A man punched two Arlington County police officers while trespassing in an apartment building in Pentagon City, according to an ACPD crime report.
The incident happened Saturday morning on the 1200 block of S. Eads Street, after police were called for a report of an irate man trespassing in the building.
A struggle ensued after officers located the man, during which he was tased and taken into custody, police say. More from the crime report:
ASSAULT & BATTERY ON POLICE, 2019-10050119, 1200 block of S. Eads Street. At approximately 10:16 a.m. on October 5, police were dispatched to the report of a trespasser inside a residential building. Upon arrival, it was determined that the suspect became irate after engaging in a verbal dispute with staff. The suspect then left the leasing office, but remained in the building, where he was located by police. Arriving officers made contact with the suspect, who continued to act disorderly, disobeyed lawful commands and attempted to strike two officers with closed fists. A brief struggled ensued and the officers deployed their tasers prior to taking the suspect into custody. Amro Ali, 33, of Arlington, Va., was arrested and charged with Assault and Battery on Police (x2). He was held on no bond.
The Little Beet to open soon in Fashion Centre at Pentagon City
The Little Beet to open soon in Fashion Centre at Pentagon City
Breakfast Sandwiches include Bacon, Egg & White Cheddar Cheese, Avocado Toast, and Avocado, Egg & Cheese. Photo provided by The Little Beet.
Butternut Squash Soup with coconut milk. Photo provided by The Little Beet
Dinner table for two (Photo courtesy The Little Beet)
Gluten-free and plant-focused eatery The Little Beet expects to open its second Arlington location by the end of the month.
Little Beet is currently under construction in the food court level of the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. A marketing spokeswoman from eatery said the restaurant is hoping to open Monday, October 21 but can’t promise an exact date, citing difficulties with “construction permitting.”
An official mall listing said the eatery would open on October 16, however, the spokeswoman said “October” was the safest best.
The Little Beet will give food court diners new gluten-free and healthy options. The restaurant models after similar chains such as Cava and Sweetgreen with make-your-own bowls. Here, they’re built with grains, two portions of seasonal vegetables such as shaved Brussels sprouts and broccoli rabe, and with a range of proteins from salmon to beet falafel.
“Because our center is located nearby several office buildings, we’re always seeking to add healthy lunch options to satisfy our neighbors coming in to grab a quick bite and shop on their breaks,” said Todd Jerscheid, director of marketing and business development for the mall, which also caters to large tour groups, busloads of visiting students, and people heading to and from the Pentagon City Metro station.
The new Pentagon City mall location is the New York-based chain’s second location in Arlington, after one at 1800 N. Lynn Street in Rosslyn. A D.C. location closed earlier this summer.
“We’re aggressively expanding in exciting markets and Fashion Centre at Pentagon City presented a perfect way for our brand to build out our presence in the D.C./Maryland/Virginia market,” said Little Beet CEO Becky Mulligan.
She added: “We’ll be launching in Pentagon City with our app which allows guests and neighbors to pick up a healthy breakfast on their way to work, order ahead for a nutritious lunch, bring a nourishing dinner home after a long workday or fuel up for a weekend shopping trip.”
Our reporting yesterday about plans to eliminate Route 1 overpasses in Crystal City and replace them with more urban-style, at-grade intersections was greeted with some skepticism.
Though the idea of making Route 1 — also known as Richmond Highway — more of an “urban boulevard” as Amazon moves in may seem appealing at first glance, the prospect of crossing the busy commuter route to get to and from the Crystal City Metro Station, as opposed to just walking underneath as one can currently on 18th Street, elicited some strong opinions.
There is, as some have suggested, another option, though it would be considerably more expensive: send Route 1 underground instead and build something pedestrian-oriented on top.
As seen in the illustration above, the original 2010 Crystal City Sector Plan actually presented a vision of Route 1 below grade, with roundabouts and some green space on top, at least at one intersection. It’s not an outdated concept — sending highways below ground and putting parks on top is a noted, recent urban design trend.
And it doesn’t need to be a park. Perhaps a pedestrian promenade surrounded by retail, restaurants and entertainment options — like the popular Third Street in Santa Monica — would work as the area grows. It could extend all the way from 12th Street to after 23rd Street, becoming a hub rather than a hindrance between the Crystal City and Pentagon City neighborhoods.
Undoubtedly, such a project would be expensive. And it would be disruptive in the short term. But would it be worth it, in your opinion?
Bryce Harper saw his postseason prospects go up in smoke yesterday at the hands of his long-time former team, but the strikeout-prone Phillies slugger was gracious enough to pose with some Arlington firefighters afterward.
Firefighters were dispatched to the Pentagon City Ritz-Carlton hotel around 12:30 a.m. today (Wednesday) to assist with a stuck elevator, according to ACFD spokesman Capt. Justin Tirelli. After freeing those in the elevator, they happened upon Philadelphia stars Bryce Harper and Jake Arrieta in the lobby and asked for a photo with the former Nat and one-time Rosslyn resident.
Harper obliged, taking a photo with two firefighters outside the Ritz, where visiting pro sports teams often stay when in town.
“In Arlington, you’ll never know who you will run into on the street,” ACFD said in a tweet this morning. “Firefighters from A-shift handled a stuck elevator call and happened to recognize @bryceharper3, who happily posed for a pic. Bryce — Sorry about the loss, but thanks for being a good sport!”
Harper and the 79-78 Phillies are set to face the now-playoff-bound Nationals again in D.C. tonight at 7:05 p.m.
In Arlington, you'll never know who you will run into on the street. Firefighters from A-shift handled a stuck elevator call and happened to recognize @bryceharper3, who happily posed for a pic. Bryce- Sorry about the loss, but thanks for being a good sport!! @Phillies@Nationalspic.twitter.com/rcEstnv4RH
Rendering of the street view around Amazon’s Met Park development with a protected bike lane, two-lane street, and a sidewalk (Image via Arlington County)
Concept rendering for Metropolitan Park Amazon HQ2 (Image via ZGF Architects)
Rendering of a protected bike lane along S. Eads Street at Amazon’s Met Park development (Image via Arlington County)
Rendering of a protected intersection at Amazon’s Met Park development with an example from Chicago on the right (Image via Arlington County)
The current stretch of 15th Street S. near the future HQ2 features an unprotected bike lane (Image via Google Maps)
Diagram of the green spaces slated for Amazon’s Met Park development, which a member of the SPRC said needed a diagonal walking path through (Image via Arlington County)
Aerial shot showing the Pentagon City site slated for the first phase of Amazon’s second headquarters (Image via Google Maps)
Plans for Amazon’s new headquarters in Pentagon City are taking shape, but community leaders want the company to look beyond cars.
Several dozen residents and community group representatives urged the company to take a stronger stance on pedestrians and public transit during a site plan review at the Aurora Hills Community Center (735 18th Street S.) Tuesday night.
Cars and parking
Planners shared several car-oriented transportation plans during the presentation, including:
A pick-up and drop-off zone for ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft at the intersection of Eads Street and S. Elm Street.
A drop-off zone for a daycare center in the park, also located on S. Elm Street.
Street parking for cars along S. Eads Street, 15th Street S., and S. Elm Street.
Amazon’s plans for its new headquarters, including an underground parking garage with 1,968 parking spaces, remain unchanged.
“We believe the parking is the right size to accommodate the number of people working in the building,” traffic engineer Dan VanPelt, with transportation planning firm Gorove/Slade Associates, said during last night’s meeting.
The company has previously pledged to provide transit benefits to its eventual 25,000 employees to allay county fears of traffic jams near HQ2. Transportation Commission Chair Chris Slatt suggested the company charge for parking on a daily basis to further encourage employees to choose transit.
“Arlington’s own research has said the amount you pay for parking at your workplace is the number one determinate if you drive to work alone or not,” Slatt told ARLnow, referring to a 2013 Mobility Lab study.
When asked, VanPelt said Amazon is planning to charge employees for parking, though he was not sure how much. He was also not sure if it would charge for the spaces designated for electric vehicles — a travel type county officials are betting will become more common.
Site Plan Review Committee members, however, expressed concern that the plans did not give same level of accommodation to pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users.
Safer Bicycling
VanPelt highlighted the 500 long-term and 120 short-term bicycle parking spaces slated for the property, and noted that each of Amazon’s buildings will have bicycle entrances.
“It shows the commitment to accommodate cyclists in the project,” said VanPelt.
The tech and retail giant is also planning to install a protected bike lane on the west side of S. Eads Street that runs along the project, which several people commended for its use of concrete curbs to separate cars from cyclists.
However, Amazon will not be giving 15th Street S. the same treatment, despite advocates urging the company to implement protected bike lane on the busy road.
The plans shown for the existing 15th Street S. bike lane would keep it unprotected from cars, and would add street parking next to it.
Several audience members shared safety concerns over the 15th Street plan, with one cyclist saying it was “unsafe” considering the amount of near-misses he had already experienced on the roadway.
Crystal City skyline across the Potomac (Staff photo by Jay Westcott)
Map of newly redrawn Crystal City BID boundaries (Image via Arlington County)
(Updated at 12 a.m.) The Crystal City Business Improvement District is set to absorb parts of Potomac Yard and Pentagon City, and could be eying a name change.
The Arlington County Board approved a 76% increase to the land included within the BID’s boundaries during its meeting this past Saturday, September 21, after the BID gained the required support from commercial property owners.
The new area encompasses parts of Arlington’s Potomac Yard and Pentagon City neighborhoods, including Amazon’s planned permanent HQ2.
But that’s not the only change afoot in Amazon’s new backyard.
“We anticipate that this Board may be soon asked to consider whether a different name should be applied to the BID to reflect the expanded area,” Board Chair Christian Dorsey noted from the dais this weekend.
“Given the combined area’s size and scale as a major downtown district — the largest walkable downtown in Virginia — the BID believes an umbrella term to represent the unified area is critical to elevating the district and appropriately identifying the organization and its focus,” said the BID’s President and Executive Director Tracy Sayegh Gabriel in a statement.
“Exploration of this umbrella term has been underway since the launch of the BID’s strategic planning process in April 2018,” she added. “While the BID sees value in adopting National Landing as an overarching name for the district to complement the individual neighborhood names of Crystal City, Potomac Yard and Pentagon City, we continue to engage the community and area stakeholders on this topic.”
The name “National Landing” first first emerged with Amazon’s announcement it was heading to Arlington. The name — conjured up by a combination of Arlington and Alexandria economic development authorities, property owner (and Amazon landlord) JBG Smith, and the BID itself — was used to refer to the Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yard area in and around the company’s headquarters.
Thus far the name has been used informally — without public hearings, and input from community groups — but its potential use as the BID’s new identity could solidify its emergence in the pantheon of local place names.
Recently, ARLnow learned via state records that JBG Smith created a “National Landing Business Owners Association Inc.” to take advantage of a new law allowing customers buy beverages and wander as they shop in malls.
A BID document included in a staff report to the Board this weekend said the renaming was its “highest priority” after expanding its boundaries:
Once the Area-Wide BID is approved by the County Board, a full rebranding of the district will be the highest priority initiative for implementation as per the Strategic Plan. In April 2019, the Crystal City Business Improvement District selected a branding consultant and kicked off the initiative with an Area-Wide Branding Committee. The goal of the effort is to create a new visual identity — including brand story, logos, signage, and place branding. The branding initiative will focus on both the BID organization and the area-wide name as well as the neighborhoods of Crystal City, Pentagon City, and the Potomac Yard-Arlington. The goal is to launch the new identity as early as July 2019.
Renaming a BID would require the Board’s approval, as well as the BID to work with the County Manager’s Office to hold public engagement sessions to gather residents opinions, according to Dorsey. During the public engagement process, residents will have the opportunity to suggest their own names, as well.
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 12:20 p.m.) What do you get when you take a patent lawyer with a background in mechanical engineering and you add a passion for cycling?
It turns out you get AirLock, the world’s first all-in-one bike pump and lock brainstormed by Arlington local Joe Edell.
Together with his sister, Joe founded the startup Edellocks in March with the goal of eliminating the hassle of carrying a separate air pump along with a bike lock.
“It’s a patented idea I came up with in 2015, and we’re confident that our current version is that best we’re gonna get,” said Edell, who manufactured the design utilizing 3D-printing technology.
It took Edell 20-plus prototypes to get the design right, resulting in an ultra-lightweight product that weighs a little over a pound. The final product will be manufactured in Taiwan, while Edell and his sister will work on marketing, packaging, and shipping from a home in Pentagon City.
Customers have the option of selecting an AirLock with either of the common Schrader or Presta air valves.
It took a bit of trial and error to find the right customer base for the AirLock, because uber-passionate cyclists often have high-end bikes that require specialty pump valves. However, Edell hopes the product will end up in stores like REI and local bike shops.
“A lot of people who would be interested in this we would call ‘casual cyclists,’ so we need to work hard to make sure the price and the product is right,” said Edell.
Currently, the product is in its Kickstarter stage, with less than two weeks to go. As of today (Friday), AirLock has earned $7,791 with a goal of $20,000.
Those interested can either pledge any minimum to support the startup, or $58 or more, which gets you the finished product.
(Updated at noon) New scooter docks have been added to Crystal City in an effort to curb intrusive sidewalk scooter parking.
Four new docks from the electric scooter company Spin were placed throughout Crystal City last week after their debut in D.C., with five more expected to be added sometime in the next week.
“Spin is one of the operators that has been participating in Arlington’s [scooter] pilot,” said Rob Mandle, chief operating officer of the Crystal City BID. “They reached out to us about a pilot that they had initiated, rolling out in D.C. to provide a dock solution.”
Mandle said the BID is working on getting locations spread out across Crystal City, Pentagon City and Arlington’s portion of Potomac Yard.
“Our goal is to enhance connectivity in the core areas,” Mandle said.
The current docks are located at:
251 18th Street S.
220 20th Street S.
520 12th Street S.
1901 S. Bell Street
Though the docks are branded by Spin, Mandle said any scooters will be able to park in them. They also charge the scooter batteries while they’re docked.
“We see it as an interesting approach to addressing how to park scooters throughout the neighborhood without losing the value of dockless scooters,” Mandle said. “We’re a year from when these things first hit the streets, maybe not even, and the industry continues to evolve. The number one concern in any downtown area is ‘how do you manage the parking of the scooters in the downtown core?'”
There’s currently nothing to encourage scooter riders to use the docks outside of good civic values, but Mandle said incentives could be on the way.
“There are other ways to incentivize users to park in those facilities,” Mandle said. “I don’t think anybody’s seen that yet, but that’s where it’s going.”
Developer JBG Smith may be planning to let people sip alcohol as they browse shops and sit outdoors in shopping areas near Amazon’s future headquarters in Pentagon City and Crystal City.
State records with the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Authority Control Authority indicate that the developer applied for a “Commercial Lifestyle Center” license this week. The special license is part of a 2018 law allowing shoppers to bring alcoholic beverages into shops or outdoor plazas to encourage consumers to stay longer and attend outdoor events.
Under the new law, shopping centers can apply for a license provided they have at least 100,000 square feet of retail space and demonstrate they can police the area, as reported by the Washington Business Journal. The law also requires the application come from an association of businesses in a shopping area, not a single business on its own.
JBG Smith applied for the license via a newly-created organization called National Landing Business Owners Association Inc., which listed a phone number in the application matching JBG Smith’s Chevy Chase office.
A spokeswoman for the developer declined to comment when reached yesterday (Tuesday.)
The Association was formed in June by an attorney from the Arlington-based law firm Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh, which represents JBG Smith on several projects, including the two towers they’re building at Amazon’s Metropolitan Park headquarters.
One place in the Crystal City, Pentagon City and Potomac Yard area — dubbed “National Landing” — at which the developer could use the license would be its Crystal Square project. The project aims to redevelop the block of Crystal Drive into a “retail hub” between 15th Street S. and 18th Street S.
JBG Smith has called for adding new retailers like an Alamo Drafthouse movie theater, a grocery store, and an outdoor dining area to the block near the Crystal City Metro station.
The Arlington Friends of Urban Agriculture (FOUA) have formally submitted a request for less than 2% (or 1,000 square feet) of the upcoming HQ2 campus to become a urban farm space.
“We believe Arlington is poised to become a national leader for urban agriculture, and the Metropolitan Park project offers an opportunity to showcase Amazon’s and Arlington’s commitment to sustainable, biophilic (integrating the natural world into the built environment) development,” the FOUA board wrote in a letter to HQ2 stakeholders this month.
FOUA said in exchange for dedicating space for the farm, Amazon and the community will reap the rewards of:
Aesthetically appealing, biophilic focal point event space for movie nights, public or private receptions, exercise classes, etc.
STEM plant lab for K-12 research
Public demonstrations of growing sustainable techniques & methods
At-scale food production for distribution to local food banks.
Incubator for urban agriculture-focused startups
Encourage public interaction with local food systems.
Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
There has been growing interest in urban agriculture in Arlington, advocates say, and Amazon could help spread it to an area where there is little land available for growing fruits and vegetables.
“We really think Amazon’s commitment to creating an environmentally-sound campus provides an opportunity to create a public amenity that would benefit everyone,” said Matt McKinstry, a FOUA board member.
FOUA wrote the proposal in light of the upcoming Site Plan Review Committee meeting for HQ2 on Monday, September 23.
Water Main Break Near Courthouse — Updated at 8:10 a.m. — “Emergency Water Main Repairs: Crews working on a 3-inch main at 2000 N. Adams St. The area includes high-rise buildings and some 100 customers could be affected. Traffic is detoured around the work site.” [Twitter]
Gun, Drug Arrest at Pentagon City Metro — A man is facing a litany of gun and drug-related charges after being arrested by Metro Transit Police officers for alleged fare evasion at the Pentagon City station this past Thursday. [Twitter]
APS Hits Full Bus Driver Staffing — “The school year began with full staffing of drivers and bus attendants, who serve 18,000 eligible students over 154 routes, using 200 buses.” [InsideNova]
DCA Starbucks Closing Permanently — “Beginning on or about Monday, September 9, Starbucks on the Ticketing level of Terminal B/C will close to make way for construction of a steel-framed glass divider.” [Reagan National Airport]
Nearby: Alexandria Metro Stations Reopening — “Alexandria Metrorail stations will reopen at 5 a.m. on September 9, with full service following Metro’s summer Platform Improvement Project. Metro closed all four Metrorail stations in Alexandria (as well as two in Fairfax County) for safety repairs on May 25.” [City of Alexandria]
