, or contribute to meeting, the power needs of APS.”

The successful bidder would install the solar panels, and operate and maintain them under a lease agreement with APS for a minimum of 15 years. APS said the winning company would also be responsible for all installation and maintenance costs, but would pay rent of $1 a year for the panels.

Proposals are due on March 19, 2018. The RFP comes months after Kenmore was one of six sites in Virginia selected to have a solar panel installed on its roof as part of the Solar for Students program, which encourages hands-on learning about clean energy.

Wreaths Across America Ceremony Set for December 16

By Chris Teale

Tens of thousands of volunteers will again head to Arlington National Cemetery later this month to honor veterans’ graves with wreaths this holiday season.

The annual Wreaths Across America ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 16, as part of a nationwide effort by the nonprofit to lay wreaths at veterans’ gravesides.

Organizers hope to lay a wreath at all 245,115 veterans’ graves at Arlington National Cemetery. And according to its website, more than 29,000 volunteers have already committed to laying more than 196,000.

Anyone who wishes to volunteer can sign up online, and anyone wishing to donate to sponsor a remembrance wreath can do so, to honor a veteran, alive or dead, or to have a wreath placed at a specific marker.

The opening ceremony for the day of wreath-laying begins at 8:15 a.m. From the event website:

For those wanting to observe the arrival of the Wreath Truck Convoy, which will arrive at approximately 7:45 a.m. on Saturday, ANC will begin their screening process at 7 a.m. at the ANC Welcome Center. Those screened early will be directed to holding areas near the Opening Ceremony location which will be held in front of the Women In Military Service for America Memorial at the end of Memorial Drive starting at 8:15 a.m. All gates into Arlington Cemetery grounds will be opened to the general public at 8:30 a.m. after all Wreaths Convoy Trucks have been staged. Wreath placement will begin at 9:15 a.m.

If you are interested in attending, there will be special wreath layings conducted at the Columbarium at 10 a.m.; at the President William F. Taft Monument in Section 30 at 10:30 a.m.; at the President John F. Kennedy Memorial in Section 45 at 11 a.m.; at the USS Battleship Maine Monument in Section 24 at 11:30 a.m.; and a formal Wreath Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at 12 p.m. (noon).

The cemetery’s welcome center garage will open at 7 a.m. that day, but only those with an authorized ANC Family Pass and vehicles with valid Handicap Permits will be allowed to park there. Metrorail will open at 7 a.m. that morning, and organizers are encouraging attendees to take the train to the Arlington National Cemetery Metro station instead of driving.

Flickr pool photo by John Sonderman

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