The Pinkberry frozen yogurt shop in Clarendon (2930 Clarendon Blvd) reopened yesterday under new management.
The California-based froyo chain closed its only Arlington location last December after its regional franchise owner filed for bankruptcy. The storefront, along with all the other locations in the D.C. area, was sold to a new franchisee at auction, according to store employees.
This afternoon, employees were restocking the shelves, but serving cups of chocolate hazelnut and cinnamon churro flavors, among others. Pinkberry rejoins FrozenYo in Rosslyn and Crystal City, Iceberry in Rosslyn, Menchie’s on Columbia Pike and Tutti Frutti in the Lee-Harrison Shopping Center in Arlington’s frozen yogurt shop inventory.
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Satellite image of the Costco surface lot and largely vacant roof parking lot (photo via Google Maps)
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Construction walls off about half of the Costco Pentagon City parking lot
Pentagon City residents are worried about the potential for nightmare traffic and parking woes now that a large portion of the busy Costco parking lot off S. Fern Street has been blocked off for construction.
About half of the parking spaces in Costco’s surface parking lot have been fenced off over the past day or so. Kimco — which owns the Pentagon Centre big box mall and its parking lot — is beginning construction on a seven-story parking garage at the corner of 15th Street S. and Fern Street.
When the parking garage is complete, it’s expected to provide 394 spaces and include 5,919 square feet of ground floor retail as part of a larger development plan. About 260 parking spots were blocked off yesterday, according to George Ronetz, the general manager of Federal Parking, which manages the lot.
The lot will be blocked off until October, Ronetz said, after which time construction crews will repave and reopen it to accommodate the holiday shopping season. In May 2016, construction will resume on the new structure and that portion of the lot will close again.
Shoppers and area residents may worry about a “Costcopocalypse” — the lot is usually packed on evenings and weekends — but Ronetz said he will have staffers direct cars to the parking garage next to the Costco, which has about 520 spaces.
“There’s ample parking spaces, it’s just a matter of parking in a different area,” Ronetz told ARLnow.com today.
Of course, whether drivers who frequent Costco and its notorious parking lot listen to Ronetz and his staff remains to be seen.
“I was literally standing on the street today encouraging people to park in the garage on the roof, and people will flip me off and say ‘No, I will park where I want to park,'” he said. “I’ve been out there personally and have been hit by cars because I’m trying to show a little old lady a place to park and out of nowhere a car hits me in the leg and knocks me down.”
The parking garage has two entrances, off 12th Street and the Fern Street lot. Customers can either park on the roof or a level below it.
John O’Neill, Advanced Towing’s owner, said he has received between 10 and 12 inquiries and new clients since the video leaked April 16, about double the company’s normal rate.
“New customer inquiries and acquisitions do increase when parking space poaching receives media notoriety,” he told ARLnow.com in an email. “Every new residential or commercial highrise being built in Arlington and surrounding areas engage towing services and there are a fair number of new projects being constructed. There are often more vehicles than available spaces in residential or multi-use settings causing parking to be an ongoing, popular topic.”
While Advanced Towing trucks may be getting busier, they won’t be towing cars away from the Hunan One Restaurant parking lot in Clarendon, at 3033 Wilson Blvd, where McHenry’s car was towed.
Hunan One General Manager Dale Jin told ARLnow.com yesterday that the restaurant’s building — a seven-story mixed-use structure with offices on top of ground floor retail — was recently sold to Carr Properties. When Carr Properties bought the building, it brought in Henry’s Wrecker Service to patrol the lot.
“We’re much happier now,” Jin said. “We complained for years about the towing company.”
O’Neill confirmed that Advanced no longer serves the lot, but said the change had “no connection whatsoever” with the McHenry incident
(Updated at 11:40 a.m.) A two-story building on the 2700 block of Columbia Pike caught fire at about 10:00 a.m. Tuesday.
The building, the headquarters of High Sierra Pools and former location of Ski Chalet, was safely evacuated, according to scanner traffic and company employees on the scene. Forty minutes after the fire was first reported, firefighters have contained it. Smoke stopped coming out of the building at around 10:40 a.m.
Fire and rescue crews from Fairfax and Alexandria joined the Arlington County Fire Department to battle the flames. The Pike is shut down from S. Walter Reed Drive to Barton Street to accommodate the large response, and ACFD Capt. David Santini expects it to be shut down past noon.
Santini said High Sierra Pools employees smelled smoke and called 911 at 10:05 a.m. When fire crews arrived, they found the fire had originated in the space between the roof and the second floor ceiling.
“We called a second alarm because of the intense work needed to gain access to the roof,” Santini said. “There were heavy fire conditions and we had to tear up several sections to gain ventilation.”
So far, Santini said there’s no estimate on the damage to the building, and inspectors are conducting an investigation to determine the fire’s cause.
The building’s exterior, from the street, looks largely unaffected by the fire, save for a few scorch marks on the roof.
This Saturday, the Arlington County Board could take a large step toward solving one of its pressing issues: transportation facility space.
The County Board will vote on a $14.2 million contract to build a new facility to store and maintain Arlington Rapid Transit (ART) buses on S. Eads Street in Crystal City, right next to the current bus facility already there.
The site, at 3201 and 3175 S. Eads Street, would include a two-story building, a bus wash bay, a light maintenance bay, storage and parking and four compressed natural gas fueling stations.
“Services currently provided by ART are limited by a size-constrained storage facility that provides no capability for on-site fueling or light vehicle maintenance,” the staff report reads. “The construction of the ART Bus Facility will improve transit facilities, reduce costs, and increase utilization of mass transit services in the County, and assist with the integration of transit facilities into surrounding communities.”
In a separate County Board agenda item, county staff proposes to eliminate 32nd Street S. between Jefferson Davis Highway and S. Eads Street, which would allow two existing ART bus lots to be connected. The county has purchased, or already owns, the land on either side of the street, and transportation staff has determined “the Abandoned Street is no longer needed to provide public access from Jefferson Davis Highway to South Eads Street.”
The total cost of the new facility is estimated at $17.6 million, $5 million more than the county had budgeted in the 2015-2024 Capital Improvement Plan. County staff said that discrepancy was caused by a revised site concept with added capability for maintenance and fueling, roadway improvements to Route 1 and S. Eads Street and the increasing price of construction materials in the region.
The county plans on covering the funding gap using $1.3 million in state funding and $3.7 million through a rebalancing of ART budgets and dipping into contingency funds.
Once approved and built, the new facility is expected to save the county $57,000 a year thanks to ART buses no longer needing to use a nearby WMATA fueling and washing facility.
A new restaurant that puts a focus on the arts is planning to move into the Village at Shirlington, in the former Extra Virgin space.
The venture, called Palette 22, was announced by Village at Shirlington’s owner, Federal Realty Investment Trust. The new restaurant, at 4053 Campbell Ave., will be the first business in the corner storefront since Extra Virgin closed in March 2013.
In between, Italian restaurant La Tagliatella had signed a lease to move into the vacated shop, but the international chain’s planned U.S. expansion fizzled out, and it never moved in. It has since closed its location in Clarendon.
It’s unclear when Palette 22 will open, or who will be running it when it does. Multiple calls to Federal Realty today have not been returned.
“Palette 22 combines food, art and fun, focusing on modern street food small plate dishes with an international flavor,” The Village at Shirlington’s website says. “It will integrate local art and artists into the whole dining experience.”
Parking in Arlington could get more expensive this fall if the Arlington County Board approves a staff proposal On Saturday to raise rates and extend hours of parking meters in the county.
If the County Board votes in favor of the motion, meter rates will go from $1.25 to $1.50 an hour, while hours will be extended from 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. County transportation staff estimates the measures would generate an additional $1.6 million in combined revenue in FY 2016.
The changes would go into effect on Sept. 7, 2015.
“County fees are intended to recover the costs of the respective programs,” staff report reads. “The proposed increase in parking meter rates and the proposed extension of hours will cover more of the costs for providing, administering, and maintaining curb-side metered parking spaces than is presently the case, thereby reducing the subsidy currently being provided by General Fund revenues.”
The 181 metered spaces in the county that currently cost 50 or 75 cents an hour would not be affected by the change. Raising the rates, according to the staff report, would bring Arlington more in line with the rest of the region. The District charges $2 an hour in most locations, Alexandria charges $1.75 an hour in most spaces and Bethesda charges $2 for on-street parking, $1.25 for public lots.
If the County Board elects to extend the hours of meters and keep rates flat, it would still provide the county an extra $550,000 in revenue in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
(Updated at 1:20 p.m.) The cafe space in the Arlington Mill Community Center (909 S. Dinwiddie Street) is likely to remain vacant for even longer, after Arlington County is planning to terminate another signed lease.
After signing coffee shop and eatery “Root” to a 10-year-lease in January, the Arlington County Board will vote this weekend to terminate that lease. County staff say the cafe’s owner, Alami Abderrahim, said he could no longer operate the restaurant after paying for an emergency surgery for his mother.
Root is the second cafe the county had signed to fill the restaurant space, and the second that has had to back out. Pan American Cafe was originally signed as the tenant for the 1,875-square-foot space in summer 2013, but asked out of its lease that November, citing family and personal health reasons. The County Board terminated its lease in April 2014.
It took nine months to sign another restaurant tenant in Root, and again took less than six months before the tenant backed out. Abderrahim never received keys to the space, the county said, and never paid his rent or security deposits. Staff says he has not returned calls since March.
If the County Board signs off on the lease termination this week, staff will again look to court a tenant for the cafe space it envisioned as a healthy, fast options for users of the community center, which opened in September 2013.
When Abderrahim signed the lease in January, the county estimated Root would open in late 2015, partly because of nearly $300,000 in HVAC services the space still needs. There’s no estimate for when it could sign another tenant, or when that would open.
The store will sell more than 13,000 beauty products from more than 200 brands, it announced in a press release. Anyone who buys more than $50 at the store will be able to get a free “mini-makeover” while they’re there.
There is still construction ongoing in front of the store, which is covered in black and white plywood, with the words “Sephora has arrived” painted on.
One possible image of an open-air Rosslyn Metro station
A vision of the future Rosslyn Plaza park and esplanade
The map of the the Rosslyn Coordinated Redevelopment District
The proposed bike network the in the Draft Realize Rosslyn plan
The county’s long-term vision for Rosslyn includes an open-air Metro entrance, a pedestrian corridor through the heart of the neighborhood, a new pedestrian bridge over the Potomac River and a massive new park.
The Realize Rosslyn planning process, which begun in October 2012, has culminated in a draft Rosslyn Sector Plan, which lays out the vision for the area until 2040. That vision includes what’s being called the 18th Street Corridor, which would extend 18th Street from N. Oak Street as a pedestrian corridor with a public escalator to N. Lynn Street, and a road from there to N. Arlington Ridge Road.
“Surrounded by a high density of people and development, these spaces will collectively form a dynamic and memorable promenade weaving through the heart of Rosslyn, and could include features such as public art, festivals, chess tables, outdoor dining, and small recreation courts,” planning staff wrote on the Realize Rosslyn website. “A significant and iconic pedestrian bridge will link a new Esplanade to the Potomac Riverfront near Roosevelt Island.”
In the middle of that planned corridor would sit the Rosslyn Metro Station. As the building that sits on top of it is redeveloped, the Realize Rosslyn panel — made up of residents, business owners and county staff — envisions the enclosed entrance becomes a plaza, with a glass canopy, trees and other amenities.
The plan also calls for, by 2040, an additional 4,000-5,000 housing units in the Rosslyn Metro area, 800 of which are either under construction or approved. County planners hope to shrink the percentage of real estate currently occupied by office space, now sitting at 85 percent (with almost 30 percent vacant).
Wilson Blvd, Fort Myer Drive and Lynn Street would also undergo significant changes. Within 10 years, planners anticipate the three one-way streets to convert to two-way roads while removing the Fort Myer Drive tunnel under Wilson Blvd. Wilson, Fort Myer and Lynn would also each have two-way cycle tracks.
The pedestrian bridge to Roosevelt Island would originate from a new Rosslyn Plaza park, a potentially massive open space with recreation activities, an esplanade to the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial and access to a new Key Bridge boathouse.
Meanwhile, Rosslyn’s two biggest parks — Gateway Park and Freedom Park — would be redesigned. Gateway Park’s ramps would be removed and replaced with multipurpose courts and space for food kiosks. Freedom Park, which connects Artisphere’s building to Monday’s twin towers developments on the other side of Wilson Blvd, would become a place restaurants could place outdoor dining.
The Draft Sector Plan will go before the Long Range Planning Committee this month, with a planned hearing in June by the Arlington Planning Commission before the County Board can discuss it.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the German army’s surrender to Allied forces in World War II, and to commemorate the occasion, there will be massive formations of war-era planes flying over the Potomac River.
At 12:10 p.m., dozens of planes of different models that were used during World War II will pass over the Lincoln Memorial, then fly over Independence Avenue before turning back up the Potomac River and leaving the area.
The planes — which have come to the area from all over the country — take off from airports in Culpeper and Manassas, Va., join together outside Leesburg and fly almost 50 miles toward D.C. While they’re flying, they will make formations from signature moments of the War, including the Doolittle Raid, Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Midway.
The planes were brought together by a nonprofit called the Arsenal of Democracy, backed by the Commemorative Air Force. Among the different models flying will be the North American B-25 Mitchell (pictured), P-40 Warhawk, P-63 Kingcobra, P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt.
Also included: the only B-29 Superfortress still flying, the same type of plane that dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. Overall, the flyover organizers said more than two dozen different types of planes will participate.
“Never before has such a collection of WWII aircraft been assembled at one location, to honor the large assemblage of veterans gathered at the WWII Memorial for a ceremony,” the flyover’s website reads.
The planes will be clearly visible from Arlington, so those hoping to see them arrive from the northwest should be outside, looking up, at just after noon. The flyover is expected to last about an hour, according to the Washington Post, during which time flights from DCA will be grounded.
