Crystal City

County Board Meeting Roundup

By ARLnow.com

In case you wanted to enjoy Saturday morning outside rather than spend it inside watching the first county board meeting following the summer break, here’s a summary of what happened.

  • The board responded to public criticism of reduced library hours. Chairman Jay Fisette said “difficult choices had to be made.” The Sun Gazette has more.
  • The board approved an amendment that authorizes the Arlington Mill Community Center project to move forward without an originally-approved residential component. A developer initially wanted to build a mixed use and a residential building on the site, but ran into financial difficulties. Instead of a five-story building that would consist of apartments and a 39,000 square foot public community center space, Arlington Mill will now be a five-story, 64,500 square foot stand-alone community center. The ground breaking is scheduled for the spring of 2011, and the community center is expected to open in the spring of 2013.
  • The board approved a sign plan for the TD Bank at 5510 Lee Highway that included two lighted wall signs frowned upon by county staff. In his presentation to the board, a TD Bank representative spoke of the company’s frustration with the county’s stringent sign plan process. It took nearly two and a half years from when the initial design for the bank was approved to Saturday’s approval of the sign plan. That’s despite the fact that the signs were present in the bank’s initial design and received no objections from the local civic associations.
  • A landlord withdrew its request to convert retail space in Crystal City Shops into office space.
  • The board voted to protect six “specimen trees” at the request of four Arlington residents.

Road in Crystal City to Get Tattooed

By ARLnow.com

Update on 10/15/10: The road tattoo has been rescheduled for Sunday, Oct. 17, TBD reports.

Weather permitting, New York artist Steed Taylor and a team of volunteers will “tattoo” a street in Crystal City on Sunday.

Taylor has painted his road tattoos on streets and paths in the District, New York City, North Carolina, Arizona, and even China. Now, he’s coming to Crystal City to create a tattoo on 18th Street between Bell Street and Crystal Drive.

The tattooing is expected to begin at 7:00 Sunday morning and last several hours. However, the forecast is currently calling for rain on Sunday, which could delay the tattoo creation until next week.

Board to Hear Grocery Store-Related Proposal for Crystal City

By ARLnow.com

It’s a rather unglamorous item on Saturday’s county board agenda, but behind the mundane particulars of a site plan amendment to turn retail space into office space is an issue near and dear to the hearts of many Crystal City residents: the potential for a neighborhood grocery store.

The firm that operates the underground shops at 2100 Crystal Drive wants to take 5,661 square feet of open retail space and convert it to office and storage use. But that would come at the expense of a vacant 17,919 square foot space that, until 2005, housed a Safeway store. The landlord has been trying to find another grocery tenant, but has been fighting a strong headwind caused by the weak national economy and the imminent departure of 13,000 jobs from the Crystal City area.

Essentially, the request to convert vacant space to an office use is a white flag — an admission that after five years of trying to market the space to grocery stores, leasing agents have come to the conclusion that no one wants to run a 17,919 square foot grocery store in the Crystal City underground at this time. While keeping open the possibility of a smaller, Trader Joe’s-sized market, the landlord is trying to find a way — any way — to productively fill some of the excess space.

But the county board may not allow that to happen. County staff is recommending that the site plan amendment be denied and that the space remain open for a potential grocery store. While acknowledging the difficulty in finding a suitable tenant, staff argues that it’s important to “retain the potential for a use that would activate the public realm and/or have a higher value to the community.”

County staff concludes that the space should be retained for retail or for “civic and culturally-oriented uses.” Besides, staff notes, BRAC will leave plenty of vacant office space for the landlord’s potential 5,661 square foot tenant.

The board is expected to take up the matter on Saturday. Then, on Tuesday, an item with far wider-reaching consequences will be considered: the 40-year Crystal City Sector Plan.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Crystal City Serves Up Latin Flare — On Sunday, food and wine lovers flocked to Crystal City for the consumption bonanza known as Vintage Crystal. Now in its fourth year, Vintage Crystal continued last year’s Latin theme. There were South American wines, tequila tastings, salsa dancers and lots and lots of food. See more photos on Flickr.

Capital Bikeshare Gets New York Times Write-up — The Old Gray Lady spent some time in Arlington recently to preview the Capital Bikeshare system, which officially launched yesterday. Not content to give Arlington and DC all the spotlight for hosting the largest bike share system in the country, the Times noted that New York is studying a possible bike sharing program of its own: 30,000 bikes, nearly 30 times as many as Washington’s modest collection of 1,100 custom-designed Capital Bikeshare cycles. More from the New York Times.

Arlington Real Estate Down a Bit in August — According to data from local Realtor Laura Rubinchuk, the average residential real estate sale price in Arlington fell 2 percent last month. Overall, Rubinchuk says the market is holding steady. More from Arlington Real Estate News.

Park(ing) Day Fun in Rosslyn — The Ode Street Tribune catches some urban hula hooping on tape during Friday’s quirky Park(ing) Day celebration.

Flickr photo by Cliff1066

Arlington Represented at the Capital Bikeshare Launch

By ARLnow.com

This morning, DC and Arlington leaders held a big ol’ press corral down at Navy Yard to mark the launch of the Capital Bikeshare system. The event featured balloons, bright red Bikeshare bikes lined up in neat rows like soldiers in a North Korean military parade, and a soon-to-be ex-mayor trying to avoid his post-election Dukakis moment.

Along the Arlington folks on hand were County Board Chairman Jay Fisette, Crystal City BID president Angela Fox and board member Walter Tejada.

Bloggers at Greater Greater Washington and TheWashCycle are predicting big things for Capital Bikeshare, which is putting 1,100 bikes in rental stations across the District, Crystal City and Pentagon City. TBD, meanwhile, is taking a wait-and-see approach, while pronouncing that the lead-up to the Bikeshare launch has consisted of “lots and lots of hype.”

One Year to BRAC Deadline, Most Workers Are Still Here

By ARLnow.com

As of today, there’s exactly one year left to go until the deadline for 17,000 Department of Defense workers to move out of Arlington as a result of the Base Realignment and Closing Act. The vast majority of those workers, it turns out, are still here.

Only about 1,000 workers have left as a result of BRAC, estimates Andrea Morris, BRAC coordinator for Arlington County.

Morris says there will be a slow trickle of BRAC moves for the next six months. But starting in May 2011, the floodgates will open. After the initial wave in May, BRACed jobs will continue to leave Arlington at a staggered pace up to the Sept. 15, 2011 deadline.

Some of those moves may be delayed by a bill currently being considered by the U.S. Senate. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), would delay the move of 6,400 workers to Alexandria’s Mark Center project until transportation bottlenecks can be solved. The bill has been approved by the House but has yet to come out of committee in the Senate.

The area with the most to lose from BRAC is Crystal City. With 3 million of the 4.2 million square feet of BRAC-affected office space in Arlington (much of the remainder is in Rosslyn), Crystal City will be noticeably emptier after BRACed employees leave.

“I think it is going to be noticeable, absolutely,” said Morris. But she noted that numerous non-DoD government agencies and private companies have been inquiring abut the available space. And the mix of government and private employers moving in after BRAC will help diversify Crystal City’s economy.

Morris said a BRAC job fair in Crystal City is in the works for later this year.

ArtJamz Coming to Crystal City

By ARLnow.com

The art/nightclub mash-up known as ArtJamz will be coming to Crystal City later this year.

The event will take place from Dec. 2-5, in the lobby of the building on 23rd Street that housed the G-40 street art ‘summit’ earlier this year. It will feature the same mixture of music, drinks and art creation that has drawn crowds at ArtJamz events in DC. However, the Crystal City event will be double the scale of previous ArtJamz — with 50 easels available for painting simultaneously.

Would-be artists — who reserve an easel ahead of time — are supplied with a canvas and paint, and then have four hours to create a piece of original art that they can take home.

The event, created by local artist Michael Clements, will also feature a specially-designated day for kids to create their own art.

In related news, the dates and location for the returning Crystal Couture fashion festival were revealed today. Crystal Couture will take place from Feb. 1-5 in the space used by the Crystal City Shops food court.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Great Day to Be Outside — It’s supposed to be a near-perfect day weather-wise. Why not stop by the Rosslyn or Ballston farmers markets, or take in some after-work outdoor tunes in Clarendon? See the hours and locations for each in our events calendar.

Go-Go Comes to Crystal City — This weekend, the Hyatt Regency Crystal City will host a late-night concert featuring some of the original legends of go-go. The Rare Essense: Past, Present and Future Reunion is expected to draw a large crowd on Saturday. Starting at 9:00 p.m. and ending at 3:00 a.m., the show will feature a special tribute to the late go-go pioneer Lil Benny. His original band, Rare Essence, will perform, along with EU and Sugar Bear.

McDonnell ABC Plan: 14 New Places to Buy Booze in Arlington? — Gov. Bob McDonnell’s plan to privatize liquor sales in Virginia would triple the number of stores selling booze in the Commonwealth. Arlington currently has seven state-run ABC retailers; assuming that the new licenses are evenly distributed throughout the state, that could mean Arlingtonians will have 14 new places to get their hooch. Grocery stores and other big-box stores would be the biggest beneficiaries of the new licenses, followed by drug stores and package stores. But first, McDonnell’s plan must be approved by a skeptical state legislature.

Write-Up for Willow — According to Washington Life Magazines’ Katie Test, “the patio at Willow Restaurant is the perfect place to say goodbye to summer.” Test writes that the patio’s lush greenery and Willow’s delicious, summery meals are just the thing to take your mind off the gradually falling temperatures.

Flickr pool photo by Allee574

Crystal City Trying to Attract a Grocery Store

By ARLnow.com

Update at 12:55 p.m. — We’re told development at the space at 2121 Crystal Drive, referenced here, is a long-range goal and not set in stone. Vornado’s current and on-going effort to attract a grocery store is focused on existing spaces in Crystal City.

Crystal City has been without a grocery store for more than five years. But now, as developer Vornado works to attract more residents to the area, it’s also working hard to attract a new grocery store.

The Safeway that had served as Crystal City’s lone grocery store closed its doors in March 2005. The store had been an anchor tenant of the Crystal City Underground for 38 years, but decided to close when surface parking was eliminated as part of the revitalization of Crystal City.

Now, we hear, Vornado is touting the success of Crystal City’s Freshfarm market in an effort to attract a new grocery store. We don’t know much about the closely-held discussions with retailers, but we do know a likely site for a future store — the park in front of 2121 Crystal Drive.

The park is actually owned by Vornado, which wants to liven up the block by replacing the open space with low-rise retail and, possibly, condos. In order to do so, however, Vornado would need to convince the county board that the open space being developed would be replaced by more open space elsewhere in Crystal City.

We talked to Crystal City Business Improvement District President Angela Fox and County Board Vice-Chairman Chris Zimmerman about the potential development earlier this summer. Check out the video from that lively discussion (don’t worry, it’s short) after the jump.

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Arlington’s First Capital Bikeshare Station Being Installed

By ARLnow.com

Arlington’s first Capital Bikeshare station is scheduled to be installed this morning in Crystal City. The station will be installed at 27th Street and Crystal Drive, with another station set to be installed at 18th and Bell Streets immediately afterward.

The Capital Bikeshare system will feature 1,100 specially-designed bikes that visitors or commuters can rent. Mechanics have started assembling the bikes in a local warehouse.

“History in the making,” said Crystal City Business Improvement District President Angela Fox on today’s installation.

Photo via CommuterPage blog.

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