A local preschool operating in North Arlington church will soon shut its doors — but another childcare center is already lined up to replace it.
Overlee Preschool, a cooperative, parent-led school out of the Church of the Covenant (2666 Military Road) will close next month. Children’s Weekday Program — currently operating out of Redeemer Church of Arlington in the Alcova Heights neighborhood — will take over.
Founded in the 1940s by a group of mothers, Overlee Preschool is closing after reduced enrollment complicated by Covid. The school weathered the pandemic by moving fully outdoors.
“We are very sad to be closing the doors of an organization that has played such a significant role in the lives of many, many Arlington families,” school president Melissa Farrar told ARLnow.
“The times, however, have changed, and the fully cooperative model — which requires every family to spend time in the classroom and have a school ‘job’ — has been more difficult to market to local families, who have a multitude of competing pressures on their time,” she continued.
Farrar thanked the teachers, particularly Louisa Stetekluh, who taught for more than 20 years and is “the beating heart” of the school.
“Her charisma, depth of experience, and gentle and respectful connection with our children has drawn family after family to Overlee,” she said. “It is impossible to speak of Overlee’s successes and what makes us special without mentioning her in the same breath.”
If there is a silver lining here, she says, it is that another preschool will replace Overlee.
“While our story is coming to an end, we will be glad to still hear the laughter of children on the playground as we walk by, and we wish the incoming tenant every success and growth in the coming years,” Farrar said.
Children’s Weekday Program intends to more than double the number of children for whom it can care. It has applied for a use permit to serve up to 71 children — a 136% increase over the 30 children Overlee Preschool was permitted to serve. The Arlington County Board is scheduled to approve the permit during its meeting this Saturday.
“We are really excited about the new space and look forward to moving into the building in August,” Children’s Weekday Program announced on its website. “CWP’s doors will open in September 2023 for Meet the Teacher events prior to the first day of school.”
Registration is ongoing for new and returning families, per the website.
County staff says the site can accommodate this proposed capacity increase with two indoor and outdoor play areas, divided up based on age, and a proposed staffing level of 16 employees. The program will operate on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The report says approval is recommended because the new school will not have negative impacts on the neighborhood, and the local civic associations either support it or have expressed no issue with it.
Arlington has long had a childcare shortage problem and the tight demand helped childcare programs survive the pandemic. The county has tried to encourage more daycare centers by loosening zoning regulations and helping people find options via a website and provider map.
Demolition began this weekend on the 70-year-old Broyhill mansion in the Donaldson Run neighborhood.
The lengths to which some have gone to oppose it, including allegedly impersonating a photographer and stealing tile today (Monday), has left a bitter taste in the mouths of the owners.
The 10-bedroom home at 2561 N. Vermont, near the Washington Golf and Country Club, went on the market last November for $3.6 million after the previous owner died and the beneficiary, the Catholic Prelature of Opus Dei, decided to sell it to a residential buyer, the Falls Church News-Press reported.
As of Janury, the only interested buyers were husband-and-wife duo Mustaq Hamza and Amanda Maldonado. They purchased the home — described on Redfin as a “jewel [that] unfolds like a diamond necklace” — f0r more than $1 million under asking price, with the intention of knocking it down and building something more suitable for family life.
“The house was built for entertaining, not for raising a family,” Maldonado told ARLnow this morning.
Some however, are upset to see it go. On Saturday, Hamza said people shouted profanities and walked onto the property and demanded materials be set aside.
“That’s not what we expected when we were trying to plan,” he said, adding that now, he and his wife are doing some “soul-searching.”
“Our intention coming here to build the house for our family seems predicated on the fact that this was a nice neighborhood to raise our children in and stay forever,” he said. “It seems not to be the case, and disappointed as we are, we’re open to having been wrong.”
Unwanted visitors — flouting signs saying “private property” and “danger” — continued on Monday afternoon, when ARLnow photographer Jay Westcott was taking photos of the demolition.
When Westcott arrived, he met a man impersonating a photographer, who announced he was “here to take the pictures.” In addition to a camera, he wore a fluorescent vest, a hard hat and a K95 mask, and left in his red Prius with, Hamza says, historically unremarkable tiles and air filters. He says he is considering filing a police report.
The couple insists that the home is not the historical marvel it has been made out to be. They have preserved items inside and given them away if people requested them, the couple said.
“There’s nothing architecturally stunning about the house — it’s a 1950s replica,” Maldonado said. “There’s nothing in the house that can’t be purchased today. We looked to see if there was anything worth preserving and anything that there was, we saved.”
Northern Virginia home builder Marvin T. Broyhill Sr. built the mansion in 1950 after making his fortune building the classic 3-bedroom brick homes that could be bought for $20,000 during the post-World War II housing boom, according to the neighborhood conservation plan for Donaldson Run.
Police are investigating the death of a man found in a vehicle on a quiet residential street near Marymount University.
Police say the man’s death “does not appear to be suspicious” but they’re still looking into the circumstances.
“At approximately 6:56 a.m. on March 27, police and fire were dispatched to the 2700 block of N. Wakefield Street for the report of a cardiac arrest,” Arlington County Police Department spokeswoman Alli Shorb tells ARLnow. “Upon arrival, the unresponsive adult male was located inside a vehicle. Medics pronounced him deceased on scene and ACPD is conducting a death investigation.”
“Based on the preliminary investigation, the death does not appear suspicious and there is no ongoing threat to the community related to this incident,” Shorb continued. “The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine cause and manner of death. The investigation is ongoing.”
The man was in his 30s, Shorb said.
A local tipster told ARLnow that the man had crashed into a parked car in the early morning hours but was not discovered deceased until later in the morning. The tipster added that the man was not a resident of the immediate neighborhood.
Police have so far declined to confirm those additional details.
Arlington County will be stabilizing part of the Donaldson Run stream to prevent erosion.
On Saturday, the Arlington County Board approved without discussion a more than $888,200 contract with Sagres Construction Corporation to complete the work.
The project could provide relief to nearby property owners who have been trying for years to get the county to make improvements to the stream, but were stymied by land access issues, per a county report.
Two storm drain outfalls — openings that empty water into the stream — were in poor condition and discharged water onto private property, causing “significant erosion” downstream and possibly damaging private retaining walls and trees.
The county could not fix these outfalls, however, because they were left off “properly recorded” easements. And that was not the only problem.
“Since the stream meanders across multiple different properties, no one landowner could initiate a private project to stabilize the erosion,” the report said. “Residents were fearful due to large trees that had fallen on homes and private infrastructure, such as retaining walls and decks, and had been requesting assistance with the severe erosion for many years.”
The report credits county leadership for rallying multiple landowners within the Analostan Homes Association — a small townhouse community near a county-owned water tower — to provide temporary and permanent construction easements to make the project happen.
Impacted residents are “generally supportive of the project,” the report adds.
The project begins at the stream’s headwaters at the 24th Street N. storm sewer outfall and extends about 650 feet downstream to a previously restored portion of Donaldson Run.
For this project, 28 trees will be removed and Sagres will reforest the area with 630 trees and 188 shrubs, per a project webpage. The company will use rocks and plants to stabilize the stream banks from 24th Street N. to the place where previous work ended.
Sagres will replace a failing retaining wall at the end of a stormwater pipe, called an endwall, add back soil to the stream valley and install some rock, wood or earth structures that hold that dirt down, preventing more erosion, which the county calls grade control measures.
An informational meeting about the project will be held on Tuesday, March 28, according to the project webpage. Some tree removal has already begun on the site, the site notes.
Tree removal has been a significant concern among some residents during previous restoration projects including, recently, restoration work on Donaldson Run farther downstream.
Construction is expected to begin in April or May and take about nine months. Sagres will access the construction site from 25th Street N. and the 11-acre hilltop property called Missionhurst.
Firefighters are battling a house fire on 26th Street N. for the second time tonight.
Initial reports suggest that a fire in the basement has been extinguished, but the house is still filled with smoke. Firefighters responded to the same house around 6 p.m. tonight, after a report of a chair on fire, according to scanner traffic.
The occupants reportedly made it out of the house without injury both times.
The home is located on the 4500 block of 26th Street N., near Marymount from Washington Golf and Country Club. The road is said to be blocked due to the fire department activity.
Map via Google Maps
When Donaldson Run resident Liz Lord learned that she had breast cancer in late 2016 and needed to receive chemotherapy, she had lots to worry about.
One thing that might not be a matter of life and death, but is a common concern: her hair.
“At the time, because I had a seven and a nine-year-old, I was really concerned about how [losing my hair] would affect their state of minds, knowing that I was now seriously ill,” Lord told ARLnow.
She reached out to one of her son’s teachers, who had gone through a similar experience and had managed to retain a lot of their hair. That teacher told her about cold caps.
Cold caps are freezing-cold, helmet-like gel caps worn on the head. They narrow blood vessels in the scalp, which helps reduce the amount of chemotherapy medicine that can reach the hair follicles.
While it’s proven to work and is FDA-approved, there are logistical challenges associated with the treatment. This includes needing help to put it on the patient’s head and the relatively high cost. If worn for every round of chemo, prices can soar to thousands of dollars.
While Lord was able to afford the treatment and her husband (communications professional and ARLnow cartoonist Mike Mount) was able to assist, not everyone has those privileges. Plus, cold caps are often not covered by health insurance.
That’s why, in 2018, Lord help start Cold Capital Fund, a local non-profit that helps patients secure and afford cold caps.
Losing one’s hair from chemo can be a traumatic experience, not just physically but mentally as well.
“The primary driver for most patients… is privacy, normalcy, and dignity,” said Lord.”There’s some research… that when you look like yourself and feel like yourself, you have better outcomes relative to treatment.”
The way Cold Capital Fund works is that patients apply for either $500 or $1,000 of assistance. Lord encourages everyone in need to apply. Cancer and treatments are very expensive, she said, plus adding in a number of ancillary costs can make patients think they can’t afford cold cap treatment.
While $500 or $1,000 doesn’t always cover the entire cost of the treatment, it can put a significant dent in it. Plus, Cold Capital Fund has a relationship with two cold cap manufacturers and notifies the companies when a patient is approved for assistance. In turn, the companies apply a 25% discount.
When all is said and done, many patients end up getting about half of their cold cap treatments paid for.
Over the last four years, Cold Capital Fund has provided approximately $105,000 of financial assistance to about 125 patients across the region. Mostly, they are breast cancer patients like Lord was.
Recently, the organization has seen a marked rise in applications.
The Arlington County Board voted Saturday to accept a donation of land that will become an addition to the county’s park system.
The parcel that has been offered to the county is 40,024 square feet, subdivided from the lot of a home located near Marymount University and the intersection of 26th Street N. and N. Wakefield Street. The Terborgh parcel, as it is being called, is also located near the 44-acre Zachary Taylor Park and is adjacent to the Donaldson Run Trail.
The parcel was offered to the county by the executor of the estate of Anne Terborgh, who passed away in June 2021. The gift of the parcel to the county was recorded in Terborgh’s last will and testament.
A condition of the transfer of ownership to the county is that the land remain in a natural, undeveloped state, according to a restrictive covenant.
The covenant does allow for upkeep of the land by the county, which would include the control and removal of invasive species. It also allows access to the land by the public and the addition of a park bench or sign that acknowledges the property’s rules and the gift of the land by Terborgh.
The county expects to spend $3,000 on the acquisition of the parcel, including the costs of examination of the title, title insurance, recording fees, and other closing costs. The funds for the closing costs would be allocated from the county’s park land acquisition fund.
It was not immediately clear when or how the parcel will eventually be opened to the public.
Another parcel is slated to be donated to a land trust.
“Because Ms. Terborgh’s will directs one of the other lots in the resubdivision to be conveyed to the Northern Virginia Conservation Trust (NVCT), staff has also communicated with staff from NVCT about the proposed conveyances,” said the staff report to the County Board.
A group of thieves went on an overnight crime spree this weekend, breaking into 14 cars and stealing another three, according to Arlington County police.
The crimes were first reported early Sunday morning and spanned at least three residential, North Arlington neighborhoods — Bellevue Forest, Donaldson Run and Westover — according to an ACPD crime report.
The thieves stole cash and personal items from cars and also drove off with three vehicles that had keys left inside. Two of the stolen cars were later found in D.C.
Police were not able to provide a description of any of the suspects.
More from ACPD:
GRAND LARCENY AUTO/LARCENY FROM AUTO (Series), 2022-05150056/05150063/05150066/05150070/005150071, 3000 block of N. Oakland Street/3000 block of N. Quincy Street/2900 block of N. Stafford Street/3700 block of 30th Road N./5700 block of 11th Street N. At approximately 4:45 a.m. on May 15, police were dispatched to the report of a vehicle tampering. Upon arrival, it was determined that the victim was inside his residence when he observed the unknown suspect enter into his unlocked vehicle in his driveway. The victim knocked on the window, during which the suspect entered into a nearby waiting vehicle and fled the scene. The investigation determined the suspect(s) entered into and rummaged through approximately 14 victim vehicles and stole personal items and an undisclosed amount of cash from several of the vehicles. Additionally, it was discovered three vehicles with keys inside were stolen from the 3000 block of N. Quincy Street, 2900 block of N. Stafford Street and the 3700 block of 30th Road N. During the course of the investigation, two of the stolen vehicles were recovered in Washington D.C. The remaining stolen vehicle is described as a red in color, 2019 Ford Edge bearing VA license plate UMT3257. There is no suspect(s) description. The investigation is ongoing.
Numerous car-related crimes have been reported in Arlington over the past month, encompassing the thefts of or from about 30 vehicles, not including this latest spree. That’s in addition to another eight or more that have been broken into without a reported theft.
Arlington is set to spend more than $750,000 to construct stormwater handing infrastructure on the site of the county salt storage and maintenance facility along Old Dominion Drive.
The Arlington County Board is expected to consider the contract with Sagres Construction Corporation at its meeting this coming Saturday. With a contingency of about $150,000, the total contract authorization is just over $900,000.
The project will help deal with stormwater at the site, after the county granted itself an exception to its usual stormwater rules in 2018 in order to build the temporary salt storage facility, which replaced a rusted-out salt dome in danger of collapse.
“This contract for the construction of Stormwater Management / BMP will provide a stormwater filtering device and an underground stormwater detention facility as required by County Code before the expiration of the partial exception,” notes a county staff report.
“Most of the work will be within the boundaries of the County facility, with the exception of the storm drainage outfall pipe crossing 25th Road North,” the report continues. “There will be no impact to the surrounding trees. Traffic flow will be maintained along 25th Road North throughout the project duration.”
Dubbed the North Side Salt Storage Facility, the property serves as the rally point for salt crews treating roads in North Arlington during winter weather events.
Other uses for the site have previously been discussed, including a public park and sports field for nearby Marymount University, as well as a new fire station. The fire station idea was scrapped amid opposition from neighbors, many of whom spoke in favor of a park at the location instead. With this stormwater project, however, it appears that the county is banking on the salt storage use remaining in place for awhile.
The county staff report noted that residents will be provided information on the construction project after the contract is approved.
“Following contract award and prior to the start of construction, a letter containing details about the project and construction schedule will be sent to the civic association president,” the report says. “Project information will also be shared to residents through Nextdoor.”
(Updated at 4:30 p.m.) Arlington County is moving forward with a project to restore Donaldson Run Tributary B despite some vocal public opposition.
On Tuesday, the County Board voted 4-1 to award a $1.5 million contract to restore a segment of the stream beginning at N. Upton Street and extending about 1,400 feet downstream to where it meets with Donaldson Run Tributary A in Zachary Taylor Park. Takis Karantonis cast the dissenting vote.
The vote came after a handful of locals criticized the proposed project for sacrificing trees, as well as allegedly misusing taxpayer dollars and ignoring changing scientific opinions.
With the vote, the county will use an approach similar to the one taken in 2006 to restore Donaldson Run Tributary A.
The project will address “critical infrastructure, public safety and environmental threats,” the county said. It “will stabilize the stream’s eroding banks to protect existing stream valley infrastructure, including the threatened water main and sanitary sewer, which crosses the stream and runs parallel to it.”
Staff said 83 trees will be axed as part of the project, which has been in the works since 2004.
Board Chair Matt de Ferranti told public speakers he agreed with many of their points but he is ultimately supporting what county staff recommended.
“We need to work on impervious cover and climate change but we also lost more than 20 trees since 2017 due to some of the washout that has come,” he said.
Critics weren’t convinced.
The restoration of Tributary A “failed miserably,” said Rod Simmons, who said he worked on the project and argued that it actually made flooding and runoff worse. Those recommending a different solution say theirs is cheaper, less intensive, and will save more trees.
“I am heart-sick at the devastation of the Donaldson Run ecosystem that will result from this project but I am even more distressed at the systemic discounting of the importance and integrated nature of the unique ecosystems in Arlington such as Donaldson Run,” said Mary Glass, a local resident. “For more than a decade, concerned citizens have provided valuable information on the adverse impact of this project and constructive alternatives to reach the same results…It’s a shame that despite all of this, no significant modification has occurred.”
Karantonis argued that the area needs restoration but 83 felled trees is too high a price.
“I don’t think we did everything we could to minimize impact,” he said.
But Jason Papacosma, the watershed programs manager for Arlington County, said the method suggested by the advocates is not applicable to the “very high-energy environment” of Donaldson Run.
The Arlington County Board is slated to review a restoration project for Donaldson Run Tributary B next week.
The Board is scheduled to vote at its Tuesday meeting on whether to award a $1.5 million contract to restore a segment of the stream beginning at N. Upton Street and extending about 1,400 feet downstream to where it meets with Donaldson Run Tributary A in Zachary Taylor Park, according to a county report.
The project will address “critical infrastructure, public safety and environmental threats,” the county said. It “will stabilize the stream’s eroding banks to protect existing stream valley infrastructure, including the threatened water main and sanitary sewer, which crosses the stream and runs parallel to it.”
This restoration project has been in the works since 2004 when the Donaldson Run Civic Association designated it a priority Neighborhood Conservation project, according to a county website. The project received funding in 2007 and the county completed its plans for restoration in February 2020 after a lengthy design and public engagement process.
In the intervening years, erosion and storm damage, including the July 2019 flash flood, have gouged out the banks, uncovering a 30″ water main and sanitary sewer line, which triggered emergency repairs. The two forces have also felled about 20 trees along the tributary since 2017.
This erosion “threatens the Zachary Taylor hike-bike trail and public safety and is undermining streambank trees,” the staff report said. “Sediment eroded from the stream has accumulated downstream, compromising the integrity of a prior stream project, the Donaldson Run Tributary A project completed in 2006.”
According to the county website, the project also aims to help the reduce pollution, protect the multi-use trail and restore native vegetation to the area, described as “overrun” with invasive plants such as kudzu and English ivy.
About 83 trees will be removed during the project. In their place, 332 native trees, 180 shrubs, 200 live stakes — cuttings that will grow into trees — and more than 4,000 herbaceous plants will be planted, a county spokeswoman said.
The county says it will use a technique called “natural stream channel design” to create a new stream channel that can better manage the runoff it receives from the surrounding land.
Some critics, however, oppose the chosen restoration method as well as the resultant tree removal. The Arlington Tree Action Group said the project has not been updated to account for climate change and new sustainability goals. Over the last few years, the group has voiced its opposition to the number of trees that could be axed.
