Author: Vernon Miles

Video: Flood-Devastated Community Rallies to Push Resident’s Shed Back Into Place

By Vernon Miles
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Weeks after flooding ravaged homes and businesses in Westover, nearly a dozen neighbors came together to help one family get at least one piece of their life back together.

After Wendy Naus put out a message on the neighborhood’s group-text chain asking if anyone was available to help move her shed, which was washed across the yard by floodwaters, around ten people showed up and spent two hours gradually shifting the large, blue shed back into its former position.

Some of those who came to help still have not moved back into their own flood-damaged homes, said Naus.

“On the one hand I’m in awe of these people, many of whom still aren’t living in their homes,” she said. “On the other hand, I’m not surprised,” given the close-knit nature of the community.

“I’m more shocked that it worked,” Naus added. “The look on everyone’s face when we moved it… we were shocked that it worked.”

Naus jacked the building up onto cinder blocks, and the neighbors laid planks down across the yard like tracks to slide it back into position. A time-lapse video she shared (below) shows the painstaking work in progress.

Naus said this is just the latest example of how the neighborhood has rallied and helped each other in the days and weeks after floods swept through many local homes. When Naus needed some help dismantling the damaged tiles in her basement, five locals showed up to help clear away the rubble.

“The same group of neighbors on this one small block have all been helping each other out over the last few weeks,” Naus said. “I’ve been hashtagging ‘#BestBlockInAmerica’ for weeks.”

But for the residents of Westover, normalcy is still out of reach.

“It’s been slow,” Naus said. “The air conditioning has been replaced and our missing door and windows have been boarded up. It’s safe, but not it’s just the waiting game for longer-term things. We’re still waiting to hear back from the County on mitigation plans for the future since everyone’s reluctant to work on their basements. It’s still livable, but there’s a long road ahead.”

In the meantime, Naus said it was nice to see everyone smiling and happy at a small celebration after the shed was moved back.

“We all just needed a win,” Naus said. “The shed symbolizes a tangible thing that’s sort of a positive in the aftermath of this flood. It was a morale boost for us.”

Photos 1 & 2 courtesy Wendy Naus

Crystal City-Based Technology Association Invests in Diversity-Focused Companies

By Vernon Miles

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.

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA), formerly the Consumer Electronics Association, has launched a new initiative to invest in companies that make a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

The organization, headquartered at 1919 S. Eads Street in Crystal City, announced in January that it planned to invest $10 million into an effort to support diversity in the tech industry.

The first two companies to receive funding were both New York-based companies Harlem Capital Partners and SoGal Ventures, respectively minority-owned and female-led venture capital firms.

“For innovation to reach its fullest potential, different voices and perspectives must have an opportunity to come together in our workforce,” said Tiffany Moore, senior vice president of CTA said in a press release. “CTA is committed to finding solutions through education, investment, membership and leading by example.”

The amount disclosed to each company was not made public.

Photo via Consumer Technology Association

Dark Star Park in Rosslyn Expands Its Orbit

By Vernon Miles
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Rosslyn’s Dark Star Park is growing and recently swallowed a nearby slip lane.

The park is notable for the somewhat strange concrete orbs and poles, designed to cast perfectly aligned shadows every August 1. The expansion of the park was planned as part of the Core of Rosslyn study, a project aimed at making Rosslyn’s street network more pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly.

The first stage of the expansion is the closure of a slip lane between Fort Myer Drive and N. Lynn Street. The lane was closed last week and will now be used as park space, furnished with tables, chairs, and artwork.

According to the project website, the county government is hopeful that the community will use the new open space as a daily activity spot.

The next stage of the project will involve the expansion of Dark Star Park’s green space and sidewalks into the unutilized street space, but that expansion is still in the early design stages.

Funding for the second stage of the project is expected to be determined as part of the next Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) budget update.

Images via Arlington County

New Asian Restaurant in Virginia Square to Open Next Week

By Vernon Miles
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The former Atrium Cafe (901 N. Nelson Street), adjacent to the Virginia Square Metro station entrance, is being converted into a new Asian eatery called Pike Kitchen.

The Pike Kitchen in Rockville, Md. is a food hall-type venue with a variety of cuisine options, like bibimbap and bubble tea. From the signs outside the Virginia Square location, the new Arlington eatery seems to share a similar concept.

Signs on the wall say the new location will carry Monster Tea, which offers bubble tea; Bowl Play, which offers Korean bibimbap and poké bowls; and Pike Chicken and Beer, which presumably offers chicken and beer.

The manager of the restaurant said a soft opening for Pike Kitchen is tentatively planned for Saturday, though some final details are still being decided, with a full opening set for some time within the next week.

The restaurant is currently hiring staff, with applicants asked to text 571-229-7467 or email [email protected].

H/t to @btj

Arlington Warms Up to New Streetlight Standards

By Vernon Miles

Arlington County’s streetlights are still cooler than the newly approved statewide levels, but they could be warming up.

The county is in the process of switching to the warmer, low-intensity Light Emitting Diode (LED) streetlights favored by dark sky enthusiasts and recommended by the American Medical Association. But those new lights could be years away for most of the county-owned stock.

The Kelvin color scale measures the appearance of light from 1,000 to 10,000 Kelvin (K), with lower temperatures creating a “warmer” orange or yellow light — similar to the older, sodium-vapor streetlights — and higher temperatures creating a “cooler” light in the white or slightly blue range.

Currently, 85 percent of Arlington’s 7,350 county-owned streetlights are LED operate at a cooler 5500K, which is similar to the color of moonlight, officials say. Arlington County will soon be releasing a new Streetlight Management Plan that will recommend a color temperature of 3000K for residential areas and 4000K for mixed-use areas, according to Katie O’Brien, spokeswoman for Arlington’s Department of Environmental Services.

The remaining older lights will be replaced at the end of their life cycle or whenever repairs or street improvements take place.

“This is applicable for streetlight installations moving forward,” said O’Brien. “This includes both new construction and replacements/upgrades. Current County-owned LED streetlights will be updated to new standards during regular maintenance or repairs.”

LED lights have a projected life cycle of 15 years or more, so the brighter and cooler lights kept in good condition could persist long after the standards are changed.

Virginia’s Commonwealth Board of Transportation voted last Wednesday to swap thousands of streetlights with warmer-colored LEDs. According to the legislation:

VDOT has ensured that the proposed LED Project has been designed to minimize lighting impacts to the environment and adjacent residents and property owners, including use of luminaires with a Correlated Color Temperature of 3000K where appropriate, while still providing proper illumination of the road in a way that best benefits road user safety and incident response.

Arlington is not the first locality to tone down its streetlight temperature levels. Chicago and nearby Takoma Park both lowered their streetlight levels to 3000K.

Dominion, which also operates thousands of streetlights in Arlington, is in the midst of its own LED conversion.

Free Donuts at Ballston Quarter Tomorrow

By Vernon Miles

District Doughnut is promoting its new location in Quarter Market — the Ballston Quarter mall’s new food hall — in the most popular way possible: free donuts.

The confectionary establishment is planning the donut party for tomorrow (Thursday) around 2 p.m. on the second level of the mall, across from Scout and Molly’s. The event is scheduled to last as long as there are still donuts to give out.

The eatery offers a range of donuts, from chocolate to various fruit flavors, though the website says the company does not offer gluten-free or vegan options.

District Doughnut is planning to open the Ballston Quarter location sometime within the next week, according to staff at another District Doughnut location.

Rosslyn-Based Ostendio Moves to Make Cybersecurity Auditing More Accessible

By Vernon Miles

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.

(Updated at 10:45) Ostendio wants to make it easier for users to see how much more — or less — secure they are compared to their peers.

The growing, Rosslyn-based cybersecurity startup has made some big changes over the last year and is making a push to make security auditing easier for smaller companies.

“We have just launched a major initiative called My VCM CrossWalk,” Miranda Elliott, a spokeswoman for Ostendio, said in an email. “It gives customers an easy way to showcase to an auditor that they are compliant to security regulations. More recently we launched a new web site to showcase our business and provide information to customers who are navigating a security program.”

Elliott said the program is aimed at managing risks for small and mid-size organizations who need to demonstrate compliance to security standards. The program is aimed at making it easy for a company to showcase their security ratings or find the help they need to get on track.

“We are just getting ready to enhance MyVCM with the launch of two new programs,” said Elliott. “One called Vendor Connect, which will allow an organization to push security assessment requirements to any of their vendors, and the other is called Auditor Connect, which will allow a third-party auditor to complete the audit from completely within the MyVCM platform.”

“Both… programs are an extension of our recently launched MyVCM CrossWalk Assessment,” Elliott added. “They make security audits more straight-forward and help our customers save time and money.”

The company also recently moved to a new location in Rosslyn. Elliott said being in Arlington offers the company a competitive advantage

“At the beginning of July we moved to a larger office in Arlington Tower to fit our growing team,” said Elliott. “We chose to stay in Arlington because our organization has grown around this area and we have been able to recruit a skilled, diverse team from the Greater D.C. area here. Our experience is that Rosslyn-Arlington gives us access to a diverse talent pool and is an excellent location for our team in terms of transit options and entertainment outside of work.”

If you’re in the area and interested in a job, Elliott said the company is currently looking for a data product manager.

Columbia Pike Startup Wants to be Uber for Oil Changes

By Vernon Miles

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.

Mechaniku is built on a simple frustration: no one likes waiting for their car to get worked on. So Mechaniku will work with users to have a mechanic sent out to change their oil.

The company is based along Columbia Pike, where co-founders Jesse Tyler and Clifton Hartsuff live.

“In a society fast becoming overtaken by technology I am shocked this is not already a common service provided in every city,” Tyler said. “We live in a world of convenience and I believe people will pay for this service because it ultimately makes lives easier. It takes a time-consuming and aggravating practice and simplifies it.”

The company currently only has one service: a full synthetic oil change in 30 minutes for $100. It’s a little pricey as far as oil changes go, which average a little under $50. But Tyler said the convenience is part of the cost.

“It’s about the convenience of having someone come to your home,” Tyler said. “We did one for a guy here on Columbia Pike… he said ‘I’ll pay $150 if it means I don’t have to get out of my pajamas and go sit in a line on Sunday morning.'”

Tyler said half of the $100 goes to the mechanic, while the other half goes to the company. The goal, Tyler said, is to connect qualified mechanics with freelance jobs to help make some money on the side.

In the future, Tyler said the company could expand to tire rotation and other light car maintenance jobs, but he’s in no rush to grow.

“I think several of the groups on the market with a similar model have made the mistake of trying to do everything instead of focusing on doing a service well and what they end up doing by trying to do everything is not doing a very good job of anything,” Tyler said. “We seek to be the best at offering on demand oil changes to our customers with the ultimate goal of providing excellent service and giving them time back.”

Tyler said the pricing and types of oil changes could also change over time as the company continues to refine its business model. The company’s app is currently available on Android and Tyler said the company is working to get it onto the Apple App Store on iOS.

“My father always told me not to reinvent the wheel,” said Tyler. “So we’ve taken an existing business and improved on it.”

Image via Mechaniku

New Rooftop Sign Planned in Crystal City

By Vernon Miles

Crystal City could be getting a new rooftop sign courtesy of the local WeWork.

A site plan amendment has been proposed to allow the company to place a rooftop sign at 2221 S. Clark Street. WeWork occupies the entire building, with a large co-working space and a WeLive co-living space.

Approval of the amendment is docketed for the Arlington County Board meeting this Saturday (July 13).

Arlington’s sign ordinance currently allows signs above 40 feet to be approved administratively, but the site plan for the building predates the ordinance change.

“It is no longer a standard site plan condition to require County Board approval of such signs,” staff said in a report on the amendment. “Therefore, staff recommends that the County Board adopt the attached ordinance approving a site plan amendment… for the building located at 2221 S. Clark St.”

Chick-fil-A Coming to Pentagon City

By Vernon Miles

It appears a new Chick-fil-A is coming to Pentagon City, alongside a new Wiseguy Pizza location.

Both locations are ground floor restaurants in the Witmer, a new 26-story luxury apartment at the corner of 12th Street S. and S. Hayes Street, amid the Pentagon Centre shopping center. The Chick-fil-A is located at the top of the Pentagon City Metro station on the east side of S. Hayes Street next to the CVS.

The next closest Chick-fil-A is the one in Crystal City at 2200 Crystal Drive.

There is no information on the Chick-fil-A website about the upcoming Pentagon City store opening. In fact, a Chick-fil-A spokeswoman would not even confirm to ARLnow that the building with a sign saying “Chick-fil-A Coming Soon” is, in fact, a Chick-fil-A:

We are always evaluating potential new locations in the hopes of serving existing and new customers great food with remarkable service. While we hope to be able to expand in Arlington in the future, we do not currently have a location to confirm.

H/t to @CuriousHenwin

Arlington Scales Up Community Energy Plan Ambitions Despite Feasibility Concerns

By Vernon Miles

Arlington County is working on plans to be “carbon neutral” by 2050.

The new goal comes is part of an ambitious update to the county’s current Community Energy Plan (CEP). It’s the result of community feedback that the earlier plan didn’t go far enough in addressing energy efficiency concerns, according to a staff report on the plan.

A pair of public hearings on the updates are expected to be scheduled for September at this weekend’s County Board meeting.

Carbon neutrality means reaching net zero metric tons of emissions each year. The idea behind the update is that, in 30 years, any carbon emissions would require some form of carbon offset in equivalent exchange.

The current plan, approved in 2013, targeted reaching three metric tons of CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent) per capita by 2050. The updated goal relies on technology that is still science fiction as of 2019 and admittedly strains the boundaries of what the County is allowed to promise.

“Arlington’s community leaders point to today’s climate science reports as a need for people to take action and for a stronger, bolder CEP,” the report noted. “It is important to note that Virginia is a Dillon Rule state, that is, local governments have limited authority, and can pass ordinances only in areas where the General Assembly has granted clear authority. A more aspirational 2050 target of zero metric tons of CO2e per capita per year simultaneously pushes the limits local jurisdictions have in Dillon Rule states, and assumes numerous technological advancements and disruptions take place.”

Rich Dooley, Arlington’s community energy coordinator, said the Dillon Rule also means Arlington can’t require developers to build energy-efficient buildings above what is required by the state, they can only continue to offer incentives like bonus density for going above-and-beyond the state’s standards.

Even so, the report on the update points to several places where Arlington could be more energy efficient, from requiring greater levels of energy efficiency in new buildings to prioritizing public transit infrastructure over cars.

Buildings currently use approximately 60 percent of all energy in Arlington, according to the update. The 2013 plan charted a gradual reduction in energy use in residential buildings, ending with 40 percent less energy usage in 2040, compared to 2007 levels. The update shifts that goal to a 38 percent reduction by 2050, compared to 2016 levels.

Arlington County would also need to significantly scale up its solar energy production and purchasing. The updated plan says by 2025, solar energy should supply 100 percent of government operations and by 2050, solar energy should supply half of all electricity use in Arlington.

Dooley noted that the plan is meant to be a high-level look at the goals and policies of the project, and some of the next steps include working on updating the “dated” implementation framework.

The report notes that the specific shift to a carbon-neutral goal by 2050 was partially the result of prodding from the Arlington County Board.

“During its work session deliberations, the County Board members noted the importance of acting now to address climate change while keeping in mind the other important CEP goals,” the update said. “The work session concluded with County Board guidance to staff to show in the 2019 CEP that the community should aspire to become Carbon Neutral by 2050.”

Dooley said that staff initially presented the update as being able to realistically reduce emissions to one metric ton, but the community spoke up at meetings and said the County should commit to going to fully carbon neutral.

“The County Board heard that and said ‘we can go ahead and get it there,'” Dooley said.

If the technology to help Arlington reach its 2050 goals doesn’t materialize over the next few years, Dooley said there carbon offsets the County can purchase.

The update also includes other renewable energy objectives for the nearer term:

  • Government operations will achieve 50% renewable electricity by 2022, and 100% renewable electricity by 2025.
  • The community will achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2035.

But other concerns remain that the plan might not be authorized by the state government or that it might fail to address consumer emissions — emissions associated with the local consumption of products that aren’t created in Arlington.

At the County Board meeting on Saturday, July 13, the Board is expected to approve advertisement of a public Planning Commission hearing on Sept. 9 and a public hearing at the County Board meeting on Sept. 21.

Image via Arlington County

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