A large, aging office building in Crystal City is getting some significant upgrades.
JBG Smith announced last week that its 11-story building at 2011 Crystal Drive would be getting $40 million facelift. The “repositioning” will include exterior facade changes, communal outdoor spaces, a new meeting and conference facility with a cocktail bar, and upgrades to the ground floor.
Route 1 Shooting Arrest — “The Arlington County Police Department’s Homicide/Robbery Unit is announcing an arrest in the shooting that occurred on June 19, 2024, in the 2600 block of Richmond Highway.” [ACPD]
Bridge Installation Near Shirlington — From Arlington’s Dept. of Environmental Services: “And there you have it. A few months and a couple finishing touches later, and [the new pedestrian bridge] be open for all your Four Mile Run journeys.” [Twitter]
App Shows Available Parking Spaces — Also from DES: “Need to find on-street parking in the Rosslyn-Ballston or Richmond Highway corridors? Use the ParkMobile app, available through the Performance Parking Pilot. The project goal is more spaces available and easier to find.” [Twitter]
New Sheriff’s Deputies — “The Arlington County Sheriff’s Department has grown by 13 new deputies following graduation ceremonies held June 17 for Session 150 of the six-month Northern Virginia Criminal Justice Training Academy.” [Gazette Leader]
Raves for Arlington Ridge Restaurant — “I’m in heaven slurping chef Seng Luangrath’s longevity noodles in garlic-butter sauce, twirled up on my fork with bits of Chinese celery, shiitake mushrooms, cured egg yolk and lump crabmeat. Sweet, rich, peppery and slightly funky from padaek—the heady Lao fish sauce after which her restaurant is named—the dish is both balanced and an escapade of luxuriance.” [Arlington Magazine]
Spain in ‘General-Election Mode’ — “It took four rounds to get there, but civic activist and former local NAACP president J.D. Spain Sr. emerged on top in the Arlington County Board Democratic primary. And he immediately pivoted to general-election mode, aiming first to win support from those who had backed the four other contenders in the Democratic race.” [Gazette Leader]
German Mayor Learns Arlington Way — “Oberbürgermeisterin Sibylle Keupen of Aachen, Germany, was part of a delegation of German local-government leaders to visit the U.S. recently. While in Arlington, she received a tutorial as county leaders spotlighted the government’s wide array of advisory bodies.” [Gazette Leader]
Proclamation for Free Clinic Anniversary — From Del. Patrick Hope: “Great to celebrate this monumental occasion of the @ArlFreeClinic providing health care services to families for 30 years.” [Twitter]
New Historical Marker Unveiled — From Arlington Public Schools Superintendent Francisco Duran: “It was an honor to speak at the unveiling of the Evelyn R. Syphax historical marker yesterday. Her legacy reminds us of the importance of teaching everyone’s history—celebrating our diversity strengthens our school system.” [Twitter]
Opening Nears for Nearby Amazon Fresh — “The final touches are being made on the future Amazon Fresh at 3801 Richmond Highway in Potomac Yard. New hires at the store in the Potomac Yard Shopping center are being directed with signs on the front door, and a large sign on the building exterior reads, ‘Delicious groceries coming soon.'” [ALXnow]
It’s Tuesday — Expect sunny skies and a high of 91 with winds shifting from northwest, at 5 to 8 mph, to southwest as the day progresses. The night will be partly cloudy, with a low of around 75. [NWS]
Flickr pool photo by Jason Gooljar
This regularly scheduled column is written by Eli Tucker, Arlington-based Realtor and Arlington resident. If you would like to work with Eli and his team in Northern Virginia and the greater D.C. Metro area, you can reach him directly at [email protected].
Question: How much of an impact do you think the ROAD to Housing Act will have on housing affordability in Arlington?
Answer: The Road to Housing Act became law ten days ago, with the stated goal of improving housing affordability in the United States.
I don’t see many policies in the Act that will improve affordability in the Arlington/Northern VA/DC Metro markets, outside of incentives for more affordable multi-family housing, but there are policies that should improve affordability in other markets that are more saturated with institutional investors that own swaths of single-family homes (e.g. Atlanta and Phoenix) and for manufactured/mobile homes.
The Local Conversation Needs to Change
If we are going to improve affordability in our market, most of the change has to be done locally/regionally, not nationally, but it requires a paradigm shift in how we discuss and solve for housing affordability.
Affordability Disconnect: Near Term Expectations Not Realistic
A disconnect between housing affordability expectations and reality prevents the right community and political conversations from happening. We expect/demand housing affordability immediately, ignoring the difficulty, and consequences, of achieving it that quickly.
Stable and healthy housing affordability is a long-term process requiring gradual change over a 10-15+ year period.
Demand-Side Solutions Won’t Work
Demand-side solutions, such as lower interest rates or easier financing, artificially inflate home values, as seen during the COVID-era housing boom and early 2000s. They are not a good long-term solution to affordability because they push values even higher (along with your property taxes) and affordability gets worse when rates/lending normalize and no longer provide artificially low monthly payments.
Supply-Side Solutions Are Not Immediate
Most policy discussions focus on supply-side solutions: building more/faster and denser housing (e.g. Arlington’s Missing Middle/Expanded Housing Option), incentivizing more existing home sales, or disincentivizing concentrated ownership by companies and individuals. Econ 101 tells us that more supply = lower prices = affordable housing (winner winner!).
This is the only path to stable, long-term housing affordability…BUT, at current interest rates, prices must drop 30-35% in the United States to become affordable, at current income levels. A 30-35% drop in home values would devastate the economy, so a supply-side solution won’t (shouldn’t) provide immediate affordability. (more…)
Good Monday evening, Arlington. Let’s take a look back at today’s stories and a look forward to tomorrow’s event calendar.
The following articles were published earlier today — Jun 24, 2024.
Here is what’s going on Tuesday in Arlington, from our event calendar.
Expect sunny skies and a high of 91 with winds shifting from northwest, at 5 to 8 mph, to southwest as the day progresses. The night will be partly cloudy, with a low of around 75 and a steady south wind at 8 mph. See more from Weather.gov.
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
The MonumentCam screenshot above is used with permission of the Trust for the National Mall and courtesy of EarthCam.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss the day’s happenings in the comments.
Arlington County — along with neighboring Fairfax County — is under a drought warning advisory.
That’s according to the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which says that the recent heat combined with a lack of rain has made matters worse.
Join the Rosslyn BID and Arlington Arts at the 34th Rosslyn Jazz Fest 2026 featuring live jazz, food trucks, local vendors, and family-friendly activities in the heart of Rosslyn! This year’s lineup is bringing a diverse mix of performers and bands redefining the jazz music genre including Plena Libre, Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars, Parlor Greens, and Dogo du Togo & the Alagaa Beat Band.
The second installment of Arlington’s only electronic music street festival will be held next month.
Ballroom on the Block, hosted by the Clarendon Ballroom, will bring local electronic DJs, food vendors and more to Clarendon on Saturday, July 27.
Arlington plans to develop a new tool to encourage energy-efficiency upgrades among disadvantaged communities.
The Arlington County Board last week approved a $980,350 grant award from the Environmental Justice Government-to-Government Grant Program at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). With the money, the county plans to build a tool to model green improvements in building types common to low-income disadvantaged communities (LIDACs).
Arlington Independent Media’s floundering finances have left a former employee with significant personal debt.
Linda Lawson, AIM’s former head of production, obtained a credit card to help cover operating funds at the struggling nonprofit in the second half of 2023, AIM Treasurer Amanda MacKaye said in an email to members last week. At the encouragement of AIM’s former executive leadership, according to the email, Lawson racked up a debt of about $15,000.
Here in Arlington, real estate is a spectator sport. Let’s take a look at some of the smallest and largest homes sold last month (May 2024).
Largest homes sold
Arlington students could be getting an additional five-day weekend this November.
Proposed changes to the 2024-25 calendar would give Arlington Public Schools students off between Nov. 1 and Nov. 5, shortly before another five-day weekend for Thanksgiving the last week of November.
