Author: Jo DeVoe

Dorsey Talks Transportation, Police Oversight on WAMU’s Politics Hour

By Jo DeVoe

After initially failing to garner enough votes from the regional Transportation Planning Board, a controversial project to widen I-270 in Maryland and replace the American Legion Bridge is back on.

And Arlington County Board Member Christian Dorsey, who sits on the regional board, was one of the leaders who flipped his vote from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes.’

Dorsey appeared on WAMU’s The Politics Hour with Kojo Nnamdi on Friday to talk about why he flipped his vote. Dorsey also explained the powers and limitations of the newly created Community Oversight Board, which provides oversight over the conduct of officers in the Arlington County Police Department.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s signature project would add two high-occupancy toll lanes in each direction to part of its Beltway and lower I-270. The toll system would connect with Northern Virginia’s toll lanes on I-495 and 395.

Supporters say the project will relieve intense bottleneck, but in June, Dorsey said it was “not ready for prime time,” according to the show. In the interim month, the project was revised and Hogan’s team reportedly spent significant time lobbying those who voted ‘no.’ The board voted 28-10 in favor of the project.

Dorsey said his vote hinged on funding for public transit, as lower congestion could encourage more single-occupancy vehicle traffic. He denied being contacted by Hogan’s office, but said he was contacted by “targeted campaigns.”

“What was missing was a commitment to provide the funding to make sure locally-developed transit solutions could be developed, and could be constructed and operated in the long term,” he said.

The project now includes state funding to design bus lanes for the expanded highway, in addition to $300 million in private funding for transit projects. Dorsey said the revised project also outlines timelines and efforts for transit projects, he said.

“There was significant progress  — at least enough progress for me to move it along in the regional planning process,” Dorsey said.

The Maryland Board of Public Works is set to vote on the project later this summer, according to the show.

Dorsey also clarified the roles of the Community Oversight Board, which has investigative and subpoena power. The board will have an independent policing auditor who can conduct an investigation alongside one being conducted internally by ACPD.

“If for some reason in that concurrent [model], which we think is artfully designed, records are withheld, it has ability to get them via subpoena,” he said. “We hope it’s rarely used, as that means the concurrent model not working.”

(The Arlington branch of the NAACP has criticized the County Board for not granting the oversight board the full powers recently granted by the state legislature.)

Since County Manager Mark Schwartz hires staff, including police officers, a Community Oversight Board with county staff would not be effectively independent, Dorsey said. The solution was to create an independent policing auditor who is accountable to the oversight board and who ensures investigations take place.

The Board voted against a provision setting aside three seats on the oversight board for people of color or people from marginalized groups.

“This is not about saying there shouldn’t be three people of color on the board, but that we shouldn’t send a signal that three is somehow an acceptable minimum,” Dorsey said. “Most [members] should be people of color, from my perspective.”

Dorsey said he does not deny that ACPD has had occasional issues worthy of scrutiny, but “overall, we’ve had a professional and effective and trustworthy police department.”

APS Encourages More Parents to Enroll As It Prepares for Full-Time In-Person School

By Jo DeVoe

With one month to go before school starts, parents are being urged to enroll their kids in some Arlington public schools amid a continued drop in enrollment.

Screenshots and emails provided to ARLnow indicate some elementary schools, including Discovery and Jamestown, need just a few more kindergarteners before they can officially get one more kindergarten class. The correspondences say the extra class would reduce class sizes and keep teachers at the school they were teaching at last year.

“If you have a rising Kindergartener, please register your child ASAP!” one woman wrote on Nextdoor. “I heard through the grapevine that [Discovery is] 3 kids shy of a third class… which means they may have to let an amazing teacher and assistant go! Help spread the word to any new families in the neighborhood!”

An email to Jamestown families pleaded with families to “pretty, pretty please” register their children as soon as possible, as the elementary only needs 10 more students to add a fourth class.

School starts on Monday, Aug. 30 for most students. The vast majority will be in-person five days a week, though APS is offering a full-distance model this year for families still unsure about returning to school amid the pandemic, as cases rise and as the state recommends all students wear masks at the elementary level.

The encouragement to enroll comes on the heels of new enrollment numbers APS released earlier this month, showing a continued drop in APS students since the start of the pandemic. The new data indicates so far, there are 26,052 students registered for the fall. Of those, 891 will be full-time distance learning, and 25,161 students will be in-person full-time. In June of this year, there were 26,502 students enrolled, and in June 2020, 28,142 students were enrolled.

APS attributed the drop last year due to the pandemic, when many families decided to wait a year, homeschool their kids or switch to private and parochial schools. Since then, officials have said the schools should prepare for enrollment to bounce back.

Enrollment numbers will be made official in October. Lower summer numbers and encouragement to register are both annual phenomena, APS spokesman Frank Bellavia said.

“Every year at this time, we encourage families to register as there are always families new to the area, rising kindergarten students, military and embassy families,” he said. “We typically see a large bump in registrations in August and even September.”

Two years ago, Ashlawn Elementary School was slightly below projections and then saw 49 students register on the Friday before school started, he said.

As for the emphasis on class sizes, that’s because APS had to increase class sizes at all levels due to budgetary decisions made earlier this year.

Enrollment is also fluid within APS’s two programs, in-person and fully virtual.

“The total enrollment in the Virtual Learning Program has decreased by more than 300 students since June, when we announced that virtual families can transition to in-person school at any time,” spokeswoman Catherine Ashby said.

Bellavia said teachers at schools that lose classes due to lower enrollment won’t lose jobs, but will instead be transferred to where they’re needed.

“We are committed to retaining the excellent teachers that we have, and look for opportunities in their current school or to re-assign teachers to school where enrollment requires additional teachers,” he said.

(more…)

‘Unusual’ Zoning Leads Arlington Woman to Seek County Board Approval for Deck Project

By Jo DeVoe
Marjorie Tarantino’s townhouse deck (courtesy of Marjorie Tarantino)

When Marjorie Tarantino was closing on the purchase of her townhouse this spring, she learned there were problems with the deck.

Tarantino had bought a property in the Richard Bassett subdivision, a 1970s-era development in the Waverly Hills neighborhood, just off of N. Glebe Road and Route 29. And when it was being inspected, Tarantino was informed her 10-foot by 12-foot deck was structurally unsound.

“It’s the middle of summer and I haven’t been outside,” she tells ARLnow. “I can’t go out there — it’s too dangerous.”

So she made plans to rebuild it. But when she told her neighbors about those plans, she got a foreboding response.

“My neighbors were like, ‘Good luck,'” she said.

Tarantino is not just rebuilding her existing 10-foot by 12-foot deck. Because she’s got extra space in her side yard, she plans to expand it slightly to be 12-foot by 19.5-foot. Originally, she said her builder was under the impression he could just get started on the project, but her architect said that with the extension, they probably need to go through the proper channels.

Those proper channels ended up more complicated than the trio could have expected. Tarantino had to file for a site plan amendment that needed County Board approval, which she received during its regular meeting on Saturday, and now she could be facing a $4,000 bill for the process.

“They’re discussing huge things like collective bargaining, and renaming Lee Highway, and then there’s my deck request,” she said. “I kept checking back in during an 8-hour meeting, wondering, ‘Did I get my deck? Did I get my deck? I just want my deck.”

Her townhouse is in what Site Plan Review Section Supervisor Matt Pfeiffer calls a “unique, legacy district.” It has a specific zoning code that was used for only a handful of townhouse developments in the newly-renamed Langston Blvd corridor, all built in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“Not only is this not common, it’s not common for townhouses,” Pfeiffer said.  “It appears to me, I don’t know the exact history, to have been a specific tool created in that time to respond to market demand for townhouse development in general. My speculation is that this was a zoning district created to respond to cluster development so as to preserve open space on the site.”

This particular subdivision had similar site plan amendments approved in 2010 and 2012, and in total, he said there have been five site plan amendments for this site.

“I will tell you that some of the site plan amendments at this particular development have been controversial,” he said. “I know, it seems crazy. But there’s a single family home-zoned street abutting this development, and there have been concerns from the neighbors about the impacts of these decks at a higher elevation than their properties.”

The site plan supervisor said he thinks the existing regulations will likely be maintained, in part because these projects are not uncontroversial and it impacts only a few dozen townhouses.

Talking to neighbors, Tarantino said she learned other potential projects were “defeated by red tape and hoops.” Her journey to minor site plan amendment approval involved getting documents notarized, sending disclosures and having her neighbors write to the county, as well as lots of correspondence between her and the county and her architect.

“I understand the need for rules,” she said. “But it’s confusing and seemingly meaningless.”

Tarantino is just looking forward to when she can grow herbs and host dinner parties on her new deck.

“The hard part of this is done [and] it looks like it’s going to happen,” she said.

Now, she just has to get a building permit.

Shared Use of Softball Fields Divides Neighbors in Aurora Highlands

By Jo DeVoe
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(Updated at 4:35 p.m.) Tensions are rising in the Aurora Highlands neighborhood, as residents engage in a letter-writing, petition-signing tug-of-war over the softball fields at Virginia Highlands Park.

A pair of letters to the County Board from members of the Aurora Highlands Civic Association (AHCA), sent this month and in April, as well as a petition launched today (Thursday), illustrate a deepening divide between sports fans and open space advocates, who envision divergent futures for one diamond field in the park near Pentagon City.

The civic tussle surfaced while the neighborhood tested a new arrangement. This spring, Field #3 in Virginia Highlands Park — the bigger of the two diamond fields  — was split between scheduled games and casual use by neighbors, after the civic association said neighbors flocked to the field last year when sports were canceled due to the pandemic.

Adult softball had the field on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It was open to residents for casual use Saturday through Monday, Department of Parks and Recreation spokeswoman Susan Kalish said.

“This allows for the adult softball league to play on a field that is the correct size for their sport, while allowing the community access to a large green space in their neighborhood,” she said.

Some see shared use as a success requiring more maintenance to work long-term, while others see the model as successful but unsustainable — a demonstration that the community needs softball games condensed to one field and the other, possibly Field #3, converted into open space.

“This would allow thousands of our residents within Aurora Highlands, Arlington Ridge, Crystal City and beyond to have access to regular programming and dedicated casual use space, which does not exist in [Virginia Highlands Park],” civic association president and open space supporter Scott Miles tells ARLnow.

Bart Epstein, a civic association member and softball player, tells ARLnow that, barring maintenance problems, softball players who use Field #3 support the current arrangement and fear the alternative.

“It’s been a constant, low-level effort by a tiny group of people to see the fields destroyed,” he said.

Both sides report problems with shared use, which means the fields are used for everything from softball games to music nights. During an April meeting, AHCA members discussed the time and money required to use the field for non-athletes and return it to being game-ready.

“A big takeaway from the shared use work is that without an immense effort to ‘placemake’ with art, seating, activities, shade, etc.,” Miles said this week. “A field is just a field, and is of limited use. Making it more dedicated is the only way the needed casual uses can be maintained.”

Softball players and the parks department, meanwhile, say other users of the field leave behind waste from their dogs, which also dig holes, creating hazards for players.

“My hope is that the County Board will instruct the Department of Parks and Recreation to fully and properly support and maintain the fields,” Epstein said. (more…)

Arlington Establishes Police Oversight Board with Subpoena Power

By Jo DeVoe

Arlington County will now have a Community Oversight Board and Independent Policing Auditor able to investigate community complaints about police officers.

During a four hour meeting last night (Wednesday), 24 leaders and community members spoke, ranging from Arlington NAACP leadership to police officers. The County Board overcame some disagreements to unanimously approve a new board that takes complaints and has an independent auditor to conduct investigations concurrent with internal police department investigations.

If necessary, the board can subpoena for evidence or witnesses if the department withholds them.

These were powers recommended by the Police Practices Work Group, convened one year ago after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in part to imagine what a review board could look like. And proponents said that subpoena power — the most hotly contested authority last night — is the sole key to a fully independent board.

“The subpoena power is integral to the independence of the Community Oversight Board,” County Board Vice-Chair Katie Cristol said. “Otherwise, the community oversight is just another step in the ACPD chain of command.”

On Twitter, she further explained the actions taken last night.

Board Member Libby Garvey, who ultimately voted in favor of the ordinance, did express some reservations with the power.

“Right now, the County Board has the right to subpoena… It’s one of our jobs,” she said. “I feel it’s unfair to put that on resident volunteers, as well-trained and well-meaning as they might be.”

Steve Yanda, the treasurer of Arlington Coalition of Police, said the group supports a review board but not the subpoena power, given how closely ACPD officers watch themselves.

The last three years of investigations by ACPD’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) led to 639 suspension hours and to 11 officers leaving the department, he said. ACPD-originated complaints led to 53% of the suspension hours and 45% of the officer departures.

“It flies in face of logic to believe that a department that scrutinizes itself to the degree that the ACPD does, needs to also be monitored under threat of subpoena power by the community it serves,” he said.

And that OPR investigative process can be “mentally and physically exhausting and nerve-wracking,” said officer Tracey Bates.

“Adding on any additional pressures to an already thorough, exhausting process will lead to more highly qualified officers leaving the department, and with that comes the decline in officers, a decline in quality of services, and a decline in community engagement,” he said.

NAACP President Julius “J.D.” Spain said the board cannot privilege the voices of a few worried about police morale over the voices of community members advocating for a powerful, independent board, as recommended by the Police Practices Workgroup.

“The time has come in this country, in this Commonwealth, to stop rearranging furniture and start rebuilding the house, with transparency and accountability,” he said.

In a letter to the County Board earlier this year, public defender Brad Haywood said the PPG’s recommendations “give that oversight body the power it needs to solve the problems it identifies; to obtain the information, to conduct thorough investigations, and to make recommendations not just for how individual officers can do better, but how the Department and the County more broadly can do better.”

Even with these broad authorities, County Board members said the work is just beginning.

“We have to set in place an opportunity here for the community to figure out if our police department is to be trusted, if they don’t believe so already, and vice versa: for the police department to trust that the oversight being instituted today is designed not to get them, but to improve our overall approach to policing,” said Christian Dorsey.

County Board Approves Changes to Ames Center Development in Rosslyn

By Jo DeVoe
The north tower over the Arlington Temple United Methodist Church and Sunoco gas station at 1820 N. Fort Myer Drive (via Arlington County)

The Arlington County Board approved changes at its Tuesday meeting to an already approved project for two residential towers in Rosslyn.

And the changes — including larger apartment sizes and a work-from-home space — reflect a trend toward larger layouts and more remote-work amenities in new projects in Arlington. Analysts and area developers attribute these kinds of tweaks to changing preferences during the pandemic.

Arlington-based Snell Properties is working on two towers at 1820 N. Fort Myer Drive that would replace the Ames Center office building across from the Rosslyn Metro station. A south tower will abut the Hyatt Centric hotel and a north tower will surround, and preserve, the existing Arlington Temple United Methodist Church and Sunoco gas station, dubbed “Our Lady of Exxon.”

The Board’s vote allows to convert about 3,000 square feet of “flex” commercial office space into residential space. Snell can also move forward with a plan to cut eight apartment units, from 740 to 732, and eight parking spots, from 574 to 566, and some design revisions.

The Board unanimously approved the changes — citing support from neighboring civic associations and apartment buildings — despite a plea from a lawyer representing the Hyatt Centric hotel.

“We are worried about the deterioration of the intersection with Wilson Blvd, but most significantly, we are worried about the digging at the foundation of the Hyatt,” said Gifford Hampshire, of Blankingship & Keith, who represents the owner of the Hyatt.

The Rosslyn Business Improvement District supported the changes, the report said.

“The proposed second-floor residential amenity space and various interior/exterior design enhancements are aligned with the Rosslyn Sector Plan’s guidance and reflective of the community’s feedback,” it said.

Snell will contribute 24 units and $2.5 million in cash toward affordable housing. Additionally, it will contribute $5 million to the Fort Myer Drive tunnel project, which includes plans to convert the road into a two-way street, remove the tunnel, widen sidewalks and add protected bike lanes.

A cement plaza will separate the two towers and form one segment of a planned pedestrian pathway. This street-level walkway will replace the existing, elevated passages. Mid-block crosswalks will join the plaza to 18th Street N.

The towers will share four levels of below-grade parking and the south tower will have four levels of above-grade parking.

The south building will be built in phase one, along with an interim open space and other streetscape improvements. The north tower, the plaza and remaining streetscape improvements will be built in the second phase.

A layout of the pedestrian plaza and corridor at 1820 N. Fort Myer Drive (via Arlington County)

County Board Approves Bus-Only Lane on Langston Blvd Through Rosslyn

By Jo DeVoe
Langston Blvd, formerly Lee Highway, at N. Veitch Street (via Google Maps)

The Arlington County Board took a step toward converting one lane of the newly renamed Langston Blvd into a bus- and HOV-only lane.

On Saturday, the Board accepted and appropriated a $710,000 grant from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission to pay for the transit project, which will run through parts of Rosslyn. Last year, Arlington County applied for funding from the Commuter Choice program, which helps pay for transit upgrades using toll revenue from I-66 inside the Beltway.

“This is an area where we are continuing to work toward multi-modal,” said Board Chair Matt de Ferranti during the regular County Board meeting on Saturday. “On Lee Highway, soon to be Langston Blvd, we will have a bus-only lane so that more residents can move more quickly to work, through our community, and home as well.”

This grant will cover pavement treatment, restriping, and signage for the new bus lane. The lane will run eastbound from N. Veitch Street, near Courthouse, to N. Lynn Street in Rosslyn during peak morning hours.It will run westbound from N. Oak Street to N. Veitch Street during the evening peak period.

At other times, the lane will continue as a general-purpose travel lane.

This segment of Route 29 in Rosslyn “is very heavily congested and sharply degrades bus performance and reliability, which will be improved by the lane conversion,” a staff report said.

Pre-pandemic, that section of Lee Highway carried around 25 loaded buses per hour, according to the report.

The project could take two years to complete, according to Eric Balliet, a spokesman for Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services.

“The County Board’s acceptance and appropriation of the funds signals the start of the project,” he tells ARLnow. “The schedule included with the NVTC funding application was 26 months from project start to end of construction.”

The funding is less than the full $1 million that the county applied for, but staff are not earmarking more for it.

“We will work to deliver the project within this funding amount,” Balliet said.

The county mulled this project over before, even seeking funding — unsuccessfully — in 2019.

Board OKs Park Shirlington Renovation, Amazon Land Donation

By Jo DeVoe
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The Arlington County Board took two steps over the weekend to preserve and upgrade existing affordable housing while building hundreds of new units.

During its meeting on Saturday members unanimously approved a nearly $23 million loan from the county’s Affordable Housing Investment Fund (AHIF) for renovations to the Park Shirlington Apartments, a 1950s-era, garden-style complex with 293 units at 4510 31st Street S., on the edge of the Fairlington neighborhood.

The Board also approved $124,000 in rent assistance to offset potential increases resulting from the renovations.

“This project has a long history and is very important as one of the larger affordable housing developments in the county,” said Melissa Danowski, a staff member in the housing division of the county’s Department of Community Planning, Housing, and Development.

The vote marks a change in plans for the county, which was initially planning to buy and build up part of the property with a partner developer, Washington Business Journal reports. Instead, Standard Property Co. and the National Foundation for Affordable Housing Solutions will oversee soup-to-nuts renovations and pledge to keep the rent affordable for 75 years.

The renovations will begin in winter 2022 and end in 2024, with 10-20 units redone at a time. Residents will have access to vacant “home-hotel suites” so they do not have to find another place to stay while their unit is redone, said Steven Kahn, a director of Standard Communities.

Each unit’s interior will get new appliances, fixtures and cosmetic upgrades. Building systems such as HVAC will be modernized and common areas will be renovated. The developer is considering including free- or reduced-price internet.

“I’m very happy that this thought about preservation has led to preserving a community, while essentially rebuilding the units,” Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said. “That’s a really positive step. It is a huge victory for our community as a whole.”

Following the vote, the Board took action to approve an agreement with Amazon to develop affordable housing near its HQ2. Amazon will donate a $40 million parcel of undeveloped land on the Crystal House Apartments site to the county to be developed into new affordable housing.

“This is a gift beyond any of our requirements, but it’s a partnership really that helps serve affordable housing,” de Ferranti said.

More than 550 units could be developed as affordable for moderate- to low-income households. At least 148 will be committed to households earning 50% or less of the area median income (AMI), and a minimum of 406 will be for households earning 80% or less of the AMI.

The county aims to partner with an affordable housing developer, to be selected later, and complete construction by Jan. 1, 2028.

JBG Smith, AT&T Plan to Bring Ubiquitous 5G to National Landing

By Jo DeVoe
An aerial rendering of National Landing by night (courtesy of JBG Smith)

Since August, JBG Smith has been assembling the bones needed to turn part of Arlington and Alexandria into the world’s first large-scale “Smart City.”

And today (Tuesday), the developer is set to cinch two crucial parts of the skeleton. This morning, it announced a partnership with AT&T to install 5G network throughout Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yard, collectively known as National Landing.

“The goal of this collaboration with AT&T is to further enhance National Landing and create the only neighborhood that provides entrepreneurs, universities, and global technology companies the digital infrastructure necessary to shape the future of their industries,” JBG Smith CEO Matt Kelly said.

This evening, the County Board is poised to grant access to the backbone of the network: currently unused, county-owned dark fiber assets. The county would receive $3.5 million in exchange.

The speedy wireless network could draw more innovative companies to the area and help bring futuristic experiences — such as self-driving vehicles, immersive and augmented reality, building automation and environmental sustainability — to fruition, according to their press release.

Parts of the 5G network could be operational in the first half of 2022, JBG Smith Smart Cities Vice President Vardahn Chaudhry tells ARLnow.

“5G is complex in that it requires robust underlying digital infrastructure both underground and across the built environment,” he said. “JBG Smith and AT&T are still working through the details of the infrastructure deployments and will share more in the coming months.”

The real estate company made its ambitions known last August, when it acquired seven blocks of Citizens Broadband Radio Service spectrum spanning Arlington and Alexandria through a national Federal Communications Commission auction.

Still missing the underground network backbone, JBG Smith eyed Arlington County’s unused fiber optic assets in National Landing, from when the county built a ring of dark fiber nearly 10 miles long called ConnectArlington.

The network was designed to support county government and Arlington Public Schools and give local businesses access to cheaper, higher-speed internet, but an ARLnow investigation found legal issues made it difficult for businesses to use it.

County staff recommend the County Board approve the 75-year agreement with JBG Smith, which is planning to market National Landing — home to Amazon’s HQ2 — as an “Innovation District.”

“Consistent with the intent of the original ConnectArlington investment, the primary benefit of this Agreement will be to assist in the creation of an Innovation District that will establish the area as a magnet for human talent and innovation — the key driver of economic prosperity today and moving forward,” according to the report.

JBG Smith said it already possess other things needed for the project: expansive real estate holdings, from existing office space and apartments to developable land, which provides the buildings, street furniture and underground infrastructure needed for the roll-out.

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said he is thrilled to see two private-sector organizations leading the 5G charge.

“American competitiveness in the deployment of 5G networks — and innovation in the emerging technologies [that] 5G unlocks — remain key to our national and economic security interest,” he said. “This collaboration can be a blueprint for how digital infrastructure is deployed, and I am heartened by the prospects of the innovation this may unlock to advance our country’s competitiveness globally.”

County staff valued the transfer at $3.5 million after weighing how much it would need to recoup construction costs and advance county goals against how much it would cost JBG Smith to build its own assets.

Future Ballston Silver Diner Spot Aims for 2022 Opening

By Jo DeVoe

A planned Silver Diner location in Ballston, at the intersection of Wilson Blvd and N. Glebe Road, is moving through county approval processes and aims to open next year.

Developer Saul Centers announced in 2017 that the regional chain would open a spot within its development at 750 N. Glebe Road. Now, Silver Diner is obtaining the needed approvals to move into the ground floor of The Waycroft apartment building.

On Saturday, the Arlington County Board approved a two-part application from the company to allow for the installation of lighted architectural features on the façade of the building as well as the operation of an outdoor sidewalk café.

“Silver Diner is proposing to have a 961 square foot, 68-seat, outdoor café… however, 229 square feet of their outdoor café is proposed to be located within the building’s Wilson Boulevard streetscape, which is County owned right-of-way,” a board report said.

Although the Silver Diner “anticipates operating the restaurant 24 hours a day,” operating on public property will restrict the hours of its outdoor seating between 6 a.m. and 2 a.m., according to the report.

Despite the approvals, a spokeswoman for Silver Diner said the company does not have any updates to share.

“They’re still planning on opening in 2022,” she said.

Once complete, the 6,700-square-foot eatery will join Target, which opened last summer, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car on The Waycroft’s ground floor.

The planned Ballston location is expected to one day replace the currently operating Silver Diner spot in Clarendon. A 224-room hotel and a 286-unit residential building will replace the Silver Diner and The Lot beer garden. The redevelopment is part of a bevy of projects slated to change the look of Clarendon.

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