Amazon announced yesterday (Wednesday) that it is shutting down its charitable e-commerce platform AmazonSmile, which lets customers support their favorite nonprofits while shopping.
Instead, the tech company says it will focus on areas of more “meaningful change,” chiefly, investments in affordable housing. One of the first examples it highlighted was its contributions in Arlington County, the home of its forthcoming second headquarters.
Arlington County has selected two developers — Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing and D.C.-area developer EYA — to oversee the construction of affordable housing within an apartment complex in Crystal City.
They’re committing to provide 844 units, of which 655 will be committed affordable units and the remaining will be market-rate, in the Crystal House Apartments at 1900 S. Eads Street, near Amazon’s second headquarters.
Developer Jair Lynch says it is exploring ways to make some units at the Barcroft Apartments even more affordable to families.
This comes as two organizations, Arlington Community Foundation and advocacy group ACE Collaborative, have put pressure on Jair Lynch to deepen affordability at the site over concerns of displacement.
Plans to redevelop a local YMCA may have too many apartment units and not enough community benefits, county planners say.
The YMCA is proposing to tear down its existing facility on N. Kirkwood Road in Virginia Square and build an 87,850-square-foot facility with indoor swimming pools, pickleball and tennis courts, a fitness space and a conference and lounge area, as well as 203 parking spaces. To finance the project, the nonprofit is building a separate 7-story, 374-unit apartment building.
A proposed left-turn lane off of N. Glebe Road in Ballston could be the smallest, yet most scrutinized traffic change in 10 years.
As part of the planned redevelopment of the Ballston Macy’s, Insight Property Group proposes to add a left-turn option at the intersection of 7th Street N. and N. Glebe Road. It will be for drivers going southbound on Glebe who want to turn onto a proposed private drive abutting the planned grocery store, which will be located at the base of Insight’s proposed 16-story, 555-unit apartment building.
An affordable housing complex along Route 50 in the Buckingham neighborhood will officially open tomorrow.
The grand opening of The Cadence (4333 Arlington Blvd) on Tuesday, Dec. 6 caps off just over two years of construction. There will be remarks from project partners and local officials, followed by a ribbon cutting, community tour and reception, per the nonprofit behind the project, Wesley Housing.
Two affordable housing complexes in Arlington are teed up for renovations, including units on a site also set for redevelopment.
Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing will upgrade 62 units at the Marbella Apartments (1301 N. Queen Street) and 101 units at the Arna Valley View Apartments (2300 25th Street S.), says Elise Panko, APAH’s Resource Development and Communications Manager. The properties consist of a group of garden-style apartment buildings north near Rosslyn and mid-rise buildings between Pentagon City and Shirlington.
Arlington’s “Missing Middle” housing proposal has led to impassioned debates, with locals both for and against the potential zoning changes.
As the County Board gets closer to a vote on the proposal, perhaps as early as December, we’ve compiled a dozen opinion pieces on the topic that have been published elsewhere. Many are letters to the editor or op-eds that have appeared in the Sun Gazette and Washington Post, while others have been features published in policy-focused publications like The Hill and Washington Monthly.
Before four panelists could jump into discussing Missing Middle housing, moderators of Arlington County Civic Federation‘s forum last night (Tuesday) did something unusual.
They laid out ground rules for civil discourse, as other community discussions of the county’s proposed zoning changes have gotten loud, and even rowdy.
(Updated at 4 p.m. on 12/15/22) The Penske truck rental location on Columbia Pike — which once had an ART bus crash into it and stay there for a month — has closed.
And the replacement for the storefront and expansive parking lot, at the Pike’s intersection with S. George Mason Drive, may be something completely different.
(Updated 09/30/22) As Arlington County continues collecting feedback on the preliminary concept plan to turn Langston Blvd into a “Green Main Street” over several decades, a few disagreements have emerged.
Some say county staff need to coordinate more with existing plans for two neighborhoods along Route 29, as well as the Missing Middle Housing Study. Others say the building heights should be taller — to allow for more affordable housing — or are too tall already.
(Updated 4:40 p.m.) There are more than two dozen steps local affordable housing developers, Arlington County and the state can take to improve quality of life and respect tenants, according to a new report.
Written by a Joint Subcommittee on the Status of Aging Properties (JSSAP), the report walks through the kinds of protections tenants need to live safely in committed affordable dwellings in Arlington, many of which are affordable because they are older and more prone to maintenance issues.
