As part of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce’s Secrets to Success live podcast series, we interviewed Alex Villanueva, the founder and CEO of Arlington-based free ride service Sprynt.
We asked Alex about his startup and its business model, and how he got his start. This podcast was recorded live at 1776 in Crystal City. Thank you to the Chamber and our podcast sponsor, Crystal City.
Listen below or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher or TuneIn.
Police and firefighters are on scene of a rollover crash on Wilson Blvd involving an Arlington County Park Ranger.
A car reportedly struck the back of the park ranger’s SUV, causing it to flip on its roof. Wilson Blvd is currently blocked at Patrick Henry, near Upton Hill Regional Park, while police investigate and the wreckage is cleared.
No serious injuries were reported.
Update at 1:20 p.m. — The westbound lanes of Wilson Blvd have reopened.
County Focused on Child Care — “Demand for child care in Arlington is high and the County is working with business owners and families to meet the increasing needs. Preliminary steps also are underway to map out a comprehensive Child Care Initiative that establishes an action plan to advance the availability, accessibility, and quality of childcare in Arlington.” [Arlington County]
GGW Urges Support for Accessory Apartments — The website Greater Greater Washington is urging its readers to write to the Arlington County Board in support of two proposals: lowering parking minimums for buildings near Metro stations, and “reforming overly burdensome regulations on accessory apartments.” [Greater Greater Washington]
Yankee Stadium Operator to Run Rosslyn Observation Deck — JBG Smith has hired New York City-based Legends to run the public observation deck at the top of its Central Place tower in Rosslyn. Legends also operates Yankee Stadium, Angel Stadium in Anaheim, AT&T Stadium in Dallas and the One World Observatory at One World Trade Center. The 12,000 square foot Central Place observation deck will feature “an outdoor cantilevered terrace and full food and beverage program,” plus panoramic views. [Washington Business Journal]
Ballston Building Sells for $72 Million — New York-based property investment group Westbrook Partners has acquired the Two Liberty Center office building, at 4075 Wilson Blvd in Ballston, for $72 million. [Commercial Property Executive]
Ballston BID CEO on Redevelopment — Ballston Business Improvement District CEO Tina Leone says changes along the Ballston corridor, including extensive renovations to the former Ballston Common Mall (now Ballston Quarter), are having a ripple effect. “This redevelopment has spurred on like 10 other projects here,” she said. “The face of Ballston is going to change again in the next three to five years, it’s going to look so different. I know it’s just going to be better.” [Washington Business Journal]
Reminder: No Parking Meter Enforcement Today — Parking meters in Arlington will not be enforced today, due to the Veterans Day observation, but meters will be enforced tomorrow. [ARLnow]
Winter is coming (for the weekend) a month early, while &pizza quibbles with @pizza, the Shay loses yet another tenant, the National Park Service wants to ban sports from the National Mall, and other news of the day over in the District.
A cyclist was seen riding down the street in Courthouse yesterday, mooning every driver and pedestrian in his path.
Police were called around 3:45 p.m. for “a report of a male traveling by bicycle with his buttocks exposed in the area of N. Veitch Street at Wilson Boulevard,” according to Arlington County Police Department spokeswoman Ashley Savage.
An ARLnow.com contractor witnessed the odd sight and said the man rode his bike into the nearby Key Elementary parking lot. Police, however, were unable to locate him.
“A lookout was broadcast and a search of the area by officers was negative,” Savage said.
Twelve officers from the Arlington County Police Department will be deployed to Puerto Rico to help the island recover from Hurricane Maria.
The officers will deploy in three staggered teams from tomorrow (Friday, November 10) until December 18. The teams will spend 16 days each in Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico requested assistance through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which is the national emergency management mutual aid system that facilitates state-to-state disaster assistance.
“I am proud that our officers are willing to dedicate their time to provide the citizens of Puerto Rico with an added sense of security in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria,” Police Chief Jay Farr said in a statement. “Our officers take an oath to serve and protect and their willingness to deploy shows their commitment and dedication, not just to the Arlington County community, but to citizens everywhere.”
The 55 percent of registered voters who turned out to vote in Tuesday’s election was the highest percentage turnout in an non-presidential year since the early 1990s, according to figures from the county’s elections office.
It was the highest turnout in a gubernatorial election year in Arlington since 1993, when 56 percent of registered voters turned out as Republican George Allen triumphed over Democratic nominee and then-Attorney General Mary Sue Terry.
The county’s highest turnout in a governor election since 1958, the first year of reliable statistics, was in 1981 and 1989 when it hit 60 percent for both years.
(This year’s turnout did set a local record for highest number of votes cast in a gubernatorial election, thanks in part to population growth.)
Inside-the-Beltway VA increased turnout 10 percentage points over 4 years ago, @vpapupdates reports. Thank you, voters, volunteers & donors! pic.twitter.com/9a7k9bE1En
— Arlington Democrats (@arlingtondems) November 8, 2017
Arlington County voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic ticket of Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax and Mark Herring for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively.
Northam (D) took 68,315 votes in Arlington out of 1.4 million statewide, ahead of Republican Ed Gillespie with 16,160 in Arlington and 1.1 million across Virginia.
Fairfax garnered 66,687 votes in Arlington of 1.3 million statewide, ahead of state Sen. Jill Vogel’s 17,594 in the county and 1.2 million total. And Herring won re-election with 67,111 votes ahead of John Adams’ 17,366 votes, winning the statewide count with 1.3 million to Adams’ 1.2 million.
In an email to supporters on Wednesday morning, Arlington County Republican Committee chair Jim Presswood said that while the ticket suffered a “tough loss,” the GOP will be back in Virginia:
Our canvass operation was typically among the top three in the Commonwealth. We knocked over 10,000 doors last Saturday. You represented our party and our conservative values well.
Despite yesterday’s results, I am confident about our prospects over the longer term. The Democrats ran a campaign focused on what they are against. Their governing vision, however, simply won’t solve the problems facing our Commonwealth and country.
You’ve heard, by now, the big news over at DCist. Exactly one week ago, a scrappy, vital link in the increasingly fragile local news ecosystem was unceremoniously snuffed out by a union-busting billionaire.
I’m deeply proud of the work we accomplished at DCist in my two-year tenure as editor-in-chief, which was made possible by the dedication and creativity of multitudes of writers who came before us. The archives of the site serve as a record of a growing city, an encyclopedia of 13 years of life in the nation’s capital that was by turns hilarious, enraging, informative, and never boring.
As a journalistic endeavor, we aimed to be a knowledgeable friend, a site where you could have found an enterprise investigation into failing playing fields and detailed coverage of inauguration protesters next to updates about the latest protest and information about how to stream free movies courtesy of the public library. In between, we dug up stories about a bartender who inadvertently got thousands of calls from C-SPAN viewers, chronicled how black yogis are changing the largely white yoga community, warned you not to let your dog poop on this guy’s lawn, and so much more.
Each day, we started that wide-ranging conversation with our “Morning Roundup,” a compendium of the stories that we were reading and thought our audience would want to peruse as well. There’s still excellent and vital journalism happening around town. So until further notice, and without further ado, I’ll be rounding up dozen or so of the stories each day that continue to chronicle and change life in the District of Columbia.
ACPD Urges Caution on Roads As Days Get Shorter — “The days are getting shorter and there’s increased pedestrian and bicyclist traffic after dark,” the Arlington County Police Department said in a public service tweet last night. “Slow down, remain alert and proceed with care and caution.” [Twitter, Twitter]
History: Fort Myer During World War I — A Library of Congress collection includes 100-year-old photographs showing what life was like on Fort Myer during World War I. The photos show a visit from President Woodrow Wilson and the famous “Three Sisters” radio towers. [Pentagram]
Redskins Visit Fort Myer, Play Video Games — Former Washington Redskins players Santana Moss and Fred Smoot visited Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and engaged in a Madden 18 video game tournament with some of the men and women in uniform. [WUSA 9]
Notable Tree Nomination Deadline Approaching — November 15 is the application deadline for submitting a tree for consideration as a 2018 Arlington County “notable tree.” [Arlington County]
The closure of DCist and its sister sites in other cities last week was a big loss for local journalism.
For hundreds of thousands of monthly readers, DCist was a one-stop shop for news about the District. It also featured the work of talented local writers who covered arts and culture in the city.
While there are other outlets that cover news and happenings in the District, there is nothing that will fully replace DCist. However, we are going to try to fill at least some of the void left by its closure.
Starting tomorrow morning, former DCist editor-in-chief Rachel Sadon will be publishing a daily D.C. news link roundup here on ARLnow.
We’re calling it “Meanwhile in DC,” and it will feature links to just about everything you need to know about the day’s local news in the District. Plus, whenever possible, it will include links to the work of former DCist writers who are now covering their food, arts and culture beats elsewhere.
We think this will be a great resource for ARLnow and former DCist readers alike, and can give the DCist community a new place to congregate. However, for now it’s envisioned as a temporary resource — a sort of “popup” feature on the site, while the local news ecosystem adjusts to the big void left by DCist. There is no timeframe for how long it will run, but we hope you enjoy it.
A robbery suspect took an ill-fated getaway route onto the grounds of the Pentagon last Thursday afternoon, according to this week’s Arlington County Police Department crime report.
The 26-year-old Maryland man had allegedly stolen items from a store in the Pentagon City mall and pushed away two security guards during his getaway. He then ran outside and tried to hail a taxicab but ended up continuing to flee on foot, according to the police report.
After jumping a fence into a Pentagon parking lot, he was taken into custody by Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers and handed over to ACPD. More from the crime report:
ROBBERY, 2017-11020174, 1000 block of S. Hayes Street. At approximately 2:57 p.m. on November 2, officers responded to the report of a larceny in progress. Upon arrival it was determined that a subject exited a business with merchandise concealed. A loss prevention officer attempted to stop the suspect, but was pushed away. The suspect dropped the bag of merchandise and fled, pushing away a second loss prevention officer attempting to stop him. While fleeing the mall, the suspect forced exit, causing damage to the door. The suspect unsuccessfully tried to flee in a stopped taxi and then headed on foot in the direction of the Pentagon. Officers canvased the area and were alerted by Officers with the Pentagon Force Protection Agency of a suspect, matching the description, who had jumped a fence into the parking lot. Trayvon Chappell, 26, of Suitland, MD, was arrested and charged with Robbery, Larceny with Intent to Sell, Possession of Burglarous Tools, and Destruction of Property.
Also in this week’s crime report was another incident in Pentagon City, which occurred last night (Tuesday) around 5:30 p.m. According to scanner traffic, a theft suspect near the Unleashed pet store on Pentagon Row became combative and tried to out-muscle a pair of officers. The officers struggled with the suspect before deploying a Taser to subdue him.
More from ACPD:
ASSAULT ON POLICE, 2017-11070236, 1100 block of S. Hayes Street. At approximately 5:32 p.m. on November 7, police were dispatched to the report of a larceny that just occurred. The arriving officer met with security guards who identified the suspect in the area of S. Hayes Street. As the officer attempted to stop the suspect to conduct the investigation, the suspect became combative, pushed the officers and resisted arrest. When the suspect failed to comply with officer’s commands, a Taser was deployed and the suspect was taken into custody. Denarmbi Marshall, 32, of Washington D.C. was arrested and charged with petit larceny, obstruction of justice and assault on police (x2). He was held on no bond.
The rest of this past week’s crime report highlights, including some that we’ve already reported, after the jump.
