The buildings that used to house Arlington Motorcar Service, Medical Service Corporation International and the Fashion Dreams tailor between Rosslyn and Courthouse are no more.
Demolition work has reduced the three small buildings on the 1700 block of Wilson Boulevard to rubble. A large, empty lot and a pile of debris is all that remains. (See the before and after photos below.)
A new office building is expected to spring up by mid-2012.
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Time to try to save some of our historical commercial buildings. The loss of the Arlington Motorcar Service shop is a shame.
A shame? That place was a dump.
+1
That place you’re calling a “dump” is a FABULOUS land rover and four-wheel shop. The guys who run it (because it didn’t close, just moved) are great car guys.
That is only half of it, it is a great shop of mechanics. The but shop itself is classic American architecture, another loss for generic or inauthentic throw back design along the R-B corridor.
They were an “OK” shop at best 6-7 years ago. Try Roverland, Loudon Rovers, Airpark Rovers or the local community of enthusiasts. Arlington Motorcars turned many owners against the brand. Often there’s a reason why businesses stay in small, cramped spaces rather than expand. And it’s not by choice.
Is Will still at Roversland? That guy is an A-hole and will rip you off.
You must be crazy.
They need to come up and over a few blocks and get rid of all those nasty bungalo looking houses…
i hear this is being done to build a street. it is so hard to get from east of Clarendon to Colonial Village. this is so amazingly good news. thanks ARLNOW for letting us know this.
Any news related to the empty lot adjacent to Clarendon Blvd between Quinn and Queen? I moved to that neighborhood as they were tearing down the old buildings there and moved out 2 years later and nothing had been built yet. Went by there the other day and it’s still a field, almost 4 years later. Might as well take the fence down and turn it into a park at this point…
In response to your question, Teyo, it looks they’re going to be putting up more luxury condos at the site: http://clarendon.patch.com/articles/gas-light-square-the-first-new-condo-project-in-2011
That lot has been vacant for over three years now but it looks like they are finally starting construction on new condos. There is a big billboard now advertising that they start at $695,000.
Not quite all that remains. That Arlington Motor Car service sign still stands defiantly.
Too bad. There used to be four places to get your car fixed in the neighborhood. Now there is one. And that place seems to have raised its prices accordingly.
That property is too valuable to use for auto repair and single story businesses. Its just not good land use, they need to be further from the orange line core.
“That property is too valuable to use for auto repair and single story businesses. Its just not good land use, ”
That is just foolish. What constitutes optimum land use depends on who is defining what it is you are trying to optimize.
Optimization is always in relation to something else.
If you were a vintage Mercedes, that was the optimal use.
And in the world we live in… the metric is cash. So unless your vintage Mercedes is worth as much to fix as say a luxury condo or high-rise office building is to its tenants, you’ll be out of luck. Welcome to market forces. They aren’t such a bad thing sometimes.
“the metric is cash”
That is saying that the ruler is the same thing as what you are measuring and it ain’t.
But you do have a point.
Does anyone know if Fashion Dream went out of business for good? Did they move locations? They did a great job with altering my clothes!
Fashion Dream moved up Wilson Blvd, closer to Clarendon. It’s in the same block as Current Boutique, if I remember correctly. New address is 2525 Wilson Blvd. Thank goodness they didn’t completely close – I love them!
Thank you so much for posting this! I have been wondering where they went. Best tailors ever!!
At what point do we need to make Vehicle service centers – a community benefit like we do grocery stores – and have to give developers additional density for them?
The powers to be are planning to separate auto uses in the zoning code so they can further restrict undesirable stuff. — eg anything that perpetuates car ownership.
[...] Ballston – Major demolition underway for the new Skanska office project across from freshly broken ground Gaslight Square. [ARLNow] [...]
Little by little, whatever remnants of the old Arlington is being chipped away. Not that the buildings were architecturally aesthetic but the thought of the history seen by them is being lost. It is a sad day.