(Updated at 6:00 p.m) A walk-in studio art facility for veterans and active-duty service members plans to open Oct. 15 in Crystal City.
Alexandria-based The 296 Project launched a Kickstarter on July 24 with a $30,000 goal to fund the 1,100-square-foot space, which it calls “A Combat Veteran’s Healing Place.” The studio will be located in a retail space at the Shops at 2100 Crystal Drive.
(Updated at 3:50 p.m.) Officials cut a ceremonial ribbon in Crystal City this morning to celebrate the Arlington launch of the mobile parking app Parkmobile.
At the ceremony in front of Charlie Chiang’s Restaurant, county Director of Transportation Dennis Leach and Arlington County Board Chair Jay Fisette spoke about Parkmobile’s partnership with the county and the convenience Parkmobile will bring to residents. Parkmobile debuted in Crystal City on July 18 and in Shirlington July 17.
The summer race, organized by Pacers, is dubbed “the hottest 5K in town.” It kicks off at 8:30 p.m. and is followed by a post-race party. Registration is $40 for adults over the age of 18, but $20 for those 18 years old or younger.
The Arlington County Police Department is planning on closing a number of roads to make way for the race. From ACPD:
WeWork, a company that specializes in co-working office space, plans to gut the 1960s-era office building at 2221 S. Clark Street and convert it into a community-oriented residential building featuring “micro-unit” apartments and large common areas. Many of the 252 apartments in the 12-story building will be 360 square feet or less.
“The Crystal City project will be WeWork’s first residential building, bringing the same benefits of co-working — shared amenities, a sense of community and opportunities for collaboration — to a residential building,” the county notes in a press release. “The project will offer an entirely new type of apartment living within walking distance of the Crystal City Metro Station, several bus stops and Capital Bikeshare stations, and will serve as a model for adaptive reuse of an outdated building until redevelopment can occur.”
Tickets are $20 at the door or can be purchased online. The tickets cover appetizers, beer and wine, as well as fake dollars to invest in one of 17 companies. The company with the most fake money at the end of the night wins a lunch at Good Stuff Eatery in Crystal City with Crystal Tech Fund founder and investor Paul Singh.
The event is also a chance to network with Arlington entrepreneurs and see the future of business in the county. Several of the companies have secured a combined millions of dollars in angel investment and venture capital in recent years.
Arlington will be rolling out the smartphone parking app Parkmobile over the next year — with the service first available to pay for street parking in Shirlington and Crystal City starting later this month.
The service will be expanded to Pentagon City this fall, Ballston and Clarendon this winter, and the rest of the county in the spring.
Both incidents took place on the 500 block of 15th Street S. Both involved two suspects in their twenties. One robbery was committed at gunpoint. The cab driver was assaulted during the other robbery.
From this week’s Arlington County crime report:
(Updated at 4:45 p.m.) The bus line that will eventually run on dedicated lanes in Crystal City and along Route 1 to Alexandria is expected to open to riders later this summer.
WMATA announced today that the partial bus rapid transit line will launch Aug. 24 and will be called “Metroway,” instead of the given 9X route designation that had been previously planned. The dedicated transit lane is the first of its kind in the D.C. area.
An Uber driver was robbed in Crystal City early Thursday morning.
Police say two men assaulted the driver and took his cash and belongings around 12:20 a.m. From an Arlington County crime report:
Matt Hussmann, the executive director of the Clarendon Alliance, told ARLnow.com this afternoon that the markets fell through when the “parking lot operator” changed its terms –not Wells Fargo Bank, as he originally stated.
(A tenant in the Wells Fargo building, who declined to speak on the record, disputed Hussmann’s account.)
We, The Pizza, the pizza shop launched by former Top Chef contestant Spike Mendelsohn, is now open in Crystal City.
Located next to TechShop in the Shops at 2100 Crystal Drive, the pizza shop has only been open “a couple of days” according to a manager in the store, and it was still crowded for lunch at 1:30 p.m. today. The shop has signs posted alerting customers “Staff is training (Be Gentle).”
Arlington County Police say the three men robbed a woman of her purse at a hotel on the 2000 block of Jefferson Davis Highway, near Crystal City, around 11:30 p.m. this past Saturday. As they were running away, one of the suspects accidentally left a couple of things behind.
“As the subjects were fleeing, one dropped his wallet and cell phone, which were recovered by security,” according to the police report.
