Rosslyn

EXCLUSIVE: JBG Smith Buys The Inn of Rosslyn and Two Apartment Buildings

By Jo DeVoe
1/4

After nearly 60 years, The Inn of Rosslyn is permanently closed.

The Green family, which owned The Inn of Rosslyn and the Americana Hotel in Crystal City — the sale of which was previously reported — has sold both hotels to developer JBG Smith before the new year, according to one family member. The family also sold two apartment buildings: Fern Gardens and Williamsburg Apartments.

“The whole COVID-19 thing has basically bankrupted our businesses,” Katherine Green, whose father built the hotel in 1957, told ARLnow. “There was no other option. There was no end in sight.”

Business looked good, pre-coronavirus. The hotels were generating income, and the general manager of The Americana told Washington Business Journal that 2017 was its best year. But when the economy crashed, Green said she had no income from April 1 until mid-December. (The County records the sales on Dec. 18.) She said a small business loan covered payroll for a few months, but the siblings still emptied their bank accounts to keep the hotels open for a paltry 10% occupancy.

“We were hemorrhaging money,” said Green, who is 60.

A spokesperson for JBG Smith confirmed the purchase of the 38-key Rosslyn hotel and the two apartment buildings, but declined to comment further. The company has been on something of a buying spree in Arlington; an affiliated nonprofit just bought the Crystal House apartment complex with funding from Amazon, as part of a $2 billion commitment by the tech giant to support affordable housing in Arlington, Nashville and the Seattle area.

The Inn of Rosslyn is assessed at $5,070,900, and the two apartment buildings are together worth $8.7 million, according to county records.

Prior to these sales, JBG Smith’s Arlington properties were cumulatively valued this summer at nearly $4.5 billion, according to Arlington County.

“This is an end of an era,” Green said of her family’s business. “It’s hard for the employees. Some have worked for us for 20-odd years. Many were housed in family property and we don’t know if they’ll find jobs.”

The coronavirus was not Green’s only worry. Some of her siblings are too old to be involved, or have died recently, leaving only Green and her sister, Carole Newman, poised to keep the doors open.

The Green’s story is playing out statewide. COVID-19 has crippled the hotel industry statewide, with hotel revenues down 51% from 2019, and the percentage of rooms booked down 33 percentage points, Virginia Business reports.

Still, Green considers herself lucky.

“My father built his businesses in an area that is so valuable that we could sell,” she said.

William Green Sr. quit his electrical engineering job with General Electric to build the hotels.

“He didn’t want to work for a big corporation — he wanted to give his family financial independence, and give them freedom,” she said.

And her father, a child of the Great Depression, chose the D.C. area, she said.

“He knew that if the economy crashed again, D.C. would be more insulated than anywhere else,” she said. “Arlington is really the center of the universe in some ways.”

Today, Green lives on more than one hundred acres in eastern Oregon, and even mulled investing in hotels two years ago — but is glad she did not.

“What is going down is a travesty unlike anything in my lifetime,” she said.

Tom Yum District and Subway Close in Rosslyn

By James Cullum
1/3

A pair of Rosslyn restaurants within a block of each other in Rosslyn have shut their doors.

The Subway at 1401 Wilson Blvd and the Tom Yum District at 1515 Wilson Blvd are empty and have had their exterior signage removed. It’s unclear when each closed. Both primarily served a workday lunch crowd that was dramatically thinned out by the pandemic and office workers working from home.

Tom Yum District opened in 2013, and offered made-to-order Thai food in a fast-casual setting.

The Subway is no longer listed in the franchise’s locator, and the nearest location is at 1435 N. Courthouse Road. There are now nine Subway restaurants in Arlington, according to the company website.

By ARLnow’s count, Subway and Tom Yum District are the 21st and 22nd restaurant to close in Arlington since the start of the pandemic last March.

Map via Google Maps

BREAKING: Microsoft Signs Lease for Major Presence in Rosslyn

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 2:55 p.m.) Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, Microsoft is going to hang its name on 1300 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn.

The tech giant announced today that it has signed a lease to establish a new sales hub at the Arlington office building, which formerly housed the chain restaurant on the ground floor. Last month the County Board voted to allow the former Ruby Tuesday space to be used for office purposes, in anticipation of “a sizeable office tenant.”

In a LinkedIn post, Microsoft said its new hub at 1300 Wilson Blvd, also known as Commonwealth Tower, would “become the new home of our regional Global Sales and Marketing Organization teams, and the Microsoft Sales Headquarters Office for the [D.C.] area”

The office is expected to open in mid-2022, after a construction project set to kick off this summer. The office brings Microsoft closer to a major customer: the Pentagon, which awarded the company a $10 billion cloud computing contract in 2019.

Microsoft will occupy more than 180,000 square feet of space in the 15-story, 360,000 square foot building, a source told the Washington Business Journal after the announcement.

It’s the latest D.C. area move for the Redmond, Washington-based company. In May, Microsoft announced that it would be creating 1,500 jobs at a new research and development hub at Reston Town Center.

The full LinkedIn post is below.

With Microsoft’s growing presence in the Washington, D.C. area, today we signed a new lease at 1300 Wilson Blvd in Arlington, VA. This will become the new home of our regional Global Sales and Marketing Organization teams, and the Microsoft Sales Headquarters Office for the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia) area. My U.S. Regulated Industries team, including our Microsoft Federal organization, will operate out of this new facility.

These new offices will feature a Microsoft Technology Center, state-of-the-art customer facilities, and innovative employee workspaces to support collaboration and innovation. It is built to help us engage with customers more personally, using our latest technologies to help them reimagine the digital transformation efforts of their organizations and agencies.

From the facility to the location itself, everything about this project was planned with our customers in mind, creating a proximity that enables us to support their evolving needs. Additionally, this move unites our teams in the mid-Atlantic region, fostering a communal atmosphere that can inspire us to do our absolute best work.

While we are all navigating the remote work environment, securing this space is an exciting step that maps to current needs around our growing presence, and ensures that when we transition back to the workplace, we can do so as seamlessly as possible. Construction on the site will begin this summer and we look forward to opening it to employees in mid-2022.

I am excited about the potential that this new DMV Sales Headquarters enables for our growth in the region, our ability to create more meaningful customer engagements, and the opportunity to provide modernized workplaces for our teams.

Photo via Microsoft

Rosslyn-Based Online University Donates $50K to Help Local Businesses

By Jo DeVoe

Longtime Arlington residents who founded a Rosslyn-based online university are donating $50,000 to help local small businesses.

In 1998, Yanping Chen and J. Davidson Frame established the University of Management and Technology, a fully online school enrolling national and international students, located at 1901 Fort Myer Drive. Their $50,000 donation comes from the Chen Frame Foundation, which they started to support educational causes across the world.

But now, they are thinking closer to home.

“COVID-19 brought to mind that we’re not focused enough on our own backyard,” Frame said.

Arlington Economic Development will use the money to help pay for new initiatives, such as educational programming and online services, to help small businesses through the pandemic.

Together with a second round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, AED is expecting about $250,000 in new funding for its pandemic-focused programs, AED Director Telly Tucker said. The department will release more information on the new efforts the money will be funding in the next few weeks, he said.

Arlington County has about 6,000 enterprises that employ fewer than 50 people, which is AED’s definition of a small business, Tucker said.

Pre-pandemic, about three staff members from AED handled outreach to these small businesses. When businesses were forced to shut down or change their operations, the three-person staff was swamped with questions on everything from how to apply for federal assistance programs to how to set up temporary outdoor seating areas to how to keep employees safe.

“It was all hands on deck: We were working together to do what we could to support businesses,” Tucker said. “The overall takeaway for me was that there was no playbook for us to go by on how to navigate during a pandemic.”

But existing business owners were not the only ones with questions. Many who had lost their job or were furloughed saw the pandemic and their new-found extra time as an opportunity to pursue their goals of owning a business, and needed help getting started, he said.

“I ran the entrepreneurship program at George Washington University for several years,” Frame said. “All the time, people would come off the street and describe some new, really weird idea. They would pick my brain. I understand some of the challenges they face — they have lots of questions.”

After listening to business owners, AED came up with a list of efforts that could help, including retaining a few experts who could answer questions “on everything from finances to business-legal services,” Tucker said.

With the influx of cash, AED is also looking to launch an e-commerce platform for small-scale retail stores in the County, in addition to spending more on marketing campaigns to encourage people to shop local.

The County Board heard the news about the donation during its recessed meeting on Dec. 15. It is the first donation of its kind since the Board authorized County Manager Mark Schwartz this year to accept donations of $50,000 or less.

“I wanted to say a hearty thank you,” Schwartz said of the donation. “I hope that when the pandemic is over, I can meet both these [people] in person and give them the commendation that they deserve.”

Schwartz will ask the Board in January to appropriate the money.

Photo courtesy University of Management and Technology

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Columbia Pike Resident Goes Missing — “ACPD seeks the public’s assistance locating Ms. Amanda Aniston, last seen Dec. 12, 2020 in the 1200 blk of S. Courthouse Rd. She is described as a Black female, brown hair, brown eyes, approx. 5’9″, 140 lbs. She may be in need of medical services.” [ACPD]

Did False Report Lead to Police Encounter? — “The head of the Arlington NAACP, Julius D. Spain Sr… said he would seek a meeting with Arlington Commonwealth’s Attorney Parisa Dehghani-Tafti and ‘if someone needs to be charged with making a false report, so be it.’ Crutchfield said in his complaint that ‘the neighbor who called the police lied about me taking pictures of the military base nearby to trigger a police response.'” [Washington Post]

Early Voting ‘Here to Stay’ — “Arlington is likely to provide a number of satellite centers for early voting in the 2021 general election – but how many there will be, and where they will be located, remain open questions. ‘Early voting is here to stay,’ predicted county elections chief Gretchen Reinemeyer, briefing Electoral Board members during a Dec. 16 meeting.” [InsideNova]

County May Help With Caucuses — “Find yourself in need of holding an election? The Arlington County Electoral Board soon may be able to help. Board members voted 3-0 on Dec. 16 to move forward on a policy that would allow political parties and, potentially, other groups to rent equipment and use election-office personnel during their own elections… Those doing the renting also would have to reimburse the cost.” [InsideNova]

New Rosslyn Apartment to Be Temporary Hotel — “Penzance Cos. is bringing in a pop-up hotel startup to help fill a portion of its massive mixed-use project on the western side of Rosslyn. Kasa Living is looking to use 100 units at The Highlands at 1555 Wilson Blvd. as temporary hotel rooms, according to a new filing from Penzance with Arlington County planners. The fully furnished apartments will serve as short-term rentals offered up by Kasa for up to seven years.” [Washington Business Journal]

Christmas Eve Scare for Barcroft Residents — “Missile into occupied dwelling… 4600 block of 9th Street S. At approximately 3:56 p.m. on December 24, police were dispatched to the report of destruction of property. Upon arrival, it was determined that the victims were inside a residence when they heard a loud noise and observed an object had been thrown at a window, causing it to break.” [ACPD]

Two Arrested After Series of Garage Burglaries

By ARLnow.com

Two people, one from Arlington and another from Alexandria, have been arrested after a series of burglaries and vehicle tamperings.

The incidents happened early this past Friday morning, in the Rosslyn and Clarendon areas.

Police were called after two men were seen walking around and peering into cars in at least two parking garages. Officers arriving at the second garage found two suspects matching the description. The men were taken into custody and then found to be in possession of allegedly stolen items, including a bike, police said.

As previously reported, there has been a significant increase in vehicle-related property crime in Arlington over the past two years.

More from today’s Arlington County Police Department crime report, below.

BURGLARY/VEHICLE TAMPERING (significant), 2020-12180029/12180036/12180088, 2500 block of Clarendon Boulevard/1200 block of N. Rolfe Street/1800 block of N. Scott Street. At approximately 5:59 a.m. on December 18, police were dispatched to the 2500 block of Clarendon Boulevard for the report of two males looking into vehicles in a garage. Upon arrival, it was determined that the victim was approaching his vehicle in the garage when he observed two male suspects allegedly looking inside and contacted police, at which time the suspects fled the area. Arriving officers canvased the garage and area with negative results, and nothing was reported missing from the victim’s vehicle. At approximately 6:39 a.m., police were dispatched to the 1200 block of N. Rolfe Street for the report of two suspicious persons inside a garage. Arriving officers observed the two suspects still in the area and detained them without incident. One suspect was in possession of a bike allegedly stolen from the Rolfe Street scene. The suspects were positively identified by witnesses from both locations. During the course of the investigation, one suspect was determined to be in possession of items stolen from a vehicle parked in the 1800 block of N. Scott Street, a second stolen bicycle was located, and officers located a third bicycle with the lock cut. Breon Lassiter, 22, of Arlington, Va., was arrested and charged with Burglary with Intent to Commit Larceny (x2), Possession of Burglarous Tools, and Tampering with Vehicle (x2). He was held on no bond. Joshua Wallace, 26, of Alexandria Va., was arrested and charged with Burglary with Intent to Commit Larceny, Tampering with Vehicle, and Possession of Burglarous Tools. He was also served with an outstanding warrant for Probation Violation, and held on a secured bond.

Phone2Action Acquires Company That Provides Deep Legislative Database

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring Shirlington Gateway. The new 2800 Shirlington recently delivered a brand-new lobby and upgraded fitness center, and is adding spec suites with bright open plans and modern finishes. Experience a prime location and enjoy being steps from Shirlington Village.

Rosslyn-based Phone2Action, which helps organizations mobilize citizens via their smartphones, is on a bit of an acquisition spree.

Its newest acquisition is KnowWho, a 15-year-old company based in Newington, Virginia with an expansive congressional directory. Phone2Action CEO Jeb Ory said KnowWho runs the world’s largest, most current directory of public officials and policymakers in the U.S. and Europe.

With the addition, clients will find it easier to identify key decision-makers, make sense of new and changing policies and improve their government affairs, Phone2Action cofounder Ximena Hartsock said in a statement.

Phone2Action is still flying high from a record year of people using the platform to advocate for issues they care about, from federal aid to restaurants to police reform in the wake of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor to the election this November.

Last month, it purchased GovPredict, a technology company that helps organizations access federal data, see campaign donations, track bills and regulations and follow news.

Now, Phone2Action — which was founded in 2013 — owns the process of civic engagement from one end to the other. GovPredict identifies politicians and what issues they advocate for, KnowWho provides the best way to contact them, and Phone2Action gives regular people the chance to lobby politicians.

“Government relations and public affairs leaders have never faced such a tumultuous time as they do right now,” Ory said in a statement.

Government relations and public affairs teams will see government intelligence, find contact information and mobilize everyday citizens all in one platform, he said.

“Data powers the government relations field, plain and simple,” said KnowWho CEO and founder Bruce Brownson in a statement. “Phone2Action now directly maintains all the data that matters to government relations professionals today.”

Brownson will join the Phone2Action management team.

Phone2Action’s growth has exploded this year, according to Ory. It has 400 new clients, including eBay, Ericsson, Liberty Mutual, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the Leadership Conference on Human Rights.

Phone2Action is keeping its Rosslyn headquarters at 1500 Wilson Blvd, and with both companies, will have nearly 200 employees, Ory said. Some are local to the area, while others are fully remote and located outside metro D.C.

Photo courtesy Phone2Action

Former Ruby Tuesday Space in Rosslyn May Become Office

By ARLnow.com
1/3

What was once a watering hole and lunch spot for Rosslyn office workers may itself become an office.

The Arlington County Board last weekend approved a Site Plan Amendment for Commonwealth Tower, at 1300 Wilson Blvd, that will allow the building’s street-level restaurant space to instead be used as an office or a “retail-equivalent use,” like a doctor’s office.

The space — which includes a somewhat inconspicuous outdoor plaza — was last used by Ruby Tuesday, which closed two years ago.

“Since the Ruby Tuesday restaurant vacated the space in December 2018, the applicant has unsuccessfully marketed the space for restaurant or retail use,” a county staff report notes. “In addition to the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on retail viability, the subject space’s elevated frontage above street level and the plaza retaining wall pose challenges related to visibility and accessibility from the street.”

The building’s owner has a prospective office tenant that may be interested in the space, the report says.

“The applicant is proposing flexible use of the subject space and upgrades to the plaza and building entrance to increase attractiveness and viability for future tenants and better engage the street,” county staff wrote. “Currently, the applicant is in negotiations with a sizeable office tenant that would occupy space in Commonwealth Tower, including use of the subject space and plaza.”

The amendment, which was approved unanimously as part of the Board, consent agenda, will also allow the building’s entrance and plaza to be renovated, while making it easier to put up a rooftop sign.

Shift5 Unlocks Data in Trains, Planes to Make Them Smarter and More Secure

By Jo DeVoe
Shift5 founders deploy their product on a train during COVID-19 (Image courtesy Shift5)

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring Shirlington Gateway. The new 2800 Shirlington recently delivered a brand-new lobby and upgraded fitness center, and is adding spec suites with bright open plans and modern finishes. Experience a prime location and enjoy being steps from Shirlington Village.

Michael Weigand was one of those “boots on the ground” Army platoon leaders, the kind often depicted in the movies.

But when the Army founded the Cyber Branch — the first new branch since the Vietnam War — Weigand decided to join. He and fellow West Point graduates James Correnti and Josh Lospinoso became part of the first 70 officers to trade a physical way of securing the nation for a virtual one.

The Cyber Branch taught the three officers how vital cybersecurity is for the transportation industry. When the three left the Army, they saw gaping holes in secure transportation in both commercial and government spheres.

“During that time, we started to appreciate that it is more than IT systems that need to be defended from criminals and foreign adversaries,” he said. “There’s been a lot of attention about securing power systems, dams and critical infrastructure, but transportation has the same needs.”

So they founded Shift5, a Rosslyn-based startup transportation data company that Weigand said helps businesses and governments run “smarter, safer and more efficiently by unlocking data.” Its office is located at 1100 Wilson Blvd.

During their stint in the Cyber Branch, the three discovered transportation ran heavily on computers but few were monitoring the data these computers collected. To protect a system, Weigand said, data has to be monitored. But the data can do so much more.

Shift5 puts that data to work. The information can automate menial tasks and make systems more reliable, he said. It can also help executives make smarter business decisions, from choosing what to invest in to analyzing how a fleet is aging and predicting when maintenance needs to be done.

“We call all of that data that is flowing inside these big transportation systems, but is not being actively recorded, dark data. We like to shine a light on that, and collect, record, monitor it from cyber-security perspective, so that everything is operating efficiently,” Weigand said. “That is where Shift5 lives.”

The company sells data solutions to both the commercial industry and to the federal government, which helps Shift5 mix the flexibility and speed of the commercial industry with the innovation of the Department of Defense.

“By supporting both customer groups, we get to help bring the best of both worlds to our customers,” he said.   

Less than a year after the startup was founded in June 2019, the coronavirus hit, and Shift5 noticed customers needed their data monitored for security and efficiency more than ever. One hard-hit area was public transit.

This year, Shift5 started working with heavy commuter rail, which experienced steep declines in ridership due to the pandemic. It is more important now to be efficient with resources, Weigand said.

“They save a lot more money than they pay for the service,” he said. “It’s an awesome service with an additional security benefit.”

Next year, the group plans to expand into even more commuter and freight rail.

“There’s an enormous enterprise value we can provide to save money, make operations more streamlined and provide security benefit,” he said.

Video: Implosion of Rosslyn Holiday Inn Hotel Tower

By ARLnow.com
1/12

(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) The 18-story former Holiday Inn hotel in Rosslyn came down this morning during a controlled demolition that closed local roads and I-66.

The implosion, which was scheduled for 8 a.m., brought down the 50-year-old hotel tower and could be heard for miles around. A large dust cloud covered much of the area afterward.

The demolition, which will make way for a new development featuring a 25-story residential tower an a 38-story hotel tower, can be seen around the 8:30 mark of the live-streamed video below.

Here are two other views of the implosion, courtesy of Brian Danza.

Video by Jay Westcott

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

State Dept. Staying in Rosslyn — “The Department of State will be staying put in an aging Rosslyn office building for another two decades after the General Services Administration ruled out options elsewhere in Northern Virginia for the agency’s space needs. The General Services Administration intends to seek a succeeding lease of 20 years with the owner of 1800 N. Kent St.” [Washington Business Journal]

Va. Square Development Underway — “Mill Creek Residential has begun construction of Modera Kirkwood, a 270-unit apartment community in Arlington, Va., in the heart of the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor… at 3415 Washington Boulevard.” [Commercial Observer, Multi-Housing News]

Combine VRE and MARC? — “Creating a unified brand and fare policy for the Washington region’s commuter rail systems could help reduce travel times and improve economic development opportunities over the next few decades, according to a new report released Thursday… [The report says] plans should begin to physically connect the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC) lines and create a unified brand and fare policy to make commuters’ travel experience faster and easier.” [InsideNova]

Does Anything Look Different? — Updated at 10 a.m. — We made some upgrades to the website last night. Expect some additional minor updates over the next few weeks.

View More Stories