A smaller-format grocery store is now part of the plan for the redevelopment of the Westmont Shopping Center.
The strip mall, at the busy corner of Columbia Pike and S. Glebe Road, is set to be torn down and replaced with a six-story mixed use building with 250 housing units and 22,500 square feet of retail space. The redevelopment plan was approved by the County Board last fall.
The average rate of coronavirus cases in Arlington, and the county’s test positivity rate, both hit fresh multi-month highs today.
Twenty-eight new cases were reported overnight, which bumped up the trailing seven-day average to 40.9 daily cases. That’s the highest daily case rate in Arlington since the initial spring wave.
Raytheon Remaining in Rosslyn — “Raytheon Technologies Corp. has reached a deal to extend its stay in a Rosslyn office building nearly three years before its current lease was slated to expire. The Waltham, Massachusetts, defense contractor has signed a long-term lease renewal with Monday Properties for its roughly 116,000 square feet at 1100 Wilson Blvd.” [Washington Business Journal]
Arlington Man Leaves ‘Bachelorette’ — “Our Arlington man Jason has departed the Bachelorette. Now all we’re left with is a man with the vaguely similar name of Chasen. Sad!” [Washingtonian]
It’s Veterans Day — Today is Veterans Day, and as a result of the holiday government offices are closed and metered parking is not being enforced. Per the county, Arlington is currently home to about 13,000 veterans. [Arlington County]
Trump Scheduled for Cemetery Visit –“To mark Veterans Day… President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will visit Arlington National Cemetery. The President will lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown [Soldier],” according to CBS News producer Sara Cook. [Twitter, Washington Examiner]
This Saturday, the Arlington County Board is slated to review a proposal to convert garden-style apartments on Columbia Pike into a 400-unit development dubbed Pike West.
The redevelopment of what’s currently known as the Greenbrier Apartments will add affordable housing units in a diverse neighborhood of Arlington that has seen an influx of residents, where the county aims to preserve 6,200 affordable housing units.
County staff are accepting public comments on some long-awaited safety improvements at three intersections along the Bluemont Junction trail.
Residents will be asked if the proposed changes would make them feel safe using the trail or driving across it. The engagement period is open through Friday, Nov. 20.
A major project to add 70 acres to Arlington National Cemetery while reconfiguring the eastern end of Columbia Pike is inching forward.
The cemetery’s southern expansion project will add about 60,000 burial sites, across 37 acres of new burial plots and an above-ground columbarium, allowing the cemetery to continue military burials through the 2050s. It will also bring the Air Force Memorial within the cemetery grounds, and add a parking garage across Columbia Pike.
Despite record-setting levels of early and mail-in voting, the final 2020 general election turnout in Arlington slightly underperformed that of 2016.
Last week’s election set a local record in terms of votes cast, but a rise in population and voter registration meant that the final turnout figure was a few points below the 82% turnout from 2016.
No, That Wasn’t ‘The Bachelor’ in Ballston — “Today, the world paused to consider what would have been the biggest news story of the past 72 hours: Wait — was the Bachelor filming in freaking Ballston? Well, that was at least the question posed by a whistleblower this afternoon, who tweeted out a photograph of a couple dining outdoors surrounded by a camera crew.” [Washingtonian, Twitter]
Pranksters Dialing Rosslyn-Based Trump Hotline — “Trump campaign staffers have been huddled on a noisy floor in the campaign’s Arlington, Virginia, headquarters fielding hundreds of calls a day on a hotline the campaign set up as they try to find instances of voter fraud, multiple sources told ABC News. But the hotline has… been bombarded with prank calls from people laughing or mocking them over Biden’s win before hanging up.” [ABC News, Washington Post]
Arlington County firefighters and other authorities are investigating a possible hazmat situation on the water at Theodore Roosevelt Island.
A kayaker spotted an oil sheen on the shoreline and called the fire department, we’re told. Arriving firefighters confirmed the sheen, though it initially appears limited in scale.
(Updated at 5 p.m. on 11/10/20) Dominion Energy and Arlington County are looking to swap two pieces of land near Crystal City.
On Saturday, the County Board is slated to consider a series of real estate and land use actions, including a land exchange agreement between Dominion and the county. Dominion offered to give the county a piece of property at the corner of 18th Street and S. Ives Street in exchange for a piece of county-owned land on the corner of S. Fern and S. Hayes streets.
The latest Arlington Public Schools elementary boundary process earned some public plaudits, a relative rarity, after the number of students who would have been assigned to new schools was cut nearly in half.
The superintendent’s recommended plan makes enough changes to accommodate the new Reed and Key elementary schools, which open in the fall of 2021. Twenty-two planning units, or about 800 students, will be reassigned among Arlington Science Focus School, the Key school site, and Ashlawn, McKinley, Taylor and Tuckahoe schools. The move increases the number of students who can walk to school by 600.
