Author: Ethan Rothstein

Flat Rate, Bottomless Food and Drink Cafe Coming to Rosslyn?

By Ethan Rothstein
1/6

(Updated at 3:25 p.m.) Would you pay $25-30 for a day of unlimited coffee and snacks in a place that offers video games, board games, poker, foosball and the occasional standup comic or musician?

A husband and wife team are banking that the answer is “yes.” Vitaliy Hayda and Kseniia Shnyreva, immigrants from Ukraine and Russia, respectively, are planning on starting a new type of coffee shop, called The Third Place, in Arlington.

The pair has been blogging the travails of opening up a business, from the registering as an LLC to advertising to showing the initial renderings of the interior. They say they plan to open the business this summer in Arlington, but they do not plan to look for a location until April or May, the owners told ARLnow.com via email. They list “Rosslyn, Virginia” as the location on their Facebook page.

The name of the establishment refers to the concept of a “third place” where people can hang out and socialize.

“According to urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg, the first place is your home, the second place is your work and the third place is your ‘great good place,'” The Third Place’s website says. “It’s where you go to relax, have a good time, and surround yourself with friends both new and old.”

Traditional coffee shops, where people work on laptops, meet friends and hold informal business meetings, are viewed as a type of third place. However, sometimes “third place” business can be challenging for coffee shops, where customers can buy a $4 coffee and occupy a table for hours while tapping away at a laptop and using the free Wifi.

It appears that The Third Place seeks to remedy that by encouraging people to spend the entire day for a flat fee. It could almost be compared to an airport lounge, minus the airport but plus occasional entertainment.

The website says The Third Place will have bottomless coffee, tea, milk, juice and snacks for a $25 a day fee online, and $30 at the door. It will also sell coffee and tea to go. Hayda and Shnyreva also plan to offer memberships, including a $300 a month option that allows for unlimited entrance, eight guest passes, 50 percent off coffee to go and a 50 percent alcohol discount.

The Third Place plans to have a bar, allow for food delivery and let customers to bring their own food and alcohol in. In one of their blog posts, Hayda writes that they will have edible coffee cups, milk shots, a circular wood-burning fireplace and outlets with USB chargers.

The couple plans to run a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds. They’ve already tentatively scheduled events, like board game night and a Latin dance party, for late May and early June.

Flower Delivery Startups Preparing for Valentine’s Day

By Ethan Rothstein

Wild roses bouquet from Palace Florist in Washington, D.C. (image via Bloompop)Valentine’s Day is among our most divisive holidays, but for a growing flower delivery business, there’s no more important day.

According to the National Retail Federation, 37.8 percent of Americans will buy flowers for Valentine’s Day this year, spending $2.1 billion.

Crystal City-based Bloompop launched in September 2013, and it’s currently gearing up for its second Valentine’s Day this Saturday. The company offers $10 delivery of flower bouquets from $50 to $150 from local florists. To become a Bloompop partner, a florist must have four- or five-star reviews on a combination of online review websites.

Bloompop Founder and CEO Shavanna Miller said Valentine’s Day, along with Mother’s Day, is the biggest day of the year for her company’s florist partners, and they’ve been undergoing weeks of preparations.

“Our Florist Partners are doing the heavy lifting this week,” Miller told ARLnow.com today in an email, “managing huge amounts of floral inventory, adding additional drivers and team members (sometimes two-three times their normal staff), and making sure all of their beautiful floral art work is delivered carefully and on time for Valentine’s.”

Bloompop is offering an “Easy Valentine’s” service this year, allowing customers to pick the price, color and whether their Valentine hates or loves roses — “the biggest Valentine’s Day fault line,” Miller said. In any ZIP code in the country, a bouquet will be arranged and delivered by a local florist, based on the customer’s specifications.

Valentine’s Day gifts are frequently more than just flowers, however. Bloompop is also offering pairings of flowers and jewelry from D.C.-based startup Stylecable.

Whereas Bloompop specializes in variety and creative partnerships, D.C.-based UrbanStems prides itself in simplicity. The company, which also delivers to Arlington, offers three types of bouquets for $35, $45 and $55, also selling chocolates and a floral-patterned bowtie. Bloompop partners with local florists, while UrbanStems sources its flowers directly from South America.

Urban Stems was launched just before Valentine’s Day last year, delivering its products through last year’s snowstorm. This year, the weather outlook doesn’t look great, but it’s not quite as bleak as last year. No matter the weather, the pair of D.C.-area flower startups knows this holiday is too important to take a snow day.

Image via Bloompop

Massive Oak Tree Being Cut Down in Bluemont

By Ethan Rothstein
1/9

A developer is cutting down an oak tree thought to be more than 200 years old today in Bluemont, prompting outcries from some neighbors.

The large, willow oak tree, on the 5600 block of 8th Road N., is on a 12,000-square-foot lot that WSD Homes is in the process of redeveloping. According to nearby residents, the homebuilding company is planning on building two $1.2 million houses on the property — where now sits an unoccupied house ready to be torn down.

A request for comment from WSD Homes has not been returned. The tree was more than 100 feet tall and more than 23 feet around at chest height, neighbors said. WSD Homes had originally said it would try to preserve it, but its director of sales, Jon Ferris, changed his mind after talking with neighbors, they said.

“Ferris stated that even if the tree could be saved, people who would buy a nice $1.2 million home would not want such a tree in their front yard,” Mark Haynes, who has been one of the leaders of the campaign to save the tree, told ARLnow.com in an email this morning. “A petition asking WSD and the County to attempt to save the tree has been circulated and has well over 100 signatures including many from local tree experts and neighbors.

“Last week, when local representatives of the Arlington Tree Stewards group and others requested a meeting at the site to discuss how the tree might be saved (with WSD still able to make a profit), Ferris stated that WSD would hurry to cut the tree down to stop the discussion.”

Workers from The Care of Trees were at the house today, chopping the tree down with chainsaws and woodchippers. Several truckloads of tree chippings had already been hauled off site, with the majority of the trunk still firmly in the ground. It’s unclear what, if anything, will be left of the tree when the work is completed.

“This magnificent Willow Oak is estimated to be 180 to 250 years old and predates the American Civil War by at least 50 years,” Haynes said. “Willow Oaks are one of the more long-lived (up to 400 years) and hearty of the oaks. This particular tree was, in the view of a number of experts, very healthy and had many, many years left in it.”

Arlington keeps registries of “Champion Trees” and “Notable Trees,” but the willow oak does not appear to be on either list. Trees that are listed as “Specimen Trees” or in a Resource Protected Area have some protections on them that prevent them from being cut down. The Willow tree has no protections, said Arlington Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Susan Kalish.

“The County cannot stop a private landowner from taking down a tree on their property unless it is a Specimen Tree or in a Resource Protected Area and sadly this tree is neither,” Kalish said.

One of the residents who contacted ARLnow.com said it was the second-largest tree in the county, but ARLnow.com hasn’t been able to confirm its official height or how it compares to other trees in the county.

“To us, it was a magnificent tree no matter it’s ranking,” Kalish said.

Citizen Burger Bar in Clarendon is Now Open

By Ethan Rothstein
1/5

Citizen Burger Bar, at 1051 N. Highland Street, is now open for business.

The restaurant, which is the second location for the Charlottesville, Va.-based business, officially opened on Thursday. It will remain open seven days a week, serving dinner until 10:30 p.m. and drinks until last call on the weekends.

Citizen’s specialty is locally-sourced ingredients, like buns from Sterling’s Baguette Republic bakery, cheese from Mountainview Farm in Fairfield, Va., and beef from a farm near Charlottesville.

“The idea is to broaden people’s horizons when it comes to simple, ‘classic American’ fare,” said owner Anderson McClure, an Alexandria native, told ARLnow.com in November. “We want to serve great food and drinks, and do it in a way that might also change people’s perception and standards.”

Among its menu items is “The Executive,” a $24 burger topped with foie gras, bacon, black onions, a fried egg, garlic aioli and truffled brioche. The other menu items range from $6-$15, and burgers can come with an assortment of toppings, like Maine lobster (for $8), fried pickles, chili and one of seven cheeses.

Hat tip to @ChrisKinard

RadioShacks in Crystal City, Pentagon City Are Closing

By Ethan Rothstein

The closed RadioShack in the Crystal City ShopsThe RadioShack in the Shops at 1750 Crystal Drive in Crystal City is closed and the RadioShack in the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City is expected to close by the end of March, if not sooner.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, and plans to close thousands of its locations by March 31, including the storefront in the Pentagon City Mall. Employees at the Pentagon City RadioShack could not say when that location would be closing, only that it was relatively imminent.

The RadioShack on the second floor of Ballston Common Mall is expected to be the last remaining location of the national electronics retailer in Arlington by the spring.

That Ballston store will likely be part of the newly formed consortium between Standard General, a private equity fund, and Sprint, the cell phone provider, keeping between 1,500 and 2,400 stores open nationwide, according to Forbes. Whenever the deal is finalized and the transition occurs, the leftover stores will be selling a mix of Sprint products and the electronic goods like cords and adapters for which RadioShack has become known.

‘The Sun Never Sets’ on Rosslyn Robotics Company

Startup Monday header

Editor’s Note: Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow.com, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups and their founders. The Ground Floor, Monday’s office space for young companies in Rosslyn, is now open. The Metro-accessible space features a 5,000-square-foot common area that includes a kitchen, lounge area, collaborative meeting spaces, and a stage for formal presentations.

Dexter Industries Founder John Cole and the RaspberryPi computer that powers his robotsDexter Industries Founder John Cole is sitting at his desk in Rosslyn’s ÜberOffices, but he won’t be there for long.

The head of the educational robotics company hasn’t stayed in one place much in his adult life. After graduating from George Washington University, he worked as a petroleum engineer for Halliburton in Louisiana. From there he launched a biodiesel startup, worked in reconstruction for the State Department in 2008 in East Baghdad at the height of the Iraq War,  moved to Mexico City, then back to D.C., followed by a stint in Afghanistan working for USAID, a few years in India and, now, Arlington.

India is where his company, which sells robots made from LEGOs, affordable materials and open-source computers, took off.

“I literally just put up a website, started to work on projects and blog about that,”  in 2009, Cole said. The former chemist taught himself how to build a website and a rudimentary e-commerce platform, just like he essentially taught himself how to build robots. That was in December 2009.

The company started slow after that. His first projects were with LEGO Mindstorms, basic robots with motors that can move around. Cole designed sensors to help them detect walls, and from there he was off to the races.

While in India, Cole decided to turn his attention full-time to Dexter Industries. Soon after, a $30 teaching computer called Raspberry Pi came out. The Raspberry Pi is designed to let anyone connect and use the computer for whatever they choose. It’s open source, meaning a tinkerer like Cole can bend it to his will.

Cole designed what he called a BrickPi. The system connects the Raspberry Pi computer to a LEGO Mindstorm robot, and allows those who purchase it to turn legos into ball cannons, tanks and anything else they can think up. Cole launched a Kickstarter campaign in June 2013 with a goal of $1,889.

He raised more than $127,000.

“It was a big turning point in our company,” he said. “That’s when things really started to take off.”

With thousands of customers more than he expected, he had to figure out a way to deliver on all his orders. Being a do-it-yourself type already with a nose for adventure, Cole got a visa and traveled to China, set up meetings with manufacturers and distributors, and built his production network from the ground up.

“There’s a great quote I’ve heard: ‘You’ll know success when you feel panic,'” he said. “There were thousands of orders. That was a stressful experience.”

The components of Dexter Industries' GoPiGo robot Cole ran the campaign from India, and the Kickstarter was so successful that he took an old “Dukes of Hazzard” airhorn he bought — “everyone in India has these really cool airhorns on their cars,” he said — and built a robot to have it go off every time the Kickstarter received a donation.

Last year, Dexter Industries launched another robot called the GoPiGo, available on their online store for $84.99. The kit includes a RaspberryPi and components to build a robot that moves. While the BrickPi has sold more total orders, the GoPiGo is currently Dexter Industries’ hottest selling product.

The next phase of Dexter Industries’s growth, Cole hopes, will come in education. He wants to take his products — which he calls a “hacker’s paradise” — and bring them into the classroom to get kids excited about building robots.

“Our market up until now has largely been makers and hackers,” he said. “We always considered ourselves an education company, but we’ve been educating the educated.” (more…)

Pub Crawl This Weekend Raising Funds for Animal Charity

By Ethan Rothstein

Disney-themed bar crawl (photo courtesy Dalfa Ahmed) (Updated at 11:20 a.m.) A pub crawl planned for Sunday, Feb. 15, the day before Presidents Day, is about more than getting sloshed at a host of bars in Clarendon and Courthouse.

The Bow Wow Crawl for Charity is the seventh annual crawl on the February holiday for a group of friends. The themed crawls — previously there have been Disney and video game characters — always donate proceeds to charity and this year, the money is going to Arlington-based Homeward Trails Animal Rescue. Participants are encouraged to dress up like animals in the spirit of the event.

According to the bar crawl’s fundraising page, the bar crawl started seven years ago with three people on the day before a federal holiday. It has since grown to more than 100, benefiting charities like Give Kids the World and Child’s Play.

“Now this isn’t your typical bar crawl,” Adam Ross, who co-founded the bar crawl, writes on the page. “It’s not put on by a big promotion company. We are grassroots. We don’t sell wristbands or drink tickets or do any publicizing. It is the same crew that comes each year, only expanded by word of mouth, friends bringing other friends, or whatever strangers we run into along our journey. We aren’t out to make money off this, nor will we ever. After the second year of this bar crawl it was apparent that it was getting popular and that we would have a large number of attendees. We decided two things at that point; we would have a new theme ever year and we would raise money for a charity that corresponded with that theme.”

The crawl’s website has raised $400 of a $900 goal, with two weeks left on its online fundraiser.

The crawl begins on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. at Arlington Rooftop Bar and Grill (2424 Wilson Blvd). The crawl will then swing into D.C. before finishing up back in Arlington.

It’s unclear if the crawl has applied for or received a bar crawl permit, a new regulation the Arlington County Board instituted last summer. The permits are intended to recoup county costs from the additional police presence the crawls — which have been attended by as many as 5,000 people in the past — necessitate.

Photo courtesy Dalfa Ahmed

Arlington Agenda (Feb. 9-15)

By Ethan Rothstein

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.

Also, be sure to check out our event calendar.

Wednesday

Highline RXR in Crystal City, opening the first weekend in FebruaryPost-Startup Showcase Mixer
Highline RXR (2010 Crystal Drive)
Time: 6:30-11:30 p.m.

Connect with investors and the best of D.C. tech after The Startup Factory Showcase (held at Disruption Corporation HQ). Register online here. Drink specials offered.

Thursday

Shenandoah-Book-JacketHistorical Society Book Reading
Marymount University (2807 N. Glebe Road, Rowley G127)
Time: 7:00-8:00 p.m.

The AHS hosts author Sue Eisenfeld, reading from her book “Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal,” a first-person hiking adventure through the history of the lost communities of Shenandoah National Park.

Friday

Sara SchaeferLive Comedy: Sara Schaefer
Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse (2903 Columbia Pike)
Time: 7:30 and 10:30 p.m.

Co-host of MTV’s late night show, Nikki and Sara Live, Sara Schaefer won two Emmy Awards as a writer on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Tickets to her shows are $22..

aurelio_eventLive Music: Aurelio
Artisphere (1101 Wilson Blvd)
Time: 8:00-10:00 p.m.

Artist Aurelio Martinez — a singer, percussionist and guitarist — plays Central American folk music with roots in the 17th Century. Tickets are $18 and available online.

Saturday

thrill_of_tchaikovskyValentine’s Day Tchaikovsky Concert*
Spectrum Theatre (1611 N. Kent Street)
Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m.

The National Chamber Ensemble is performing a medley of romantic songs from one of classical music’s greatest composers, Peter Iliych Tchaikovsky. Tickets are $30 for adults, $15 for students.

Sunday

Live Music: Dead Men’s Hollow
IOTA Club & Cafe (2832 Wilson Blvd)
Time: 7:00 p.m.

Dead Men’s Hollow performs a combination of bluegrass, country, blues and gospel music with a fiddle, upright bass, mandolin, banjo and guitar. Tickets are $10 and available at the door.

*Denotes featured (sponsored) event

School Board Plans More Meetings, Engagement in Wake of TJ Decision

By Ethan Rothstein

The Arlington School Board at its Feb. 5, 2015 meetingThe Arlington School Board has vowed to work with the county government to find short-term fixes to South Arlington’s elementary school capacity crisis.

In response the Arlington County Board’s decision to say “not now” to APS’ plan to build a new elementary school next to Thomas Jefferson Middle School, the School Board delivered a joint statement last night, agreeing to work with the county to find creative solutions to fit the hundreds of new students coming to the county every year.

“We appreciate the County Board’s commitment to partnering with the School Board to provide a minimum of 725 new elementary school seats in South Arlington not later than the start of school in September 2018, using a combination of interim and permanent solutions,” the School Board’s statement reads. “This commitment increases the variety of options available. The County Board has offered to provide technical support to identify and evaluate County buildings and private commercial spaces that might help meet our capacity needs on an interim basis.”

The School Board took turns reading from parts of the statement at its meeting. The five members said they will start another community engagement process of their own, including directing Superintendent Patrick Murphy to work with County Manager Barbara Donnellan on identifying county- and privately-owned sites that could accommodate school uses.

Murphy is also charged with, according to the School Board’s statement, outlining “a process and timeline for considering solutions that enable us to meet our deadline of providing a minimum of 725 new elementary school seats in South Arlington by the start of school in September 2018.” That includes spending the approved $50.25 million bond funds, approved in November for the purpose of a more South Arlington elementary school seat.

Murphy has been directed to return before the School Board by April 30 with a status report on his conversations with the county and community engagement. The Board did not set a deadline for a complete recommendation or when it would make a decision.

The School Board also asked Murphy and APS facilities staff to “update APS feasibility studies of APS properties, as appropriate.” One of the County Board’s criticisms of the schools’ recommendations was a lack of study of the broader impact of a new school.

“The School Board is optimistic that more options will serve our community better,” the School Board statement reads. “We are moving forward in collaboration with the County Board and will work to build community consensus around capacity solutions. Together with Dr. Murphy, APS staff, the community, and the County Board and its staff, we are confident that we will maintain our focus on student achievement as we meet our capacity challenges.”

School Board Chair James Lander said “blood, sweat and tears” went into the School Board’s statement, and the five-member panel met at a retreat on Saturday to finalize the language. It is meant to come from “one board and one voice,” he said. (more…)

Open Houses in Arlington This Weekend

By Ethan Rothstein

It’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day and the weekend after the Super Bowl. Arlington’s real estate inventory shot up in the last week. What better things do you have to do if you’re thinking of buying a new home than seeing some open houses?

See our real estate section for a full listing of open houses. Here are a few highlights:

1311-n-ode-street1311 N. Ode Street
1 BD / 1 BA condominium
Agent: Martina Burns, Re/Max Allegiance
Listed: $225,000
Open: Sunday, Feb. 8, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

801-s-greenbrier-street801 S. Greenbrier Street
2 BD / 2 BA condominium
Agent: Laura Schwartz, Keller Williams Realty
Listed: $345,000
Open: Sunday, Feb. 8, 2:00 to 4:00 p.m.

2179-shirlington-road2179 Shirlington Road
3 BD / 3 1/2 BA townhouse
Agent: Carole Schweitzer, Weichert, Realtors
Listed: $449,000
Open: Sunday, Feb. 8, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

639-abingdon-street639 N. Abingdon Street
2 BD / 2 1/1 BA townhouse
Agent: Steven Meek, Long & Foster Real Estate
Listed: $699,000
Open: Saturday, Feb. 7, 1:00-4:00 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 8, 1:00-4:00 p.m.

2001-15th-Street-n2001 15th Street N.
2 BD / 2 BA condominium
Agent: Iman Gobran, Weichert, Realtors
Listed: $799,900
Open: Sunday, Feb. 8, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

1609-n-randolph-street1609 N. Randolph Street
5 BD / 4 1/2 BA single family detached
Agent: Stanley Brock, Howard Brock Realty Company
Listed: $1,560,000
Open: Sunday, Feb. 8, 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

No-Turn-On-Red Signal Installed at ‘Intersection of Doom’

By Ethan Rothstein
1/4

For mere seconds at a time, a sign flashing the symbol for “no right turn” illuminates next to the red light on the off-ramp of westbound I-66 at the intersection with N. Lynn Street.

The intersection has been labeled the “Intersection of Doom” because of its numerous accidents over the years. The confluence of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists from I-66, Lee Highway and Lynn Street trying to reach both points west, the GW Parkway and the Key Bridge has created a critical mass of safety hazards.

Arlington’s Dept. of Environmental Services has been planning safety improvements to the site and the new signal is just one of the planned changes. It was installed at the beginning of January.

“The sign has been integrated into the function of the traffic signal to restrict right turns from the I-66 off-ramp to Lynn Street during the time when pedestrians and cyclists receive the walk signal,” DES spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said. “The improvement reduces conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles at this busy intersection. Additional time has also been added to this walk signal phase.”

The light is one of the interim improvements DES has made before a planned $5 million safety project is built in a few years. The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 2014, but delays in the design phase have caused the estimated completion date to be pushed back to 2017.

Chris Slatt, a cyclist and president of the Penrose Civic Association, said he appreciates the interim solutions but is tired of waiting for the permanent project.

“I applaud the County for working on quick-to-implement, low-cost, short-term fixes like the new no-turn-on-red sign,” he told ARLnow.com in an email this morning. “That said, the County simply must start turning around capital projects more quickly and when they do slip, they need to start communicating about what is going on.

“By the time Esplanade/Custis Trail project gets built, most anyone who attended the last public meeting about the project (in October of 2011) is going to have forgotten it ever existed,” he continued. “This is a complicated area to work in — there are VDOT-controlled roads, it backs on to NPS property, but everyone knew that going in to the project and it should have been accounted for in the original timeline.”

In the planned permanent improvements, a travel lane will be removed from Lee Highway, the Custis Trail would be widened, curbs would be expanded to slow down turning cars and on-street bike lanes will be added.

In three signal cycles ARLnow.com witnessed yesterday at the beginning of the evening rush hour, one car disregarded the briefly illuminated signal, turning right when lit up. Cars waiting at a red light see no indication of the new signal — and accompanying traffic rule — except for the unlit box. Two cars legally turned right on red over the same five-minute span, and the driver that made the illegal maneuver did it just seconds after the previous vehicles.

Baxter said DES will continue to study traffic patterns at the intersection, and configure the timing of the signals to bring it more in line with traffic signals.

View More Stories