(Updated at 4 p.m.) The Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop in the Pentagon City mall has shut down for renovations.
All evidence of the small store on the first floor of the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City is now gone, but an employee says they’re hoping to reopen by the end of the week.
Arlington leaders will soon convene more than a dozen town halls to discuss Amazon’s plans for the county in the run-up to a planned vote on the matter later this month.
County Board members plan to spend the next few weeks holding meetings with a variety of civic associations and advocacy groups to discuss the tech giant’s arrival in Crystal City and Pentagon City, and have now released a schedule of the impending gatherings.
When Amazon first started seriously considering Arlington for a new headquarters, the company went so far as to send employees out to local coffee shops and bars to gauge how people around here felt about the tech giant moving in.
The company’s head of worldwide economic development, Holly Sullivan, says Amazon employees were regularly surveying Crystal City locals about the prospect of becoming the neighborhood’s newest, and largest, occupant. And by the time the tech firm was ready to select Arlington for the project, she had full confidence that Amazon would be greeted with open arms.
If you’ve got a hankering for samoas, thin mints and tagalongs these days, you’re in luck — it’s officially Girl Scout cookie season around Arlington.
Local troops have begun setting up booths around the county, with proceeds of the annual sale set to benefit the local Girl Scout Council of the Nation’s Capital and fund a variety of trips and programs for kids around Arlington.
The following Letter to the Editor was submitted by Gary Shapiro, the president and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), who writes in support of Amazon’s plans to open up a new headquarters in Crystal City and Pentagon City.
The Crystal City-based group lobbies on behalf of more than 2,200 consumer technology companies, Amazon included, and it has recently come out in strong support of the company’s vision for Arlington. Shapiro appeared at a recent forum of Amazon executives and regional leaders, and the CTA even organized a pro-Amazon demonstration at the event.
Update at 7 p.m. — The situation ended after police found the subject dead in the apartment, per ACPD.
UPDATE: The subject was located deceased and ACPD is now conducting a death investigation. Based on the preliminary investigation, this is an isolated incident with no known threat to the community.
Amazon executives say they’re looking forward to becoming “good neighbors” in Arlington, delivering a decidedly optimistic message to local leaders in one of the company’s first public events since tabbing the county for its new headquarters.
The tech giant’s head of worldwide economic development, Holly Sullivan, assured a crowd of government officials and business executives last night (Thursday) that the company is looking to build a “sustainable long-term partnership” in the region. That presented a stark contrast with Amazon’s recent decision to spurn New York City over concerns that local leaders were insufficiently supportive of a new headquarters there.
Crystal City’s leading business advocacy group is taking its most concrete steps yet to expand and represent Pentagon City and Arlington’s portion of Potomac Yard as well.
The Crystal City Business Improvement District is hoping to bump out its borders as soon as next year, according to documents submitted to the County Board. The BID plans to spend the next few months working secure the support of businesses in its adjacent neighborhoods, then finalize the change sometime in fiscal year 2020.
Amazon can feel a bit omnipresent around Arlington these days, but, in one key way, local leaders and activists say the company has been missing in action.
The tech giant sent a few emissaries to Pentagon City in mid-November, as politicians from around the state and the region congregated to hail the company’s massive Arlington expansion. Since then, however, people closely watching the Amazon debate say they’ve seen barely any evidence that the company’s executives have shown their faces in the community.
(Updated at 2:45 p.m.) Amazon is cancelling plans to build half of its “HQ2” in New York City, citing mounting criticism from local officials and activists in its reasoning for abandoning its other proposed location for a new headquarters outside Arlington.
But Amazon said in a statement announcing the change that it does not intend to re-open the HQ2 search and will “proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville.”
Amazon is showing an increasing willingness to sign a collective bargaining agreement with local unions before it sets to work building new office space in Arlington, perhaps meeting a frequent demand of activists concerned about the tech giant’s labor practices.
Though the company cautions that nothing is set in stone until county officials formally sign off on an incentive deal to bring the tech giant’s new headquarters to Crystal City and Pentagon City, Amazon is sending signals that it’s open to the prospect of striking a “project labor agreement” with construction workers who could someday erect the company’s future home in Arlington.
Embattled Gov. Ralph Northam has signed a bill to send up to $750 million in incentive cash to Amazon, quietly sealing the oft-discussed deal to bring a new headquarters to Arlington.
Northam put pen to paper on the legislation last night, a day before it was set to become law without his signature. An identical companion bill is still pending in the state Senate, but Northam’s approval and the General Assembly’s overwhelming support of both pieces of legislation likely means its passage is a mere formality.
