Author: Matt Blitz

Lyon Village Garage That’s Been Providing Food To Families for a Year Closing Down

By Matt Blitz
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A food pantry operating out of a residential garage in Lyon Village is closing down, after exactly a year of providing food to needy families.

On March 22, 2020, David Knepper was like many of us when the world shut down — housebound and unable to focus.

The 75-year-old had recently retired from being a home remodeling contractor and was using his garage near the corner of N. Cleveland and 18th Streets as a workshop for small projects.

But he was growing restless and wanted to help others who were struggling. So, he turned his garage into a makeshift food pantry.

“I decided… to share what I have with the people who are losing their jobs and can’t afford food to put on the table,” he tells ARLnow.

Knepper filled his garage with beans, rice, canned vegetables, peanut butter, tuna, oats and other non-perishables. He put out signs written in English, Spanish, and Arabic (thanks to a tenant from Saudi Arabia). People came immediately.

“Quite a few people came to pick up food right from the start,” he says. “Word just spread.”

Over the past year, he estimates that he’s gone through about 950 pounds of rice and hundreds of cans of vegetables.

Knepper declined to share exactly how much money he spent on the food, but estimates it was about the same amount he would have spent if he was feeding a family of seven or eight on a regular basis.

Despite its start as an individual initiative, the food garage became a community effort.

Knepper says dozens of people have dropped off food for donation, including a core group of 15 or 16 who did it on a regular basis.

“They would bring food, sometimes quite a lot of it,” he says. “I’d go out there and the shelves would be absolutely loaded with food.”

There’s one story of the man who caught sight of the garage on the way to visit his daughter. He worked at a Chevy Chase soup kitchen that was getting regular shipments of food but wasn’t using all of it. So, he dropped some off at Knepper’s garage.

Over the last year, Knepper has gotten to know a number of families who regularly picked up good.

“They are always so grateful,” he says.

David Knepper and his food garage (Staff Photo by Jay Westcott)

More than once, a family would come get food and then, a bit later ,would come back after they’ve gotten a paycheck and donate food themselves, Knepper said.

Knepper has lived in his house with his wife Sally for more than three decades but has never seen his neighborhood come together like they have during the pandemic.

“The neighborhood is very supportive,” he says. “My neighbors are great and even better during the pandemic. I’ve gotten to know neighbors I’ve never known before.”

After 365 days, however, Knepper is finally shutting the pantry down. He believes it’s time: the pantry is not being used as often and economic impact payments are in the midst of being sent.

“The last two months, I’ve noticed people are not picking up as much stuff as they did before,” he says. “One year is a good time to close it down.”

He started taking down signs and reclaiming his garage on Monday. All the leftover food is being donated to the Arlington Food Assistance Center.

Knepper says he feels good about the community banding together to help to those in need.

“It’s been such a heartwarming experience,” he says. “Everybody pitched in.”

Mario’s Pizza House Continues to Serve Up Slices and Memories

By Matt Blitz
1/4

For 64 years, Mario’s Pizza House on Wilson Blvd has served up slices and memories.

From late night pizza runs to Little League baseball, for many Arlingtonians Mario’s has remained one of the only constants in a county where change is the norm. And, according to its current owner Tuhin Ahmed, Mario’s Pizza is not going anywhere, despite some of the change happening around it.

“Mario’s Pizza is going to be here forever,” says Ahmed. “It’s an Arlington institution.”

Howard Levine and his wife, Norma opened Mario’s Pizza House in 1957.

Their son, Alan Levine, tells ARLnow that his dad was a criminal defense attorney but saw a need for a quick bite type of restaurant on Wilson Blvd, which was a very busy road at the time.

“At that time, you didn’t have [Interstate] 66,” says Levine. “So, the main thoroughfare in the D.C. was Wilson Boulevard.”

So, Levine took an old flower shop and converted it to a pizza shop, one that sold ten cent slices.

As to why his father named it Mario’s, Alan laughs.

“Because not many people would have gone to a place called ‘Levine’s Pizza House’ in the 50s.”

Instantly, Mario’s became a community gathering spot. But there was one group that Howard Levine refused to serve.

“The American Nazi Party,” says Alan, of the group led by George Lincoln Rockwell, notoriously had its headquarters nearby. “If they had a swastika, he wasn’t going to serve them.”

Unsurprisingly, the Nazis didn’t take too fondly to a Jewish business owner who refused to serve them but who served slices to the Black community. They protested the pizza shop, holding signs that said things like “Mario the Jew.” But Levine was not intimidated.

“My father was a big son of a bitch,” recalls Alan. “He knew how to handle himself.”

According to Alan, the protest ended when Howard doused the Nazis with a power washer.

Howard and Norma divorced in 1962, says Alan, and his father left the restaurant to his mother as part of the settlement.

“He ran away with the au pair girl,” says Alan, “He ended up crashing a boat in Antigua and staying there forever.” 

From that point on and for more than two decades, Norma Levine was the hand at the register exchanging pizza for dollars.

She always worked the register at lunch, Alan says, and that’s how she got to know everyone. When asked if his mother enjoyed the running Mario’s, Alan pauses.

“It supported the family,” he says. “She enjoyed that.”

Thanks to the Levines, Mario’s was a pillar in the community.

Countless Arlingtonians have memories of Mario’s, from sponsoring Little League teams to the donuts to a miniature golf course with a monkey that bit kids.

“My father [initially] purchased the entire block and there was a miniature golf course where the Highlander is now,” says Levine. “There was a macaw that only cussed and a monkey that [had] a hatred of little girls. [We] had to get rid of the monkey.”

Willie “Lefty” Lindsay started working the grill at Mario’s in 1965 and did so for the next five decades. He only stopped grilling up steak and cheese sandwiches (the most popular thing on the menu, he says) last year, when the pandemic hit.

He remembers Norma Levine as a good boss and someone who was great to the customers.

“She was such a fine person to work around, customers loved her,” 85-year-old Lindsay tells ARLnow. “If you did a good job, she’d reward you for it.”

He believes the key to Mario’s longevity is that the menu and the recipes have hardly changed since it first opened. The customers and the employees have not changed much, either.

Alongside Lindsay for most of those years was Joe Williams, who made the pizza.

Williams worked at Mario’s as well for more than five decades, often side-by-side Lindsay.

“We were like brothers,” says Lindsay. “We never had an argument.”

Williams died in October 2019.

“Joe was an amazing man. He worked seven days a week,” Levine says about Williams. “He never missed a day of work. Except for his wife’s funeral.”

In the mid-1980s, Norma Levine retired and left the restaurant to her kids. She died in 1990. Alan Levine ran day-to-day operations for the next several decades.

“A lot of famous people would come through [to get pizza],” says Levine. “Bill Clinton was a big fan.”

(more…)

County Board Approves Agreement with Alexandria To Dredge Four Mile Run

By Matt Blitz

The County Board voted this weekend on an agreement with the City of Alexandria to dredge Four Mile Run in order to help mitigate flooding.

The neighboring jurisdictions will split the costs related to permitting, designing, construction, and dredging Four Mile Run, from around I-395 to the Potomac River.

“It’s time for us to undertake a joint dredging project so we can project that part of the county from flooding to the maximum extent possible,” said Arlington County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti at Saturday’s Board meeting.

The dredging — which will remove built-up sediment and debris from the bottom of the waterway — is expected to cost about $3.6 million, with each jurisdiction paying about $1.8 million.

The project is expected to get under way in the late summer or early fall, and will take approximately four months, Aileen Winquist of Arlington’s Dept. of Environmental Services tells ARLnow.

The work comes after the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) most recent inspection report gave the state of Four Mile Run a rating of unacceptable. The Corps built a levee system along Four Mile Run in the 1970s and 80s to help with flood mitigation, after a series of devastating floods that inundated Alexandria’s Arlandria neighborhood.

The recent unacceptable rating from USACE was due to “excessive shoaling,” meaning the flood channel is too shallow and can lead to excessive flooding.

“Maintenance of the open channel of Four Mile Run includes clearing of debris, sediment, vegetation, and re-stabilizing stream banks as required by the USACE annual inspection program,” says Winquist. “This maintenance work helps to preserve the flood channel’s capacity and reduce flood risk in neighborhoods surrounding south Four Mile Run.”

The areas around Four Mile Run have flooded a number of times over the past decade, including in 2011, 2017, and in 2019. Flooding two years ago was historic and caused some $6 million in damage to county property alone.

The agreement would also put on paper a long-standing understanding about maintenance of Four Mile Run. The north side will be Arlington’s responsibility and the south side will be Alexandria’s responsibility.

The needed improvements for the Long Branch Tributary will remain the sole fianincal responsibility of Arlington, since it’s within county borders. The budget for the entire project is about $4.7 million with Arlington agreeing to pay $2.56 million and Alexandria paying $2.16 million.

File photo

A Note Handed to an Arlington Barber Is Going Viral

By Matt Blitz
James Moore at his barber shop on Lee Highway (Staff Photo by Jay Westcott)

A short, sweet, secret note handed to an Arlington barber earlier this week may perfectly encapsulate the hope that the pandemic could be nearing its end.

James Moore of Moore’s Barber Shop at 4807 Lee Highway posted on social media Thursday morning a note handed to him by a fully-vaccinated, 91-year-old client named Warren upon walking into the barber shop for the first time in more than a year. Moore’s Twitter post has since garnered nearly a thousand likes and retweets.

The note was written by Warren’s wife, Maria, and it was presented to Moore in a sealed envelope without Warren knowing its contents.

The note reads:

Hi JT,

I’m so happy to be relinquishing my barber duties — you have no idea! I don’t know what was worse — having to learn on the fly or taking instructions from my client! I’m having a celebration on this day! Here’s a little something so you can have a celebration too. I wish we could celebrate together but COVID still reigns.

Thankful,

Maria

Moore tells ARLnow that Maria wasn’t the only one thankful.

“[Warren] told me ‘Please, don’t tell my wife that you did a better job than her. She’ll be mad,'” he said laughing.

Moore says he opened the card when Warren had left and it came with a “substantial tip” as a thank you, for which he was grateful.

Moore immediately called Maria to thank her.

“She got choked up,” he says. “She explained how difficult it was to cut his hair… [Warren] wanted everything so particular, he made her a nervous wreck. She used YouTube to learn, but there were a lot of anxious moments.”

Moore says Warren has been a long-time customer, whose kids and grandkids have also come to the shop for hair cuts.

Husband and wife were both very much looking forward to the return to the barber shop, but they waited to be vaccinated.

“He got it, waited a few weeks, and got his wife’s permission. Then, he came in,” says Moore, who recently received his first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as well.

The customer relationship with the couple extends beyond the barbershop. Moore helped the couple pre-COVID with a few tasks around the house, like re-installing smoke detectors, when they lived in Rosslyn. They no longer live in Arlington, but Warren remains a loyal client.

Moore worked at the Arlington Fire Department for 32 years before retiring this past summer. He inherited the barber shop from his dad, who opened it as Arlington’s first integrated barbershop in 1960.

Moore says that business remains slow due to the pandemic, but he’s been getting customers from D.C. and Maryland due to his shop’s strict COVID protocols — like checking customers’ oxygen saturation levels.

The hope is that with more and more people getting vaccinated, come summer, things will return to normal.

“People still aren’t going to work, so getting haircuts is more about looking and feeling good for people they live with,” Moore said.

Or, in Maria’s case, no longer having to cut her husband’s hair.

More Arlington Businesses Burglarized Amid Continued Wave of Break-Ins

By Matt Blitz
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More local business were broken into this week, in a similar manner to others over the past several months.

Two men broke into Olive Lebanese Eatery at 1100 N. Glebe Road in Ballston early Wednesday morning and stole hundreds of dollars in cash, restaurant owner Yvonne Risheq tells ARLnow.

An Arlington County police report says that two suspects smashed their way into the restaurant and fled with stolen cash registers in a Ford F-150 pickup truck.

Around the same time, a similar burglary happened on the 4700 block of Lee Highway. From the crime report:

BURGLARY, 2021-03170043, 4700 block of Lee Highway. At approximately 9:00 a.m. on March 17, police were dispatched to the late report of a commercial burglary. Upon arrival, it was determined that between 6:00 p.m. on March 16 and 9:00 a.m. on March 17, an unknown suspect(s) forced entry into the business and stole a cash register and an undisclosed amount of cash.

These are just two in a rash of burglaries targeting cash-based local businesses that have the Arlington County Police Department concerned.

On February 22, ACPD released a statement that said the department had investigated 21 commercial burglaries so far in 2021. Since then, spokesperson Ashley Savage confirms that four more business burglaries, including the two this week, have occurred — for a total of 25. Savage also noted a recent attempted theft.

Many of the burglaries follow a similar pattern: suspects arriving in the middle of the night, forcing entry by smashing a glass door or window, removing registers or safes with cash, and fleeing in a waiting vehicle.

The entire crime takes mere minutes.

This is exactly what happened at Olive Lebanese Eatery, says Risheq.

At 2:45 a.m. Wednesday morning, security cameras captured two men throwing a boulder through a glass window, entering the building, and stealing the cash registers.

“They were in and out within one minute,” she says. “They knew what they were doing and exactly what to get.”

She says that two cash registers were stolen, each holding between $250 and $350.

Risheq believes it was pre-planned due to their precision and the fact that, when looking back at the surveillance video from earlier in the day, there was a man who had come into the restaurant and looked around for five minutes before exiting.

“He didn’t order anything, didn’t pick anything up. He was inside… just really looking at how things flowed,” she says. “To me, that’s very suspicious.”

In the end, the damages caused by the break-in will probably cost more than the $500 to $700 stolen, she says. They have to fix the glass window, the door, repair their sign, change all the keys and locks, and replace a few other items in the restaurant.

“No one was here and nobody got hurt,” says Risheq. “That’s the most important thing.”

The restaurant closed on Wednesday for repairs and re-opened on Thursday.

Olive Express Mediterranean Café opened in Ballston in October 2019, joining locations in Reston and Herndon. Later, the restaurant changed its name to Olive Lebanese Eatery.

Risheq says that they initially suffered a 90% drop in sales due to the pandemic, but catering has picked back up somewhat in recent weeks. The hope is that when people begin to return to the office — potentially this summer — business will slowly return to normal.

As for dishes she recommends to new customers, Risheq says the Lebanese kabobs or the falafel are the way to go.

“We make our falafel from scratch,” she says. “We’ve won awards for our falafel and humus.”

Due to their location in an office-heavy portion of Ballston, near a busy road, they’ve always felt safe. With the break-in, that illusion of safety is now shattered — but it won’t deter her from continuing to do business in Arlington.

“I was really surprised by the outpouring of support yesterday from residents and the community,” Risheq says. “I’m glad we made the move [to Arlington]. We do love it here.”

Mom’s Pizza on Columbia Pike Closing This Summer After 32 Years

By Matt Blitz

(Updated at 3:35 p.m.) Mom’s Pizza Restaurant at Westmont Shopping Center is closing this summer after 32 years, the owners tell ARLnow.

Owner John Hosein says the property manager recently informed the long-running restaurant that they would have to vacate their space along Columbia Pike for a planned redevelopment.

“They need the space,” says Hosein. “They want to… demolish the whole shopping center.”

He says it’s likely that they’ll close in June.

The County Board approved the shopping center’s redevelopment in September 2019. The plan is to replace the aging shopping center and surface parking lot with 250 market rate apartments and new retail. A small-format grocery store may be among the new retail options.

Demolition will likely happen shortly after the shopping center closes in June, a spokesperson for the property management company tells ARLnow. Construction is currently targeted to begin in late 2021, Jessica Margarit of Arlington’s Dept. of Community Planning, Housing and Development says.

The project would likely wrap up by 2024, though an exact timeline could not be immediately confirmed.

Hosein says the news wasn’t a total surprise, since their lease was up at the end of the year. While he says the agreement does allow the property owner to do this, he wishes there was more time to say goodbye.

Mom’s has always been a family affair and a showcase for their multi-cultural heritage.

Hosein was born in Jordan, where his mother — who was from Athens, Greece — first met his dad. They all immigrated to the United States, to New York initially, in the 1970s for the economic opportunities.

Hosein attended George Mason University, but opening a restaurant was “my dream,” he says. In 1989, he partnered with his mom, Rahma, and brother to open Mom’s.

“My mom was a really great chef. So, we named it [after her] and have continued calling it that since,” says Hosein, who now owns the restaurant with his wife Manal. Their daughter, Areen, also helps with the restaurant too, including running their Instagram and Facebook accounts.

“If you watched [the movie] ‘Our Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ that’s exactly us,” Areen laughs.

The restaurant’s menu is influenced by Hosein’s upbringing, featuring Greek specialities like spanakopita, and pastitsio (Greek lasagna) as well as traditional Middle Eastern fare like hummus and gyros.

There’s also, of course, pizza and pasta. Hosein notes that many dishes are made from scratch, including the pastitsio and the pizza dough. Hosein says he still cooks at the restaurant almost every day.

“I like to make the sauce,” he says. “It’s tricky. If you miss a little bit with it, it’s no good.”

When asked what dish they’d recommend to new customers, Manal Hosein says “everything.”

John Hosein says what he loves the most about owning a restaurant are the challenges everyday and that he “just loves to see people happy.” While the pandemic, like for so many Arlington restaurants, has been a challenge, cutting hours and other expenses — in combination with a loyal customer base — have kept Mom’s “above water.”

They’ve recently started informing some customers of their closing, leaving a few in tears, says Hosein. He said the family is deeply grateful for the community’s support over the years.

The couple, despite losing their restaurant, is not planning to retire — but they don’t know what comes next.

“I’m still only 58 and we need income,” says Hosein. “We were left in limbo. We don’t know what to do.”

Photo (bottom) courtesy of Mom’s Pizza Restaurant

County Board to Consider Changes to Busy Lyon Park Intersection

By Matt Blitz

(Updated at 11 a.m.) The Arlington County Board is set vote this Saturday, March 20 on a nearly $1 million project to improve the intersection at N. Pershing Drive and Washington Blvd.

The busy intersection in Lyon Park lacks accessible curb ramps and has narrow sidewalks, long crossings and outdated bus stops, per the county manager’s report, creating a harrowing experience for many pedestrians and cyclists.

Concerns about the intersection were first brought up in May 2018. Four other nearby intersections along N. Pershing Drive were approved for “Complete Streets” pedestrian safety upgrades last year.

The requested $987,270 for the newest project will improve safety and accessibility at the Pershing and Washington intersection by expanding sidewalks and updating curb ramps to better comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the county says. It also shortens crossings.

Designs were completed last summer.

If approved, construction is expected to start early this summer according to Arlington Dept. of Environmental Services spokesperson Eric Balliet.

More details about the timeline will come after the county’s approval and a contractor is onboard, Balliet notes in an email to ARLnow. The project is being funded by grants from the Virginia Department of Transportation, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, as well as funds from the county’s Capital Projects Fund.

Ardent Company is being recommended as the construction company by county staff, after the firm came in as the lowest bidder out of six.

Ardent has worked with the county on numerous projects, including the Green Valley Town Square project, the Ballston Metro station’s bus bays, and pedestrian improvements in Crystal City.

Photo via Arlington County

Pi Day was ‘Almost-Thanksgiving Busy’ for Columbia Pike’s Acme Pie

By Matt Blitz

Pi Day was a very busy day for Acme Pie on Columbia Pike.

“At the moment, we are trying to restock,” Sol Schott, owner of the seven-year-old pie company, said over the phone Monday morning. “I was expecting it to be somewhat busy, but not expecting it to be almost-Thanksgiving busy.”

Pi Day is an annual celebration on March 14 of the mathematical mystery that is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The day also, of course, presents a great excuse to eat pie.

Schott said he made 98 large pies, 70 small pies, and had a “whole heck of alot of slices” and nearly sold out of all of it.

Sales, he says, “were in the same ballpark” as the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — aka the Super Bowl of pie sales — and definitely better than Pi Day last year.

“I think everybody was so sick and tired of being cooped up,” Schott says.

The most popular pie was a special one he made for the weekend, an English Banoffee pie.

“We use a graham cracker crumb crust with like a… chewy soft caramel toffee on the bottom,” says Schott. “Then, slices of banana, fresh whipped cream with a little bit of espresso, and then chocolate shavings on top.”

All 76 Banoffee pies sold out. He plans on making more for St. Patrick’s Day.

While Acme Pie started as a wholesaler baking pies in a basement, he opened his retail store at 2803 Columbia Pike two years ago in the spring of 2019. The shop took over the space from Twisted Vines Bar and Bottleshop.

Even before that Acme had presence in the community, selling pies at farmers markets, hailed for making popular vegan versions and helping other struggling local businesses.

This past July, Schott baked pies and hosted a fundraiser for his next-door neighbor Papillon Cycles, Arlington’s oldest bike shop.

He says the past year has also been “tricky” and “rough” for Acme Pie due to losing a large slice of his wholesale business.

“Wholesale is off huge. That’s pretty much the issue,” says Schott. “I went from selling [pies] to 70 restaurants to 10 during the pandemic,” due to many local restaurants cutting back or outright closing.

Nonetheless, Schott says Acme Pie is not going anywhere.

“I’m a baker,” he says. “That’s what I do… I don’t have any choice.”

He’s optimistic sales will rise and normalcy will return in the coming months as the vaccine rollout continues. For the moment, he’s wishing that every weekend could be like the past one.

“It was amazing,” Schott says. “But you can’t have Pi Day everyday.”

Road Closures Planned for Saturday’s Run For Her Life 5K

By Matt Blitz

A walk to bring attention to racial injustice, the first of its kind since last summer, is taking place on Saturday and with it will come a series of road closures.

The Run For Her Life 5K and Yoga Event is scheduled for this Saturday, March 12, from 2-4 p.m.

It’s organized by Arlington Justice and Black Parents of Arlington, in memory of Breonna Taylor on the one-year anniversary her killing in Louisville, Kentucky.

The 5K walk will start in the rear parking lot of Dorothy Hamm Middle School at 4100 Vacation Lane in Cherrydale and will follow a path winding path around the neighborhood. Masks are required at the event. Organizers say participation in the walk and yoga event is limited to women and girls, but men are welcome to volunteer to help out.

The Arlington County Police Department has announced a series of “rolling road closures” associated with the walk, which will be put in place over the course of about two hours.

The event route, per ACPD, includes:

  • START: 4100 Vacation Lane (Hamm Middle School, rear parking lot)
  • RIGHT onto Vacation Lane
  • RIGHT onto Military Road
  • CROSS Old Dominion Road onto N. Quincy Road
  • RIGHT onto Lee Highway
  • LEFT onto N. Taylor Street
  • RIGHT onto N. 17th Street
  • CROSS N. Glebe Road
  • CONTINUE on N. 17th Street
  • RIGHT onto N. Culpeper Street
  • RIGHT onto Lee Highway
  • LEFT onto Lorcom Lane
  • RIGHT onto Vacation Lane
  • FINISH: 4100 Vacation Lane (Hamm Middle School, rear parking lot)

“We come together to stand in solidarity, one year since the murder of Breonna Taylor, to call attention to the racial injustice and violence committed against ALL Black and Brown women,” says the event website. “Together we’ll honor and celebrate the resilience of Black and Brown women during this collective healing event.”

“The event proceeds will go to support the continued advocacy of Arlington For Justice and Black Parents of Arlington, Black women-led organizations, with a portion being donated to the Breonna Taylor Foundation,” the website notes.

While there were plenty of protests in Arlington over the summer, this event may be the first of its kind since then. It is also the first organized, in-person public event in Arlington to prompt an ACPD traffic advisory press release since Mayor Pete came to town prior to the pandemic lockdown.

Photo via ACPD

Demolition of Mid-Century Building Underway To Make Way for GMU’s Arlington Expansion

By Matt Blitz
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(Update 5:15 p.m.) Demolition has begun on the exterior of the old Kann’s Department Store to make way for George Mason University’s Arlington campus expansion.

A University spokesperson confirmed to ARLnow that demolition of the interior began in November and the exterior demolition began this week. It’s expected to be completed in the fall.

Fencing went up in November around the mid-century building that has a long Arlington history.

First opened in 1951 as the suburban branch of a popular D.C. department store, Kann’s Department Store at 3401 Fairfax Drive became a gathering spot for many in Arlington. The department store featured three-floors, an escalator, a restaurant called the “Kannteen,” and monkeys.

Yes, the shoe department had a large glass-windowed monkey display with live monkeys from Brazil.

To this day, Arlingtonians hold fond memories of shopping at the department, as Charlie Clark documented earlier this month for the Falls Church News-Press.

In 1975, GMU acquired the building at Virginia Square.

For many years, it was used to house GMU’s law school (named after the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016) and became known as the “Original Building.” It was thought at the time that it was only law school in the country that had an escalator.

In an alumni remembrance from last year, many former students recounted how this building was where they bought clothes as a kid and earned their law degree as an adult.

In soon-to-be-demolished building’s place and on the same site will go an expansive, new, glass and steel building perhaps emblazoned with a distinctive green “M” at the top.

When demolition of the old building is completed, the university will begin design and construction work on the $250 million expansion. Money for the expansion, spurred by the arrival of Amazon’s HQ2, is coming from a combination of state funds and private donations.

The new building will have about 360,500 square feet of space, and is expected to be LEED Platinum-certified. It will house faculty from Institute for Digital InnovAtion and the university’s new School of Computing.

The expansion will help create “the Rosslyn-Ballston Innovation Corridor, an innovation district that will be the first of its kind in Virginia,” GMU says.

The university is expected to occupy about 60% of the space while private companies may lease other portions of it. GMU is predicting that the expansion will add 3,000-4,000 additional students to the Arlington campus by 2024.

Last month, GMU’s Board of Visitors authorized the university to begin negotiating with Mason Innovation Partners, a consortium made up of developers and investors, as the developer of the expansion project.

Following the demolition, construction is slated to start in the spring of 2022. The building is scheduled to open in the summer of 2025.

Columbia Pike Medicial Practice Gets Grant To Help Business Thrive

By Matt Blitz

A veteran-owned optometry and dental practice on Columbia Pike has won a $15,000 grant from the PenFed Foundation.

Eye Smile Optometry & Dental Care near the corner of Columbia Pike and S. George Mason Drive, next to the Harris Teeter, is owned by U.S. Air Force veteran Dr. Keith James (optometrist) and his wife Dr. Yvonelle Moreau (dentist).

The small, family-owned was awarded the grant because of its commitment “to serving its neighboring community, educating those that are under-represented and underserved, and leading as examples to future under-represented entrepreneurs,” according the PenFed Foundation website.

The foundation is a non-profit aimed at helping military members become financially stable. Its Veteran Entrepreneur Investment Program is specifically earmarked for Black veteran and active duty military entrepreneurs. Two other businesses also received $15,000: one in Maryland and another in Jacksonville, Florida.

James tells ARLnow that the couple is grateful for the grant and plans to use the money for business awareness, marketing, and increased staffing. They currently have three employees, plus the two doctors.

It wasn’t always destiny for the couple’s practice to land in Arlington. James and Moreau met in New York, when they were both in school. Then, James joined the Air Force and was stationed at Joint Base Andrews for three years.

While living in Alexandria, the pair realized the region could be a great place for a family practice.

“We just thought it was a fantastic community. We really want to focus on being a family practice,” says James. “We felt like it was just the perfect setting for us to flourish.”

Yes, they acknowledge, it is certainly unique that a dentist and optometrist share a practice.

“It’s definitely atypical,” James says with a chuckle. “But with both of us practicing health care, it’s definitely a good opportunity. It’s synergistic. We’re both practicing on the head which impacts overall health.”

The practice was initially slated to open in March 2020, James says, but was delayed due to the pandemic.

“We were planning this practice for two years,” James says. “So, that was extremely nerve-racking.”

It finally opened last May, right around the time when Virginia allowed dental practices to re-open.

Over the last ten months the business has continued to grow. Overall, combined, James says they’ve treated nearly 1,500 patients.

“We try not to focus on slower days and get too excited about bigger days,” he says. “It’s definitely steady.”

The practice’s goals continue to be to provide personalized service and access to care in a section of Arlington where options can sometimes be limited.

“We saw a little space there for vision and dental that could be really central to that neighborhood and those families,” says James. “Being a part of that and increasing access to care is important to us.”

Photo courtesy of Eye Smile Optometry & Dental Care

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