The Montgomery Center redevelopment is heading to Alexandria’s Planning Commission later this month.
The proposed development, first announced last spring, is a sweeping overhaul of a block at the heart of Old Town North.
The plan is to replace the current structure with a mixed-use development, featuring 327 residential units and 25,273 square feet of ground-floor retail. As part of a trade for bonus density, developer Carr Companies will provide 22 on-site affordable housing units and a monetary contribution.
Carr is also looking for city or public funding to aid in the construction of a three-level garage — or a two-level garage if no public funding is made available.
With the writing on the wall, some of the current tenants of Montgomery Center have been struggling to find a new home. Seichou Karate, a longtime martial arts school in the Montgomery Center, has been struggling to find a comparable new location. Local bike shop Wheel Nuts closed last December.
The project is heading to Planning Commission review at the March 30 meeting.
Seichou Karate Old Town was born in the 2007 Recession and adapted to survive the 2020 Covid pandemic, but after 16 years in the heart of Old Town North, it may not survive the neighborhood’s development boom.
Seichou Karate is one of a dozen stores at the Montgomery Center (807 North Royal Street) in Old Town North. The squat building sits at the heart of a rapidly developing area of the city. Carr Companies purchased the building and announced redevelopment plans last year.
With the building slated for demolition and redevelopment, a handful of local businesses that helped boost Old Town North for decades now find themselves victims of their own success. Beloved local bike shop Wheel Nuts closed in December after 20 years in business. Another shop owner on the block, who asked not to be named, said her shop would be running until they’re forced out. Like others on the block, she said she’s tried to find an alternate spot for her business, but it’s been difficult finding a location she can afford.
Richard Romero has run Seichou Karate since 2007, but has been teaching traditional martial and cultural arts in Old Town since 1997.
The brick walls around the interior of the dojo are holdovers from when that space was an alleyway between buildings. Under the mats, Romero said there are still manhole covers.
“I leased it 17 years ago and there was nothing here,” Romero said. “The bricks inside: that was the exterior of the other buildings.”
Before running the Seichou Karate, Romero was a lawyer, but said he couldn’t really find a place where he felt comfortable. Growing up in New York, he’d trained in karate, and when a coworker asked about martial arts, Romero agreed to teach him. That grew to a small class in the office, and Romero fell in love teaching.
“In 2004, I left law and taught at health clubs,” Romero said. “I was teaching at seven locations.”
Romero said going to work at Seichou Karate has never felt like “going to work.” Romero runs 28 classes per week out of the dojo. Two other trainers at Seichou Karate have been there for 12 years.
The building has gone through significant changes and improvements over the years, including a $22,000 investment in 2021 that Romero said proved to be ill-timed, as shortly after the improvements were completed it was announced that the building would be torn down.
“I get it,” Romero said. “I understand what these developers are up against. On the other hand… I feel confident they could do much more.”
Romero said he was hoping that Carr Companies could appoint a point person to help tenants relocate, but that hasn’t happened. There are doors a representative from Carr can open in the business world that smaller businesses can’t.
“I’ve been looking for 16 months,” Romero said. “If I do manage to call a landlord, many of them don’t want a karate school. There’s a reluctance for martial arts schools because we make noise and can’t afford the rent something like Chipotle can. but if Carr calls, they’ll pick up that phone.”
Other businesses around Montgomery Center told ALXnow that, like Romero, they’ve been searching for buildings to purchase or rent, but the rates are much higher than the Montgomery Center. While commercial real estate has struggled in recent years, Romero said many he’s encountered can still afford to wait for the safer bet of a national chain compared to a local business.
Romero and other businesses in Montgomery Center said they did receive offers to return to the Montgomery Center after the block was redeveloped, but Romero said he can’t afford to wait the several years it might take to build the new development.
For Seichou Karate, Romero said the deadline to find a new place is the end of March.
“We’ll stay here as long as they’ll let us stay,” Romero said. “This [community] isn’t something you can reproduce easily. Our students love us. We’re not a national brand, but around here, we’ve been a gem for the community. We teach something unique and provide holistic development. I’m not ready to hang up my obi just yet.”
Almost exactly two years after it opened, Loyal Companion (923 N. St. Asaph Street) in Old Town North will be closing for good.
The location’s closure is part of a broader sweep of closures following Independent Pet Partners filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. All stores outside of Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois will close.
Staff at Loyal Companion said they learned about the closure last Thursday. Pet grooming well end on Feb. 18 and the store will be closed by the end of the month, with all merchandise in the store set on sale before them.
According to a message on the company’s website:
To our Loyal Companion community,
With a heavy heart, we want to inform you that we’ve made the tough decision to close our Loyal Companion stores. We have loved serving the community and supporting you on your pet wellness journey.
Our stores will be open through the end of February. We will be offering liquidation discounts and we encourage you to take advantage of these great offers to get all the supplies you need.
While it’s hard to say goodbye, it’s easy to say thank you. Thank you for being part of our family. Thank you for caring about pet wellness. And thank you for supporting your local community.
We’ve enjoyed all the hugs and belly rubs along the way.
~ Your Loyal Companion Team
Updated at 6 p.m. Old Town residents and business owners are up in arms for not being officially notified of a route change for the George Washington Birthday Parade on Feb. 20 (President’s Day).
The parade will shut down large sections of Old Town North and Old Town near the King Street-Old Town Metro station, restricting parking and vehicular access for residents and businesses. The parade will start at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Pendleton Street and Fayette Street, and marchers will walk south down Fayette Street, hang a right on King Street and then end at the foot of the George Washington National Masonic Memorial at King Street and Commonwealth Avenue.
The new route was chosen by the volunteer-led the George Washington Birthday Parade Committee to recognize the 100th anniversary of the parade, which is the biggest annual parade celebrating George Washington in the world. The parade is traditionally held east of Washington Street near City Hall in the Old Town Historic District, but this year’s event will commemorate the construction of the Memorial in 1923, which saw then-President Calvin Coolidge, Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Virginia Governor E. L.Trinkle laying the cornerstone.
In November, the Committee submitted a request to the city to change the route. That request was approved on Jan. 24, and two days later parade organizers publicly announced that the parade will happen on Feb. 20, and that a number of side streets will also be closed.
“As with any large-scale event of this magnitude, a months-long process was necessary to assess the best approach,” Ebony Fleming, the city’s director of the Office of Communications and Public Information, told ALXnow. “While we are honored our city is home to such notable celebrations, we recognize how changes, and even temporary road closures, can be an inconvenience to our residents and business owners, especially on a holiday weekend. We will continue promoting the new parade route and ask impacted Alexandrians for their grace and flexibility as we prepare to welcome excited visitors for this historic occasion.”
The parade will be held between 1 and 3 p.m., and parking restrictions and access will be lifted no later than 5 p.m.
“If it’s such a big deal — the 100th anniversary — don’t you want to let people know?” said an Old Town resident who will be affected by the parking. “I haven’t heard anything about this parade at all.”
Parade spokesperson Bud Jackson said that the new route is a one-time experience, and acknowledged the inconvenience for residents and businesses. Jackson said that parade volunteers will soon be going door-to-door to inform those affected about the change.
“Like most parades, the George Washington Birthday Parade has always included portions of residential neighborhoods and inconvenienced some businesses,” Jackson told ALXnow. “We acknowledge that this year’s one-time only parade route change will inconvenience some residents and businesses.”
But many residents and business owners are either unhappy about the late notice or unaware of changes to the route.
“Certainly the organizers knew it was the 100 anniversary of this event for quite some time,” a business owner told ALXnow. “Perhaps even for the last 100 years. Why did the City allow them to change the route well after event permits were submitted and approved? Why were impacted residents and businesses not notified? Would a for profit organization like Pacers be given the same leniency? I don’t think so.”
The parade will also restrict vehicular access to a number of housing complexes, including The Asher (620 N. Fayette Street), The Henry (525 N. Fayette Street), The Prescott (1115 Cameron Street), 1111 Belle Pre Apartments (111 Belle Pre Way), as well as Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority properties.
“I didn’t know about (the new parade route) and none of the residents that I spoke with knew about it either but I haven’t heard any complaints,” said Kevin Harris, president of the ARHA Resident Association.
Another Old Town business owner said they will be losing up to $7,000 in business.
“We already have events and staff scheduled for February,” the business owner said. “Federal holidays are typically huge retail sales days. This will be a $5,000-to-$7,000 hit on our business. This is why notifying impacted businesses is required in the permitting process.”
Parade traffic and parking restrictions
While the parade starts at Pendleton and N. Fayette Streets, all parking on nearby side streets will be cleared by 9 a.m., according to organizers.
- The bridge at King Street and Commonwealth Avenue will be cleared by 5 a.m.
- All vehicles parked on the street will be towed between the 100 and 900 blocks of N. Fayette Streets (at the intersection with Braddock Place)
- All vehicles parked on N. Payne Street will be towed
- All vehicles parked on N. West Street from the intersection at King Street to Princess Street will be towed
- All vehicles parked on Queen Street and N. Fayette Street
- All vehicles parked on Princess Street, starting at the intersection with N. Fayette Street and going down to the intersection with King Street
- Traffic will be shut down (except for residents) on King Street to Janneys Lane
- Traffic will be shut down on Callahan Drive (except Amtrak station traffic and buses)
- Traffic will be shut down on Diagonal Road and portions of Daingerfield Road (except buses and local traffic)
- Traffic will be shut down on Sunset Street, Russell Road and Cedar Street near the intersection of King Street and Commonwealth Avenue
A volunteer-led group representing the rapidly-developing Old Town North will now have paid leadership, with funding from the City of Alexandria.
The group will be focused on assisting the city’s goals of turning Old Town North into an arts hub, amid several sweeping developments in the works there, including the eventual demolition and redevelopment of the GenOn Power Plant.
The city is giving the group $83,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding, which it will spend on staffing.
“This grant will enable OTNA to move beyond the all-volunteer stage with new professional staff, and to intensify its work toward its goals of implementing the Old Town North Small Area Plan and the Old Town North Arts and Cultural District,” per a release.
The grant comes as big changes are in the works to the area, facilitated by the same density trade that creates affordable housing to create arts spaces. The move has created some concern that it sets arts and affordable housing up as competing interests.
Last October, the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership announced it would be allocating $535,000 in total to several community organizations around Alexandria, including the Old Town North Alliance.
Former Vienna Town Council member Edythe Kelleher was hired as the first executive director.
A pedestrian suffered minor injuries after being struck by a vehicle in Old Town North early last Sunday night (Dec. 18).
The 56-year-old female victim was transported to the hospital after getting hit at around 5:40 p.m. at the intersection of Pendleton Street and N. Pitt Street.
The driver stayed at the scene and was charged with failure to pay full time attention.
The incident occurred less than a mile from where a pedestrian was struck in the 100 block of N. Henry Street on Wednesday, Dec. 14.
Fresh fruit juice is back on the menu in Old Town North.
On Saturday, City Council unanimously reclassified Juice Box as a temporary trailer, after being incorrectly zoned as a food truck. The move follows a zoning violation after the company started operating in the parking lot of the Robinson Terminal North warehouse building at 500 North Union Street.
The business, which runs until April to November, is now licensed to serve fruit juice in the lot until April 2025.
Christina Barbari opened Juice Box this spring, and recently closed down for the season. Barbari is also working on opening a Juice Box kiosk next summer at the Crystal City Water Park at National Landing, and is scoping out brick and mortar locations throughout the D.C. Metro area.
“I am looking to expand in Arlington,” Barbari told ALXnow. “I’m finalizing the details for a second location at the waterpark at National Landing, and the fact that I’m looking at a second location within my first year in business in amazing.”
Barbari is a native of the Alexandria area of Fairfax County, and has a degree in catering and hospitality from The Art Institutes of Washington.
“There’s nothing like this in Old Town, and bringing fresh juice to cyclists and dog walkers and people in the community is really great,” Barbari said. “I met a lot of great people and I’m really excited about coming back next year.”
At the height of the pandemic, Classical Movements held weekly open-air concerts with world-renowned musicians in their “Secret Garden” in Old Town North.
Business is slowly returning to its hectic pace for Neeta Helms, the organization’s founder, as she and her staff organize trips around the world for some of the biggest classical musical acts in the business. The touring company has worked in 147 countries, and produces more than 50 annual musical tours, as well as hundreds of concerts.
“For us, this garden became the sign of spring and hope,” Helms said.
While the weekly concerts are no more, there are still monthly performances at the Secret Garden.
“It was never about the money,” Helms said of the Secret Garden concerts. “For 50 distanced people at $40 a person, that’s $2,000, while we have the concert master of the Philadelphia Orchestra, concert mistress of the National Symphony Orchestra, as well as the principal and second violin, the principal viola and principal clarinet play with us. If musicians of that caliber, who play in the greatest concert halls in the world and the Kennedy Center and are back playing every week to play in our garden, that should tell everybody something.”
Classical Movements, in June 2020, was one of the first venues in the region to open their doors for live performances. Between June and December 2020 alone, they hosted 40 socially distanced one-hour-long concerts, with a few noise complaints from neighbors.
“The first violinist in the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra, before he played, said that he hadn’t played to a live audience for 15 months,” said Johan van Zyl, the company’s senior vice president. “As he was saying that, I was sitting on the side of the stage in the back and I could see his lip quivering. He was so emotional about the fact that he was playing to a live audience. That’s the moment for me where I thought we’re doing the right thing.”
The venue has also become a popular spot for weddings.
“What shocked us about Covid was that the music was singled out as one of the most dangerous things to do,” Helms said. “Choirs were identified right from the get-go, and performing music became this lethal activity. For us, we had 40-or-so tours all over the world that we had to cancel. We had to try to figure out how much money we could get back and give to our clients, which is a huge amount of money. Really what was at stake was millions of dollars.”
Helms said that the travel industry is at the whim and fancy of plagues, weather and international relations.
“We were affected by SARS and had to put tours on hold in China, or there was MERS, or there was a volcano erupting in Chile and we had to bus people 18 hours to get to a performance in Argentina,” she said. “On September 11, 2001, we had the New York Philharmonic itself flying back home from a residency in Braunschweig, Germany, and all flights were grounded until we could get everyone home four days later.”
Bucking trends musically is commonplace for Helms, whose first touring concert in Moscow’s Red Square in 1992, right after the fall of the Soviet Union, was attended by 100,000 people. The event was conducted by Russian defector Mstislav Rostropovich and featured the National Symphony Orchestra and the Choral Arts Society of Washington.
“For us in Red Square (in 1992), what was marvelous was being mobbed by people,” she said. “It was like touring with Elvis or the Beatles, because anyone in this Russia who met us gave us flowers and notes, and thanked us for the miracle of actually having music on Red Square, as opposed to demonstrations with tanks. By presenting music, it was a surprisingly revolutionary event, in hindsight.”
With redevelopment on the horizon, Wheel Nuts Bike Shop (302 Montgomery Street) owner Ron Taylor said it’s time to close up shop and ride into the sunset — specifically to West Virginia.
The store’s final day is set for tomorrow (Saturday) from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.
The store is in the middle of the Montgomery Center, which developer Carr Companies is in the process of redeveloping. Taylor said the writing had been on the wall for a while.
“We were given significant advance notice that the building was being sold,” Taylor said. “My lease happens to run out in December. Demolition of the building is slated for maybe the end of the second quarter of next year, [around] June to October. At that point, all tenants will need to vacate.”
Taylor said he knew the development was coming sooner or later.
“There’s never any question that the Montgomery center will not be developed, we all knew that they had plans for the building,” Taylor said.
Wheel Nuts has been a fixture for local cyclists for over twenty years, with a location easily accessible from the Alexandria portion of the Mount Vernon trail. The business’ website said the shop opened in 1999, but by Taylor’s count it’s been around 25 years.
“We’ve been in business 25 years,” Taylor said. “It’s bittersweet. I’m the owner of the shop — my wife and I own the shop, and my wife just retired from the Fairfax County Park Authority, so it’s nice that we were able to tie it in with when she retired.”
Taylor said since announcing the store’s closure, he’s gotten a flurry of emails and texts and phone calls both from past customers and neighbors sharing just how important the shop was to them.
“I’m going to miss the work, I’m going to miss my staff, going to miss the community, going to miss cyclists that came off the trail,” Taylor said. “I’m saddened by it, but I’m excited for what the future holds.”
Taylor said he’s looking forward to new adventures when the pair move to a new home in West Virginia.
“We’re both into the outdoors and looking forward to mountain biking and skiing,” Taylor said. “We plan to do a lot of traveling and we’re excited to visit national parks, and do biking: we want to practice what we’ve been preaching for many years.”
A juice trailer parked in North Old Town is headed to Planning Commission review next month after a zoning inspection triggered by a complaint found it was not in compliance with city ordinance.
Juice Box Old Town is a cold-pressed mobile juice bar set up at 500 North Union Street, near Founders Park. The Juice Box website describes it as a perfect site to catch locals and visitors walking along the river. What it was not, a staff report said, was in compliance with city zoning ordinance.
“On June 10, 2022, a zoning inspection of the subject site was conducted after the City received complaints of the operation of a commercial trailer,” the report said. “A Zoning Inspector confirmed that a trailer was being used as retail juice establishment at the subject site and the proprietor was informed of the need to bring the trailer into compliance through Special Use Permit approval. To bring the business into compliance with the City’s Zoning Ordinance, the applicant has submitted the current application for an after-the-fact SUP review.”
It is likely Juice Box will get that approval, though, with the staff report recommending approval and saying the trailer makes a welcome addition to the city’s efforts to make the waterfront more vibrant.
“Staff recommends approval of the applicant’s request for a temporary trailer. The temporary trailer would provide a desirable amenity in close proximity to the City’s active waterfront area and in a location where this relatively small business would not impact the surrounding commercial and residential neighborhood.”
The trailer turns the empty lot into a space for beverages; offering pressed juice, water and coffee at a walk-up window.
The report also said there’s no reason to believe the trailer would impact parking of traffic flow.
Juice Box is a seasonal business, and the report said the trailer will be permitted for up to two years beginning on April 1, 2023, when the business reopens. Additional years could be approved via an administrative special use permit.
The Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 6.
