It’s nearly impossible to miss seeing UConn star Azzi Fudd when tuning in for March Madness, as she’s all over TV commercials and social media.
“Really fortunate to have done some really amazing and fun deals and have some great partnerships,” Fudd said in a Zoom interview with The Associated Press. “I’m super excited to see everything just start to roll out. It’s going to be crazy to see everything I’ve done. I feel like a lot of things are being posted now.”
Demolition is expected to get underway next week at a Clarendon office tower, making way for a 315-unit multifamily building.
Developer Carr Properties has formed a joint venture with Northwestern Mutual to fund a redevelopment project at 3033 Wilson Blvd, demolishing a more than 40-year-old office building to make way for an eight-story residential building.
When Eddie Kaufholz and his family moved to Arlington nearly five years ago, they were not thinking about starting a business. They wanted to live in a place that was diverse, interesting and full of opportunity, with a school system they could rely on. Arlington fit.
In the years that followed, working out of a home office off Columbia Pike, he consulted with organizations across Northern Virginia and around the country: nonprofits, advocacy groups, mid-sized companies, agencies of various sizes. The work itself was good. But somewhere across all those projects, he started to notice a pattern.
”The agency model has gotten really bloated,” Kaufholz says. ”Layers, handoffs, middle management. The senior people who pitch the work often disappear once it starts. The idea with PILLAR was to strip all of that down; keep senior people on the work, approach each client with humility and care, do world-class strategy and execution, and pass the efficiency back to the client instead of absorbing it as agency margin.”
That thinking, slowly, became PILLAR, the Arlington-headquartered creative, communications and marketing agency Kaufholz founded.
PILLAR, he says, is built on an old idea. ”An idea that has always been possible but rarely practiced: that an agency should be structured to serve the work itself.” The team that delivers the work is assembled around the specific needs of each client and only stays as long as the work calls for them.
”The senior strategist on your kick-off call is the senior strategist writing your messaging,” Kaufholz says. ”Every person on a project is there because the work specifically calls for them.”
PILLAR’s recent work has spanned human rights, executive leadership, higher education, advocacy and direct-to-consumer ecommerce. The roster has included national nonprofits, a national multimillion-dollar direct-to-consumer brand and a number of institutions navigating significant moments of strategic change. The model is built to scale up to be the agency of record for a national brand, or to scale down to design a logo for a neighborhood nonprofit. PILLAR takes equal pride and care in both.
What Kaufholz did not understand when he started, he said, was how much the County itself would matter in making any of it possible. (more…)
A youth production combining the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and Alice in Wonderland is debuting at Arlington’s Encore Stage & Studio.
“Sherlock in Wonderland” opened last Friday at Thomas Jefferson Community Center (3501 S. 2nd Street), marking the second collaboration between Encore and playwright Lynne Streeter Childress.
The founders of a new cafe at the Lee Harrison Shopping Center are hoping to bring some Vietnamese flair to Yorktown later this year.
Tina Dam and David Le are preparing to open Cup of Bliss “in the summer to early fall” at 2439 N. Harrison Street, Dam told ARLnow. They plan to serve coffee, baked goods and Vietnamese specialities from a retail bay that had been vacant for more than three years.
Join Kaiser Permanente for Healthy at the Harbor, a free community health and wellness event taking place Saturday, June 6, from 11 am to 4 pm at National Harbor in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Bring your family and friends for free full day of fun, fitness, and preventive care along the waterfront.
Throughout the day, Kaiser Permanente nurses and physicians will offer no-cost health screenings, alongside a health and wellness expo focused on preventive care education. A lively Kids’ Zone will keep children active and entertained with spin-art bikes, face painting, balloon art, games, and more.
Here’s a snapshot of what ARLnow reporters covered in just the past two weeks…
Dan Egitto reported that a House committee subpoenaed Arlington’s Commonwealth’s Attorney in a bias investigation — a story with national implications unfolding in our own courthouse. He also reported that Arlington County is withholding nearly $1 million from its trash contractor over more than 8,500 missed collections since August, and covered how a partisan “pink slime” newspaper showed up in Arlington mailboxes ahead of the redistricting vote.
Dan also brought us the story of a police officer who ordered pizza for stranded middle schoolers after their charter bus got stuck in the mud, and reported that Ireland’s Four Courts was named America’s Best Soccer Bar in a nationwide contest.
Scott McCaffrey reported that service cutbacks and staff furloughs may be coming if tax revenue stays below expectations, dug into the county treasurer’s shift to short-term investments as the fiscal picture worsens, and broke down a county proposal to withhold extra tax revenue from Arlington Public Schools. This week, he reported that the fire chief offered to reevaluate the controversial plan to consolidate rescue units and that the police chief is seeking funding to unfreeze 20 officer positions.
McCaffrey also found that Arlington unemployment jumped 23% in 2025, and covered a neighborhood plan update for Arlington View — its first since 1965.
Emily Leayman reported on how a proposed $25 minimum wage in D.C. could shift business to Northern Virginia and covered Virginia’s return to the multistate voter roll system — state-level policy stories with direct local impact.
Katie Taranto reported that a local restaurateur is buying out Westover Taco to open Northern Virginia’s first women’s sports bar — one of our most-read stories of the month — and that Xi’an Famous Foods is planning a new location in Clarendon.
Then there’s our reporting on police raiding six Arlington vape stores as part of a regional drug trafficking investigation that seized over $2 million in narcotics. Regional outlets focused on the raids in Fairfax County, while we kept you informed about what happened in our community.
That’s two weeks. Accountability reporting on government spending, public safety, and contracts. Data-driven stories on the local economy and public services. New restaurants, neighborhood plans, and the hyperlocal stories that make Arlington feel like Arlington. Many of these stories aren’t being covered by anyone else — and without ARLnow, they simply wouldn’t get told.
ARLnow is free to read, and it will stay that way. But the reporting behind it isn’t free to produce.
ARLnow Press Club members help make it possible — and get upgraded newsletters in return, with article summaries, previews of upcoming coverage, and fewer ads.
If you read ARLnow every day, Press Club is the way to help us keep you, and everyone else in Arlington, informed.
Arlington residents preparing for home improvements this spring have no shortage of exterior painters to choose from.
Professionals known for their thoughtful preparation, clean workmanship and consistent results can transform the look of a home and protect its exterior for years to come.
Here are the nominees for “Best Exterior Painter Serving Arlington” as part of our ARLnow Readers’ Choice awards.
Did we miss your favorite painting service? Write it in!
Voting will close in two weeks.
Voting for Best Cleaning Service is still taking place. Be sure to cast your vote before voting closes next Friday at 8:30 a.m.
Two weeks ago, we voted on the Best Home Renovation Firm Serving Arlington. The results are now official:
An iconic Irish pub in Courthouse has been crowned champion in a nationwide competition to name the nation’s best soccer bar.
Ireland’s Four Courts (2051 Wilson Blvd) beat out competition from around the country in an online voting contest organized by the soccer media company Men in Blazers. The selection process for America’s Best Soccer Bar included thousands of votes and hundreds of nominees from all 50 states.
A family-owned nail salon franchise that opened during the throes of the pandemic has closed for business near Rosslyn.
Paint Nail Bar, a nationwide chain franchised by local couple Kevin and Amber Donohoo, closed at 1520 Clarendon Blvd this week after more than five years in business. The salon is holding a final sale to get rid of merchandise, supplies and furniture at discounted prices through this Saturday.
Prominent voting rights advocates are applauding a new executive order returning Virginia to a multistate voter roll program and limiting when voters can be removed from the rolls before elections.
An executive order signed earlier this week by Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) reverses Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R)’s 2023 decision to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonpartisan organization that shares voter registration and identification data between 26 member states.
