Courthouse

Board Approves New Apartment Building Along Rt. 50

By ARLnow.com

A new 12-story apartment building will be coming to the Fort Myer Heights/Courthouse area as part of a plan to help preserve a historic garden apartment complex.

The planned 104-unit building will have a distinctive red brick facade, to match the adjacent Wakefield Manor, Wakefield Annex and Courthouse Manor garden apartments. The existing, three-story buildings — designed by the late, notable architect Mihran Mesrobian and given Arlington County’s highest historical designation — will be preserved “in perpetuity” as a result of the development.

The Arlington County Board voted unanimously on Saturday to approve the development and preservation plan. The new apartment building will be constructed at the corner of N. Troy Street and Fairfax Drive, overlooking Route 50. Currently, a surface parking lot sits on the future construction site.

In addition to helping with the county’s goal of preserving historic garden apartments, the development will tick a number of other boxes on the county’s priorities list. Mature trees on the site will be preserved. The new building will be built to LEED Silver environmental standards. The developer will contribute $75,000 to the county’s public art fund. And the developer will add a couple of units to the county’s committed affordable housing stock (or make a nearly $400,000 cash contribution to the county’s affordable housing fund).

“Three buildings, ranked ‘essential’ in Arlington’s Historic Resources Inventory, will now be preserved for future generations,” County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman said in a statement. “At the same time, a new, elegant building compatible with its historic neighbors will add 104 new homes to the Fort Myer Heights housing mix.”

A 179-space parking garage will be built under the new building. The parking structure will also have 38 bike parking space.

Bayou Bakery Owner Makes Today Show Appearance

By ARLnow.com

Bayou Bakery owner and chef David Guas made an appearance on the Today Show this morning.

Guas was featured in a cooking segment called “Hot Chef,” during the show’s 9:00 hour. The segment focused on seasonal, “all-American desserts” — specifically a blackberry and blueberry crumble, an apple-spiced upside down bundt cake and a “lemon icebox pie.” Guas showed hosts Al Roker and Tamron Hall how to make the desserts, while discussing the use of apples and other seasonal ingredients during the fall.

Bayou Bakery is located at 1515 N. Courthouse Road in Courthouse.

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Clarendon/Courthouse Verizon Outage Continues

By ARLnow.com

Hundreds of Verizon landline phone and DSL internet customers in the Clarendon and Courthouse area are still without service today, a week after a contractor taking a soil sample struck several cables buried under Rocky Run Park.

“Our restoral efforts continue,” Verizon spokesman Harry J. Mitchell told ARLnow.com this morning. “We’ve replaced and completed work on one of the damaged cables, and we’re at work on the second cable. We also found that a third cable was damaged, and we’ll be replacing a section of that one as well.”

The cables contain thousands of individual copper lines, which carry phone conversations and internet service to hundreds of Verizon customers in the area. Each copper line must be painstakingly spliced together to restore service. On Wednesday, Mitchell said employees were working around the clock to perform the repairs.

“We will keep at it until we’ve restored all services,” he said today.

One tipster, whose phone service was knocked offline last week, says he has been told to expect a prolonged outage.

“I was told that customers could easily be out of service through Friday,” the tipster said.

Investigation Near County Office Building

By ARLnow.com

Updated at 8:55 a.m. — ART reports that the scene in front of the county building is now clear and buses are running normally.

Roads are closed in front of the county office building at 2100 Clarendon Boulevard, in Courthouse, while authorities investigate a suspicious envelope.

Police were unable to provide any additional information about the investigation, but a photo of the scene shows the county’s Bomb Squad truck and a Bomb Squad member in full blast gear.

ART bus routes 41, 62 and 77 are delayed due to the closures.

Photo courtesy Tim Kelley

Police Respond to Dispute at Kitty O’Shea’s

By ARLnow.com

There was more bad blood over the shuttering of Courthouse-area Irish pub Kitty O’Shea’s (2403 Wilson Blvd) this afternoon.

The pub closed over the weekend, the culmination of a long legal battle between owner Danny McFadden and landlord Ray Schupp over McFadden’s lease. Today, just after 3:00 p.m., police were called to Kitty O’Shea’s for a dispute.

McFadden told ARLnow.com that he was moving items out of the building and got into a disagreement with the landlord over what belonged to whom. Police told the two parties to resolve the issue amongst themselves, McFadden said.

Within the past five minutes, police were called to the pub again after McFadden said the landlord had changed the locks.

Attempted Sexual Assault Near Courthouse

By ARLnow.com

Arlington Police are looking for a man suspected of trying to sexually assault one woman and improperly touching another last Friday.

The crimes took place near the Rosslyn and Courthouse areas.

Police say the man is first suspected of running up to a woman on the 1700 block of N. Quinn Street, near the 7-Eleven store, and grabbing her buttocks. That happened around 11:20 Friday night.

Then, a half hour later, the man allegedly knocked a woman to the ground on the 1800 block of N. Veitch Street, a couple of blocks from the Courthouse Metro station. Police say the man covered the woman’s head with his shirt, pulled at her shirt and “asked for sex.” Another woman who was walking with the victim ran off and called police. Police describe the crime as an attempted sexual assault.

Here are the two incidents as described in Monday’s daily police report:

ATTEMPT SEXUAL ASSAULT, 08/27/11, 1800 block of N. Veitch Street. On August 26 at 11:50 pm, two women were walking when an unknown man ran up to them. He knocked one woman to the ground covering her head with his blue plaid shirt. The suspect pulled at her shirt and asked for sex. The second female ran and called police. The suspect is described as an African American male in his late 20’s and 5’10”. He was wearing a white t-shirt and carrying his other shirt.

SEXUAL BATTERY, 08/26/11, 1700 block of N. Quinn Street. On August 26 at 11:20 pm, a woman was walking when an unknown man ran up and grabbed her buttocks. The suspect was a man in his 30’s with a dark complexion, 5’10” with a thin build. He was wearing a blue or green plaid button up shirt. This suspect is similar in description to the above incident.

Four Courts to Hold Grand Reopening Tomorrow

By ARLnow.com

Damaged by a fire in April, Ireland’s Four Courts in Courthouse (2051 Wilson Blvd) rose from the ashes and used its misfortune as an opportunity to revamp its offerings.

Now, with a new look, a new chef, an expanded menu, and expended beer and whiskey offerings Four Courts is gearing up to hold a grand reopening party.

The event, which is also being held to commemorate “4C’s” 15th anniversary, will take place from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. tomorrow, Aug. 31.

“The Four Courts opened its doors during the high-flying 90’s, when Dolly the Sheep and the dot-com boom dominated the headlines,” said General Manager Dave Cahill. “Although we can’t go back in time, we can celebrate the many faithful fans who’ve been patronizing this pub since 1996 and now have families of their own.”

For said families, Four Courts will be offering free food for kids every day between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. (between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays), with the purchase of an “adult food item.”

Continuing the ’90s theme, the pub is promising to “roll back the prices of its European and domestic draft beers to those of the booming 90’s” tomorrow.

Kitty O’Shea’s Closing Following Legal Battle

By ARLnow.com

Kitty O’Shea’s, the unpretentious Irish pub at 2403 Wilson Boulevard in Courthouse, will be closing this weekend, according to a note on the pub’s web site.

“Saturday, August 27, is our last day of operation,” the note says. “Feel free to express your displeasure with Schupp Companies – Park Street Development.”

Kitty O’Shea’s owner Danny McFadden has been engaged in a costly legal battle with his landlord, the Schupp Companies, over what McFadden says is an attempt to evict him so the property can be redeveloped. McFadden claims that he still has four more years on his lease, while landlord Ray Schupp says the lease ended in 2010.

“He’s been trying to force me out,” McFadden said in an interview last week. “I’ve spent hundreds of thousands fighting this case… I guess they think that I’m going to go away, that when my money runs out I’m going to close shop. As far as I’m concerned, my lease runs to 2015.”

When we talked last week, McFadden said he was appealing a court decision against him to the Virginia Supreme Court, with the hope that it would give him some additional time to look for a new space to lease in Arlington. Now, he says he’s being forced to move out despite the appeal. McFadden is considering transferring his employees to Murphy’s Law, a pub he owns in the Tenleytown neighborhood of D.C., while the appeal goes through the court system over the next 4-5 months.

Last year the state Supreme Court ruled against McFadden in his effort to appeal his eviction. McFadden said he was seeking a trial by a jury, but instead has been subject to early rulings by judges.

“I’ve asked for jury trials, I haven’t had a day in court,” he said. “Every case is a summary judgment for the landlord.”

It’s not clear what will replace Kitty O’Shea’s at this point. The entire block is currently subject to a rezoning request, which would convert it from a low-rise commercial zone to a higher density mixed-use residential zone. An earlier attempt by Schupp to rezone the block for use as a hotel was shot down in 2009.

County staff have voiced support for the current rezoning proposal, which would likely result in a new apartment complex being built on the site. But Schupp says that it could be 2-5 years before the necessary rezoning, financing and permitting process go through. In the meantime, he’s looking for a new business to lease the space on a short-term basis.

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UPDATED: Bomb Squad Investigates Threat at Americans for Prosperity Office

By ARLnow.com

Update at 12:15 p.m. — The scene has been cleared and employees are being allowed back into the office.

Earlier: Arlington County’s bomb squad is investigating some sort of bomb threat inside an office building in Courthouse.

Initial reports suggest the threat was made to the conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, at 2111 Wilson Boulevard. Bomb-sniffing dogs from the Arlington County Police Department and Virgina State Police are on the scene. Americans for Prosperity employees have been evacuated, but employees in other offices have been allowed to remain.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) has been the source of some controversy recently. Among other incidents, the group was accused of sending error-filled ballots to Democrats in Wisconsin during a contentious election this month.

David H. Koch and Charles G. Koch, the original founders of AFP’s predecessor organization, have been major supporters of numerous conservative causes. The New Yorker has reported that Americans for Prosperity provides organizational and financial support to the Tea Party movement.

County Employee Recounts Chasing Down Robbery Suspect

By ARLnow.com

By night, Juan Rivera is a mild-mannered conga player and salsa dancer. By day, he’s an undercover crime fighter.

At least, that’s the role Rivera played Tuesday, when he helped to chase down a man who tried to rob a woman at an ATM machine in Courthouse Plaza.

Rivera, an employee in the county’s Commissioner of Revenue office, had just picked up sushi across the street from his office when he saw a man running and someone yelling “thief!” Dressed in a shirt and tie and still holding his to-go box of sushi, Rivera gave chase. Soon, he was joined by two other men, one of whom was calling police on his cell phone. The suspect, a tall, physically imposing man in his mid-20s, tried to flee into a nearby residential neighborhood.

“We went after him, he hid [behind] some houses, and I was like, hey he must be in one of these houses, because he just turned around the corner and disappeared,” Rivera recounted. “So we went looking and he was there. There was some verbal confrontation between him and the other person who was chasing him. Then he ran back into the houses, jumped a couple of fences to keep going, and we were right behind him and jumped a couple of fences, too. When he got to the last fence, which was really high, the police came from the left-hand side and caught him.”

So why did Rivera decide to chase after the man, ignoring the potential danger involved?

“To me, that’s just common sense. That’s just how i do things,” he said. “If someone gets robbed, to me, the people should react in a helpful manner. But there were only three of us that reacted. I didn’t go to tackle the guy… but at least participate in assisting this person who was just robbed.”

“It’s kind of sad to see how little participation there was,” Rivera continued. “I live in Columbia Heights in D.C., and if that would have happened there that guy would have not gotten farther than a block. People over there, they’re going to participate. The men there, if something happens to a woman, they just go.”

“Some kids might just do it for the fun of beating someone up,” he added with a laugh.

Once the suspect was in police custody, Rivera headed back to the office, slightly sweaty but with his sushi still in hand. He told his supervisor what happened, and was granted an extra 15 minutes to finish his lunch. Then, he got back to work. Yesterday afternoon, the victim — also a county employee — came and thanked him.

As it turns out, the suspect never got any of the victim’s cash. She was able to break free from the suspect’s choke hold, cancel the ATM transaction and yell for help, according to police. The suspect, identified as 26-year-old James Williams of no fixed address, has been charged with attempted robbery as well as grand larceny, from a previous warrant.

As for Rivera, he’s taking his five minutes of fame — which included an interview with NBC4 — in stride. After all, he’s already used to the spotlight, given that he plays the conga in two bands.

“It’s not a big deal to me,” he said of the new-found attention.

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