Bar Ivy in Clarendon, which has started serving as part of its soft opening (courtesy photo)
There are plenty of reasons to celebrate this weekend.
The Columbia Pike Blues Festival is back. For many, it’s a three-day weekend for the Juneteenth federal holiday, and Sunday marks Father’s Day.
When making plans, keep in mind there will be road closures for a few events. The Blues Festival and the Zero Prostate Cancer 5k Run/Walk will shut down several roads in the county on Saturday.
A boat in the Potomac as clouds move in over Rosslyn (Staff Photo by Jay Westcott)
A group is seeking to make it legal to swim in the Potomac again.
The Potomac Riverkeeper Network is working to get D.C. to lift its decades-old swimming ban, saying that the Potomac is now clean enough for safe swimming in certain parts of the river. From the group’s website:
Swimming has been illegal in the Potomac in DC since 1971, when the river was plagued with sewage and toxic chemicals. Passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972 led to gradually improving water quality, and our community science monitoring shows that the Potomac in DC is often clean enough to swim at public access points such as the Tidal Basin, Hains Point and Fletcher’s Cove. PRKN will mark the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act in 2022 by seeking a formal commitment by Mayor Bowser and the DC Council to lift the ban on swimming in the Potomac and to work with the National Park Service to identify safe places for people to swim.
As the Potomac is under the jurisdiction of D.C. from shoreline to shoreline, the swimming ban applies to waters adjacent to Arlington and Alexandria as well.
Boat traffic, dangerous currents, and other hazards mean that not everywhere on the river is suitable for swimming. But the idea of a public beach with lifeguards on the river could be appealing, especially during the hottest summer days.
(For the record, the group advocating for an Arlington boathouse says a public beach adjacent to the facility — which will be near Roosevelt Island and Rosslyn — has not been under consideration. “That has never come up before in our discussions as a group,” George Kirschbaum of the Arlington Boathouse Foundation tells ARLnow.)
Given the ongoing swimming discussion, we’re wondering what percentage of readers would actually go for a dip in the river, if given a chance.
Bear spotted in Arlington Monday (photo courtesy Animal Welfare League of Arlington)
It’s been a bear-y interesting week in Arlington.
Two of the stories that most interested ARLnow readers, as of noon today, featured a roaming bear.
Local officials have been tight-lipped on the animal’s most recent sightings, as they’ve urged residents to keep their distance. The Animal Welfare League of Arlington has also asked residents to secure garbage, compost piles and pet food, take down bird feeders and clean up porches and decks.
Now, here are the most-read Arlington articles of the past week.
“We need more roundabouts in Arlington. Where else can we get new green space around here?”
Now that Mike Mount is Arlington famous we’re going to highlight another of his local cartoons a bit earlier in the month than usual.
This past weekend Mike took on the hot button topic (on Nextdoor in North Arlington, at least) of roundabouts. If you think of them as circular neighborhood parks, maybe (for the critics) roundabouts are not so bad after all?
Catch all of Mike’s ‘toons in the ARLnow Press Club weekend newsletter.
Summer is here and the local news cycle is slowing down.
After a blistering pace of coverage for most of the year, we’ve reached a point where we need to dig a bit deeper to find worthwhile stories. And while next week’s County Board meeting will help to fill our story planning rundowns, beyond that things may get even slower.
So this is the perfect time to ask our readers: what should we consider covering?
Something utilitarian, like a list of potential summer activities in a given category
Or a news story or scoop that we have not yet reported
Post ideas as individual comments in the comment section below, and upvote the ideas you think have particular merit. We’ll consider those that seem to have traction in terms of upvotes and which are feasible in terms of what would be required to report on it.
Note that there are, naturally, some thus-far unreported stories that we are aware of and planning to cover in the coming days. If you want to know what we’re planning to cover ahead of time, consider joining the ARLnow Press Club for the Early Morning Notes newsletter.
Boeing HQ in Crystal City (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Arlington is becoming a bonafide destination for corporate headquarters.
Three of the top 100 largest U.S. companies now have a headquarters — in the case of Amazon, a second headquarters — in the nation’s smallest self-governing county.
Those are in addition to other companies that top Fortune lists which already all Arlington home: utility company AES (#333), conglomerate Graham Holdings (#804), apartment developer AvalonBay Communities (#960) and the U.S. operations of Nestle (global #79).
The Raytheon and Boeing moves come with an asterisk, however — they’re more of an address change and will mostly utilize office space the companies already have here. Few employees will be moving here for either HQ, besides the CEO. And the primary reason Arlington was chosen was proximity to a certain five-sided building here, as well as a white building and a domed building across the river.
Still, there is a prestige factor that comes with being the headquarters for a major international company, including lots of nationalheadlines, plus ancillary economic benefits like more business travel and lodging, greater interest from other potential relocating companies, etc.
In statements, Arlington County officials are touting the news as a point of pride.
Statement from Katie Cristol, Arlington County Board Chair
“We welcome the decision of Raytheon Technologies, a leader in the aerospace and defense industry and long-standing member of our business community, to bring its global headquarters to Arlington,” said Katie Cristol, Arlington County Board Chair. “Today’s announcement demonstrates how Arlington’s proximity to the decision-makers of D.C. and its welcoming, business-friendly climate are key factors for top companies. We are honored to work alongside Raytheon and welcome its global headquarters into our community.”
Statement from Shannon Flanagan-Watson, Interim Director, Arlington Economic Development
“Raytheon’s announcement, as well as that of Boeing last month, show that more companies are choosing Arlington for their headquarters. Our skilled, highly-educated workforce, key investments in public infrastructure, and our exceptional tech ecosystem are factors companies desire when locating a company. We welcome Raytheon’s global headquarters and look forward to their continued presence in Arlington.”
This morning we’re wondering how locals are reacting to all of this. Are the new headquarters boosting your sense of civic pride? Or do you view the news as neutral or negative for Arlington?
The latter was premised on the need for more performance venues in a place like Arlington.
“Clarendon, historically, has had several live music venues and we saw a few of them fall away,” B Live co-owner Mike Bramson told ARLnow in an interview that published yesterday. “The only remaining live music venue was the Renegade. They do a fantastic job and that’s a great venue, but we felt that historically there was always more than just one live music venue… there should be more than one option for live music as most towns and cities have.”
Of course, our larger neighbor just across the river has a much wider variety of music venues, from the 9:30 Club to Echostage to U Street Music Hall to Pearl Street Warehouse — and plenty more. It’s certainly nice to stay in Arlington for a night out, but whatever we lack here is available in D.C. within a reasonable Uber or Metro ride.
Nonetheless, Arlington continues to grow and has a large population of younger adults who value experiences like live music. And Clarendon is a regional draw — Northern Virginia’s most prominent bar district — so it’s not just Arlington residents that such venues attract.
Today we’re asking whether readers think the pair of live music venues we have now is enough, or whether more are needed.
“Police Warn Against Leaving Keys Inside Vehicles,” blared the headline of the release, providing some salient but seemingly obvious advice for residents. The continued theft of cars that were left with keys inside is the topic of this month’s featured Mike Mount cartoon.
Flags in at Arlington National Cemetery on 5/26/22 (staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Happy Memorial Day weekend, Arlington.
We hope you’re able to get some rest and reflection in after this long week. Once we push past some rain this evening, it’s looking like sunny skies, high temps and grilling weather through Monday.
Now, here are the most-read Arlington articles of the past week.
Traffic on I-395 looking south as the sun sets (Staff photo by Jay Westcott)
The Memorial Day holiday weekend is almost here and with it comes the kickoff to the unofficial summer travel season.
AAA expects 39.2 million people will travel 50 miles or more this weekend, an increase of 8.3% over 2021. Most — nearly 35 million — will travel by car. Another 3 million will travel by air, a 25% increase from last year, the automobile association predicts.
Overall, that’s still down from the pre-pandemic 2019 figures of 42.8 million overall travelers, including 3.22 million air travelers.
When we asked ARLnow readers about their upcoming travel plans last month, 27% said they had no plans at the time to spend 2+ nights away from home this summer, while 60% said they were planning between one and three trips.
Of course, this Memorial Day weekend comes amid yet another Covid wave that, while less deadly than past waves, still means plenty of disruption to plans and apprehension about visiting vulnerable loved ones. Then there are those sky-high gas prices — a national average of $4.60 per gallon, per AAA.
With all that in mind, today we’re asking readers: are you planning to travel this weekend? And we’ll be comparing the results to a similar poll in 2013 when just shy of 35% said yes (at the time, the federal government sequester was blamed for dampening D.C. area residents’ enthusiasm for holiday travel).
