Author: Heather Mongilio

BREAKING: No Gun Store For Cherrydale

By Heather Mongilio

"No Guns" sign outside of former Curves studio.NOVA Firearms will not be moving to Cherrydale after all.

The gun store had leased a space at 2105 N. Pollard Street, causing outcry from members of the community. However, the store’s would-be landlord said today that he has reached an agreement with NOVA Firearms to cancel the lease.

The debate over the gun store heated quickly with County Board candidates speaking out against it and the National Rifle Association coming out in support. Petitions were launched for and against the store, accumulating thousands of signatures. Conservative media outlets ran articles in support of James Gates, the Marine Corps veteran who co-owns the store, drawing national attention.

Community members — and owners of businesses in and around the small shopping center the gun store was to open — took their concerns directly to landlord Kostas Kapasouris.

Kapasouris was open to those concerns, said Bill Hamrock, the co-owner of Bistro 29, which would have been across the street from the gun store. (The restaurant is co-owned by Kapasouris.)

“He knew right away and it wasn’t going to work from the community, but the business owners let him know as well,” Hamrock said.

Kapasouris said that it was all his decision to cancel the lease.

“I don’t want to have a gun store,” he said to ARLnow.com. “I thought it wasn’t a good store.”

Kapasouris said that he decided against having a gun store after the lease was signed and that NOVA Firearms — which has an existing location in McLean — was told of his decision when the store’s owners recently visited the space.

“Listening to the neighbors and the community, the landlord came to an agreement with the proposed gun store and they will not be opening in Cherrydale,” Hamrock said.

Hamrock said other business owners in the area were pleased with the decision to pull the gun store, as just the idea of having such a store was causing them to lose business.

“I had several customers showing me Facebook [posts] that were telling people not to come to the restaurant,” Hamrock said.

Instead of a gun store, Hamrock thinks that the storefront — formerly occupied by Curves fitness studio — could be leased to a small, noncontroversial retail shop or a café.

“It seems perfect for a bakery or small coffee shop,” he said.

Reached via phone, NOVA Firearms co-owner Rachel Dresser declined to comment on the news until she could speak to Gates. Last month, Dresser told ARLnow.com that backing out of the store was “not an option given the money we’ve already invested.”

Rosslyn Startup Brings Mobile Technology to Medical Research

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, plus other local technology happenings. 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.

mProve office

A Rosslyn company may have the answer for keeping research participants active in a pharmaceutical study, and it’s all through mobile technology.

mProve Health, a mobile technology-based company, has created mobile platforms that allow drug researchers to better communicate with subjects. Researchers are responding well to the new technology, mProve founder Jeff Lee said.

“We’re like the shiny new toy of the research market,” he said.

The company designed a platform that uses texts, automated phone calls and a mobile app to send reminders, instructions and messages of encouragement to participants in hopes that it will keep study retention and compliance rates high.

Study participants can also use the mobile app to log diary entries if that is part of the clinical trial.

Other platforms help research companies recruit people for drug trials, increase patient engagement by allowing participants to customize the app to best meet their lifestyles and allow participants to take research surveys that are part of the trial.

By using the mProve technology, drug research companies prevent about 50 people in a 1,000-people study from dropping out, Lee said. Drug companies spend a lot of money on each person in the study, especially those that drop out or fail to follow the instructions, so any preventive measures can save the company time and money.

The pharmaceutical industry is under pressure develop new drugs right now, Lee said, and having this technology can help companies research new drugs more efficiently.

“This is a scenario where the work we do is helping get access to better therapies,” Lee said.

mProve office

mProve technology is currently being used by many of the biggest drug companies, including Pfizer, in the U.S. and more than 50 countries around the world, according to Lee.

Lee first came up with the idea behind mProve five years ago while talking with a friend about improvements research studies could use, he said. From there the company has grown fast.

“It’s a growth-oriented business,” Lee said. “Mobile is a hot topic.”

A typical day of work for mProve employees includes helping a client’s study to communicate with participants, developing new programs for the mProve software and helping to train researchers with the software, he said.

mProve looks for its employees from local universities in the D.C. area, but it’s also hiring people with three to seven years of experience now. All jobs can be found on the company’s website. With so many employees coming from D.C. schools, location was important for the company, he said.

Lee originally started the company in Alexandria but later moved to Arlington. The company now has office space in the UberOffices at 1400 Key Boulevard in Rosslyn.

Arlington’s skilled workforce, transit infrastructure and proximity to an airport helps the company, Lee said. The location also helps the company sell its product.

“Arlington is a nice place [for our business] because one, you find people who are interested in global health, and two, because you have to travel a lot,” he said. “Arlington is kind of a perfect home where everyone is happy.”

Arlington-Based Improv Group Brings Late Night Laughs to the Pike

By Heather Mongilio
1/4

What do jello, lava, Britney Spears and a bunch of words from Urban Dictionary have in common?

They are all words that audience members may shout out during a Porkchop Volcano improv show at the Arlington Drafthouse. Jon Milstein, Seth Alcorn, Conor O’Rourke and Matt Stephan, the four members of the Arlington-based troupe, then have to take these suggestions and turn each into a scene or character, all in the hopes of a good laugh from the audience.

“My favorite part of improv is the thrill, is the rush of a real audience you’ve never met before, you don’t know them, blowing them away, and having them laugh, a good and hearted, genuine laughter,” Milstein said.

While their group does not perform any single “typical” show, each performance will consist of a combination of guessing or scene improv games. The show starts at 9 p.m. in the Arlington Drafthouse’s Green Room — its side bar — and begins with a game that will interact with the audience.

“It’s usually packed by the end of the first game,” Stephan said.

By the time the game is done, the members will also know what the audience will like, and whether their suggestions will be more along the lines of kittens or sex positions, Alcorn said.

A favorite finale is “Dating Game,” where the troupe pulls an audience member up to play a bachelorette or a bachelor hoping to find his or her perfect match. The catch is that each of three improv members involved in the game are in characters suggested by the audience and the bachelor(ette) has to guess what the character is. O’Rourke plays host.

“It’s a high risk, high reward game,” Stephan said. “If we can hit a home run with that one, that’s been a good day.”

Suggestions can get wild. One of the members once had to play someone missing a chunk of his body after a tragic swordfish accident. Ideas also range from family friendly to adult only and even uncomfortable.

“I had a couple of friends who would basically go on Urban Dictionary and the come to the show,” Alcorn said. “So they would shout out all kinds of very disgusting sex acts that nobody actually performs, and then I would have to then explain to the audience what they meant and then work it into a scene.”

The four guys have a couple tricks up their sleeves, though, as they don’t want to go for the gross out, which gets awkward, Stephan said. Even when audience members suggested something dirty, the performers could take it in a different direction that made it cleaner.

“Being able to take an inappropriate or a cliche suggestion and then do something with it that they weren’t expecting, but still works with the suggestion, is pretty great,” Alcorn said.

One example is “Twilight,” a series that both Alcorn and Milstein despise, Alcorn said. It turned into a scene of Milstein playing a human who wanted to be a vampire and Alcorn playing a very reluctant vampire.

“It was just Jon throwing himself at me saying, ‘I want to feel the night rushing through my veins, bite me,'” Alcorn said.

The group tries to keep the suggestions new and challenging, O’Rourke said. To prevent common suggestions, which can happen when they ask for B-list celebrities, the members will use one of the common ones as an example. Even with common suggestions the group can work together to take a boring suggestion and create a new, fun angle.

“What’s always a lot of fun is taking a suggestion, but not taking it too literally, and jumping off and doing something weird with it. Because just because you get the suggestion vampire does not mean you have to come out as a vampire,” O’Rourke said.

The chemistry the group may be its biggest strength, they said. The four men can create a funny scene even if they are not sure where the other is going right away.

Milstein and Alcorn were doing a scene with tweezers last week. It started out with Alcorn giving Milstein a haircut with tweezers.

“And then he came to me with with a bad tooth and I was going to pull it out with tweezers,” Alcorn said. “And the third time we came around in this game, he didn’t say anything, but I knew I was going to do surgery and he put his hand on his appendix, and that was it.”

Once they formed the group, and spitballed until they randomly came up with the name “Porkchop Volcano,” the troupe needed a place to perform. Milstein was friends with the owner of Arlington Drafthouse who offered them two Saturdays. They now are performing up to four shows a month at the bar.

“The Drafthouse is our place,” O’Rourke said. “It’s our home.

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Lee Highway Retaining Wall Is Getting a Mural

By Heather Mongilio
1/5

(Updated at 3:25 p.m.) The beginning of a mural has appeared on a wall along Lee Highway from the corner of N. Uhle Street to N. Veitch Street.

The mural is the work of local artist Kate Fleming, a 2014 College of William and Mary graduate who now works for the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central. Fleming was initially approached in 2014 by John Laswick from Engleside Cooperative, the co-op building behind the 110-foot wall, to paint a mural, according to Fleming’s blog.

Now after a year of designing, planning and waiting for warm weather, Fleming has started to add paint to the once dirty retaining wall.

Painted a muted lime green, the mural has pencil sketches on it depicting buildings and houses. A sketch of the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery is also depicted.

The finished mural will be an abstract cityscape of Arlington and the District, Fleming said. The mural contains Arlington landmarks, including Arlington neighborhood on the right half of the mural. On the left, she will paint Key Bridge leading to D.C. and multiple District landmarks like the Washington Monument and the Capitol Building.

“It’s more about shapes and color and overlapping than a straight depiction of the city,” Fleming said.

Painting a mural is expensive, especially since the wall needed to be cleaned before Fleming could start, she said on blog. Engleside Cooperative is funding part of the mural, but Fleming also received Arlington Commission for the Art’s Spotlight Artist Grant for 2016. The grant gave Fleming $5,000.

“Getting the funding from the Arlington Commission for the Arts and Arlington Cultural Affairs has finally gotten this project moving in a real way. It’s been a full year in the works, but things are finally starting to pick up speed,” Fleming said in a June 25 post.

However, the project hit a small snag after being selected for the grant. Because the mural is technically on private property, county staff thought she her mural might be considered a sign, and subject to the county’s stringent sign ordinance.

From her blog post entitled “Speed Bump:”

Progress on the mural (and on this blog) hit a bit of a speed bump last week. As I was putting the finishing touches on the design in Illustrator (more on that later), I got a call from Angela Adams over at Arlington Public Arts. Angela was a huge help throughout the Spotlight Grant application process. She was calling to let me know that my project did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Arlington Public Arts Committee. This seemed, at first, a good thing; I would not need to go through the Public Art Committee’s approval process and so I could get started right away. But there was one catch: because it was determined to be a non-public art project, Angela and I concluded that I would have to follow the County sign ordinance.

Fleming was instructed to go to the county zoning office, where she spoke with a staff member. After a few days in which she stopped all work on the mural, she called the staff member and was told that her mural wasn’t a sign after all, it was going to be considered private artwork under county regulations.

“I have the County’s go-ahead and that’s what matters!” Fleming wrote. “I lost a few days of work in the process, but I’m getting back on track,” she wrote in her July 12 post.

It took Fleming a little over a week to pencil mark her mural, and she expects it to take weeks to paint it, she said. Once completed, the mural will have 10 different colors, including shades of blues and greens. The mural will be abstract and won’t necessarily be a day or night scene, though people could consider it to depict Arlington and D.C. during the day, she said.

A lot of thought went into the design of the mural, Fleming said, in order to give it a complex, abstract feel but with identifiable structures. Fleming said she and Laswick want people to be able to look at the mural multiple times and “to see something new every time you looked. So it’s complex and layered that way.”

Fleming’s contract for the mural has a completion date of Sept. 30, but Fleming said she hopes to finish by the end of August or beginning of September.

Columbia Pike Woman Encouraging Neighbors to ‘Buy Nothing’

By Heather Mongilio

buy-nothing-group

Flora Wallace had a typical problem for a newly married woman who just moved to a new home. She had many items that she didn’t need but were still in good shape.

Wallace then heard about the Buy Nothing Project, a gift-giving economy where neighbors give away items for free, from her cousin. She decided to bring the project to her neighborhood on Columbia Pike.

“I like the idea of being able to get in touch with a neighbor and give a new home to an item I didn’t need,” Wallace said.

Wallace contacted the administrators of the national Buy Nothing Project who helped her set up the Buy Nothing Project Columbia Pike Corridor group on Facebook. The idea behind the project is to create hyperlocal groups where neighbors can post items they want to give away or post requests for items people might have — and form tighter-knit communities.

“Time and again, members of our groups find themselves spending more and more time interacting in our groups, finding new ways to give back to the community that has brought humor, entertainment, and yes, free stuff into their lives,” says the project’s website. “The Buy Nothing Project is about setting the scarcity model of our cash economy aside in favor of creatively and collaboratively sharing the abundance around us.”

Each group is hyperlocal for areas with less than 50,000 people, meaning that only people in the specific group’s ZIP code can join. Columbia Pike residents in the 22204 ZIP code can join by requesting to Facebook group. Wallace will then contact them and ask for proof of residence before allowing the person to join, she said.

While the Buy Nothing Project helps people find new homes for their items, the project also allows people to connect with neighbors, something Wallace hopes to achieve, she said.

“The focus of the project is getting neighbors to know each other,” she said.

So far the group is small with eight members, but Wallace said she hopes it will grow as more people hear about it. Her goal is to have about 150 members in the next six months.

She has had requests from people outside of the ZIP code, and while she had to reject them, she said she hopes they start their own groups in their neighborhoods.

Wallace recommends residents of other parts of Arlington contact the national Buy Nothing Project administrators to start a new group. They can help a person start the page and go through all the rules that apply to the project, including how posts should be written, how to approve members, etc.

Wallace said she can see people creating a Buy Nothing Clarendon or Buy Nothing Courthouse, as examples. After all, the project helps people meet each other.

“By re-homing items in your community, you get to know who lives there,” she said.

Wallace posted the first item on the group — a CD tower. While no one has taken her up on the offer, she said she thinks it will happen as more people join the group.

“My goal is to find homes for items I might grow out of in the next years and definitely to meet new people,” Wallace said.

More Challenges for Drew Elementary Following Principal’s Resignation

By Heather Mongilio

Darryl Evans Drew Model Principal (Courtesy of APS)

Drew Model Elementary School Principal Darryl Evans has resigned, citing family reasons and a desire to seek a job closer to home.

Evans led Drew Model for one year after coming to the school in the summer of 2014 after former principal Jacqueline Smith retired following a driving-under-the-influence arrest.

“I spoke with Mr. Evans yesterday and I hope you will join me in wishing him well in his next endeavors, both personally and professionally,” Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Patrick Murphy wrote in a note to Drew Model families (below, after the jump).

APS has not yet released a plan for hiring a new principal, Murphy said. For the time being, APS staff will work with assistant principals Catharina Genove and Wendy Pilch to help the school get ready for the next school year while a new principal is sought. School is back in session on Sept. 8.

“We will continue to work together to ensure that Drew provides an excellent instructional program for our students,” Murphy said in the statement.

Drew Model serves the Nauck area and has about 502 students in kindergarten through fifth grade — 642 including pre-Kindergarten programs — with more than half requiring free or reduced meals.

Evans’ resignation is the latest challenge facing the school, which has been plagued with financial and testing troubles.

Last May, the school’s PTA held its first Spring Fair in order to close a $22,000 funding gap. Last year, the school struggled with test scores, ARLnow.com reported. In 2014, the school was performing at an average of 23 percent lower than the county average on third through fifth grade Standard of Learning Exams.

APS did not have any information on how Evans’ departure will affect the school at this time.

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Arlington’s Spotify Playlist Heavy on Country, Indie Music

By Heather Mongilio

Spotify logo

Arlingtonians have an inordinate love of country and indie music, at least according to the most-played songs on Spotify’s “Sounds of Arlington VA” playlist.

Spotify, a streaming music service, released playlists of the most popular songs in various cities “relative to the rest of the world.” In other words, song that are distinctively popular in Arlington but less so elsewhere in the world.

While Arlington is a county, it was one of the “cities” to get its own playlist.

The top five songs on Arlington’s list are

  • “John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16” by Keith Urban
  • “The Fool” by Ryn Weaver
  • “How Bad We Need Each Other” by Marc Scibilia
  • “Dime Store Cowgirl” by Kacey Musgraves
  • “Roses” by the Chainsmokers

Country music is highly represented on the playlist. Country singers to make the list include Kacey Musgraves, Luke Bryan, newcomer Canaan Smith, Dierks Bentley, Hunter Hayes, Rascal Flatts and Miranda Lambert.

While there are exceptions, especially in the form of songs from Kacey Musgrave, most of the country songs on the list can be heard on country radio stations or iTunes’ Top 100 Downloads.

Outside of country music, the playlist also heavily features indie bands and jumps between different genres with songs from Ryn Weaver, Halsey, Vance Joy and John Newman, among others.

Logo via Spotify

County Board to Start County Auditor Hiring Process

By Heather Mongilio

The Arlington County Board at its March 17 meetingThe County Board is about to begin the process of hiring a new independent county auditor.

The Board is expected to charge Acting County Manager Mark Schwartz with the creation of an independent county auditor position during its recessed meeting next Tuesday.

Once the Board approves guidance to the manager, Schwartz and officials from the Department of Management and Finance will begin recruiting and screening candidates, with the final hiring t0 be done by the County Board.

The auditor will report to the Board rather than the manager, who is county government’s top executive and oversees the county workforce.

“The County Auditor will serve at the pleasure of the County Board, annual performance reviews will be conducted by the full County Board with written input from the County Manager,” according to the County Board’s charge.

The new auditor will work a new Board-appointed audit committee to review the county’s programs for efficiency and effectiveness, as well as any policy concerns, according to the County Board’s charge. The committee will consist of two members from the County Board, the county manager or deputy county manager, the director of the Department of Management and Finance and up to three members from the Fiscal Affairs Advisory Commission or members of the public.

The new audit committee and auditor will be separate from the existing internal audit function inside of the Department of Management and Finance, which reports to the county manager.

“The County Board intends that the County Auditor and the Internal Audit group will collaborate and cooperate in furthering their respective missions, including meeting and exchanging information and materials as appropriate,” the charge says.

The County has designated $200,000 for the creation of the new position in its 2016 budget. After that, it’s hoped that it will begin paying for itself by finding cost savings and efficiencies in county government.

The Virginia House of Delegates approved a bill allowing for the creation of a county auditor position in Arlington last February. County Board member John Vihstadt has pushed for an independent auditor while on the Board and the campaign trail.

Keep Avoiding Donaldson Run Due to Sewage Spill, County Says

By Heather Mongilio
1/3

(Updated at 11:10 p.m.) Multiple sewage leaks have led Arlington County staff to warn residents to continue avoiding contact with water from Donaldson Run near and downstream from the pedestrian bridge above Military Road.

A sewage pipe running through Donaldson Run broke on Saturday, causing a sewage spill of 4,500 gallons, Arlington County spokeswoman Meghan McMahon said. Since fixing the initial break, the county has found two additional leaks.

The second leak, found on Monday, released 9,000 gallons of sewage, and the county does not yet know how much the third one — found today — has leaked, McMahon said.

Signs about the sewage are currently posted along and at entrances of the Donaldson Run trail.

“There has been a sewage release to the stream. As a precaution, please avoid contact with stream water,” according to the signs.

Arlington County also sent out two Arlington Alerts, one to notify residents of the sewage leak advisory on July 11 and a second one today (July 14) to let people know it was still in place. The advisory will be in place for several more days, McMahon said.

“Crews are working now to setup a bypass so they can completely replace the pipe in this area. Crews are working as fast as they can, but this replacement will likely take a few days,” McMahon said.

The advisory warns people and their pets to avoid any contact with the stream.

“The public is advised to stay away from the affected water and to keep children and pets away until further notice, to eliminate the risk of exposure to raw sewage in the stream. People should not fish in the stream or have any contact with the water — including wading or swimming — until further notice from the County,” according to the advisory.

The county decided to replace the entire pipe in Donaldson Run now instead of later, as planned, because of the short period of time between the three leaks, she said.

“Replacing the pipe is the best way to prevent future spills,” McMahon said. “Arlington also has sanitary sewer maintenance programs including flushing, TV camera inspection and re-lining efforts.”

The breaks in the pipe were all the result of the casing around it shifting from water erosion, which is common in older pipes like many in Arlington, she said.

“Sanitary sewer lines are common in stream valleys (the lowest point of the stream) and sanitary sewer breaks are common in urban communities like Arlington, which have older pipes and infrastructure,” McMahon noted.

When a leak happens, the county will allow nature to flush out the sewage over time. This usually takes about three to five days. The county does not consider flushing streams out with chlorine — which kills everything in the stream — to be an option, McMahon said.

“Many Arlington streams are in County parks where residents are free to walk along the stream valleys, but the stream water can contain microorganisms that can make people sick, regardless of the stream location,” McMahon said.

In order to stay safe around stream water, even uncontaminated water, residents should always wash hands after touching the water, avoid getting water in their mouths or eyes, only wade in the water instead of swimming or bathing and never drink the stream water, McMahon said.

Papa John’s to Open New Location Near Potomac Yard

By Heather Mongilio

Future Papa John's location in the Camden, near Potomac YardA Papa John’s may be coming to an Arlington storefront near Potomac Yard.

The pizza store applied for a permit to operate a delivery business from a new store to the Camden apartments at 3535 S. Ball St. The spot was previously occupied by a Jerry’s Subs and Pizza.

County staff is recommending the County Board approve the permit at its meeting on Saturday.

The store would be open from 10 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. on weekends, according to the permit application. The store also asked to be able to deliver within a 1.5 mile radius.

At this time it is unknown when the new store, which will have 11 seats inside for dine-in customers, will open.

While the location is currently empty, there is still equipment and decorations leftover from when Jerry’s was in the space.

New Yoga Studio Coming to Courthouse

By Heather Mongilio
1/2

A new yoga studio is coming to Courthouse.

CorePower Yoga, a Denver-based yoga studio, plans to open its new studio at 1929 Clarendon Blvd on July 31. The studio will be the company’s first Arlington location and its third in Virginia — it has existing studios in Falls Church and Fairfax.

In a press release, the company erroneously said it was opening in Clarendon.

“Clarendon’s vibe goes hand-in-hand with the lifestyle of the CorePower yogi. It’s a perfect mix of city and suburb, so you get everything: culture, shopping, great restaurants and, of course, fitness,” said Tess Roering, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. “We could not be more excited to be a part of this community’s fitness culture.”

The new studio will have two yoga rooms and will have classes for different experience levels. It will also have changing rooms, showers, locker rooms and “a full retail boutique featuring products to meet students’ yoga and lifestyle needs.”

“The beautiful, spa-like Clarendon studio has been built with green building practices in mind, using recycled products, sustainable materials and the latest technology to efficiently heat practice rooms,” the press release noted.

Studio memberships start at $115 per month, if customers sign up before the studio opens. After the opening, the memberships increase to $155 per month.

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