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Upcoming Events:
​100th Anniversary of the
​Cherrydale Volunteer Fire House
3900 Lee Highway
Saturday, July 20, 10:00am to 7:00pm

Next Meeting of the Cherrydale Citizens Association
Wednesday, July 31, 7:30pm
St. Agnes Parish Hall
1910 N. Randolph Street

100th Anniversary of the
​Cherrydale Volunteer Fire House!

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire House, the home of the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department. The CVFD is the oldest fire company in northern Virginia. It continues to serve the community today by supporting career staff of the Arlington County Fire Department both with emergency response services and public safety education.

​To celebrate the firehouse anniversary, on Saturday, July 20, the CVFD will be hosting a parade from 10:00am to 11:00, and open house from 11:00am until 3:00pm, and bingo from 3:00pm until 7:00pm, giving away one of 100 baskets donated by local businesses.

​The CVFD is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization that depends on donations from our community. It receives no taxpayer funding. The CVFD’s most urgent project in the restoration of the firehouse’s aging brick exterior. The CVFD also hopes to rehabilitate its social hall to maintain its place as a center of the community. Additionally, the CVFD hopes to improve the firehouses’ energy efficiency. The County has designated the firehouse a historic district, so all changes must preserve the character of the building.

More information is available here.

Children’s House Montessori Opening Second Campus
at 3436 Lee Highway

Children’s House Montessori School (CHMS), a private local Montessori toddler and preschool, is purchasing the one-half acre site at 3436 Lee Highway (the former Ivey Welding site on the corner of Lincoln Street) to operate a second campus for its Montessori toddler and preschool students.

CHMS has operated a Montessori school for two-to-five-year-old children in the nearby Old Dominion neighborhood since 2000. Cherrydaler Denise Touma served as the head of school for 19 years. Her son, Jad, is currently a Montessori Director at CHMS. More information is available here.

We are excited to see this kind of redevelopment in Cherrydale. 3436 Lee Highway is a large enough site to accommodate playgrounds, drop-off and pick-up areas, and parking. CHMS hopes to rehabilitate the existing buildings or redevelop the site with a two-to-three story building. CHMS plans to use the existing entrance and egress near Cherrydale Motors on Lee Highway.

CHMS initiated planning activities in late April and is currently preparing its use permit application. CHMS has engaged Bowie Gridley Architects, a respected architectural firm, to draft a site plan design. The firm has wide experience in Arlington County, designing the new Wakefield High School building and Long Branch Elementary School. Denise and Jad look forward to meeting with you at our next CCA meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 7:30pm, St. Agnes Parish Hall, 1910 N. Randolph St.

Low-Cost Street Improvements, Parking Changes
Coming to Stafford Street

Arlington’s Complete Streets program has identified Stafford Street between 15th Street and Old Lee Highway as its number one project for low-cost changes designed to reduce speeding cars and enhance pedestrian safety.

The County’s Complete Streets program primarily uses paint striping, bollards, and increased signage to reduce intersection widths, and decrease speeding. You can see examples of Complete Streets projects in many of other parts of Arlington. It is a much less expensive way to enhance pedestrian safety.

But the County is also trying something new on Stafford Street. The County currently allows parking only on one side of Stafford Street. To reduce speeding cars, the County is going to switch which side of the street parking is allowed on a block-by-block basis. The effect of this will be to eliminate the long straight street by introducing some turns in the traffic flow. We should see these changes in late summer or early fall.

The County wants to here from you. Submit a comment.
More information is available here.

Pedestrian Safety, Bike Lane
​and Parking Changes
Coming to Quincy Street

Arlington is moving forward with pedestrian safety, bike lane, and parking changes on Quincy Street between Fairfax Drive and I-66. The first changes will come later this summer or early this fall. Others will come in two years. These changes are a compromise and, on balance, seem to have more positives than negatives.

The County will be adding two more sets of rapid-flashing-beacon pedestrian crossing signs on Quincy Street at the intersections of 13th Street and 14th Street. The signs will be the same as those at Quincy & 15th Streets. The will be installed at the end of the Ed Center construction in 2021. As part of repaving, the County will also be extending buffered bike lanes. Buffered bike lanes use additional striping to better separate car lanes from bike lanes by another 18 inches or so.

The County has already added buffered bike lanes on Quincy on the I-66 overpass. But the County will continue to use regular bike lanes on large parts of southbound Quincy Street. The County is not installing protected bike lanes on this part of Quincy, which place the bike lanes between the curb and parking lanes and use bollards to keep cars from parking/stopping in them. We have asked the County to install bollards along the Ed Center and near the Library to limit bike-car conflict. We’ve also asked the County to increase street sweeping to keep the bike lanes clear of accumulated debris.

Extending the buffered bike lanes will result in less on-street parking on Quincy Street, most of it on the southbound side of the street. Much of the reduction will happen along the Ed Center, in part as an effort to discourage student drop-off and pick-up on Quincy Street. We note that it’s rare to see even half the parking spaces on Quincy in use.

​Despite our repeated requests, the County still plans to use metered parking on Quincy Street. In our experience, drivers avoid metered spaces and either idle their cars while waiting for spots in the APS parking lot near the pool or park on 13th and 14th Streets. To avoid this problem, we have asked the County to replace the metered parking with timed-limited parking, which the County had used on this part of Quincy Street several years ago.

More information is available here. 

Cherrydale Needs Your 
Leadership and Your Participation

Civic engagement is more important than ever. Join in at the neighborhood level by becoming an active participant in the Cherrydale Citizens Association. Now you can join without paying dues. Just come to our meetings and get involved!
We’re counting on both our long-time residents and our brand-new arrivals in Cherrydale to continue to step up and play a leadership role. We are currently looking for new volunteers to serve as our Secretary, our Website Editor, and our Newsletter Editor. And we almost always have volunteers forming committees or joining in to address particular issues. 

​The CCA plays a unique role in guiding transportation, development, and school issues going on in our neighborhood. We help all our residents and businesses interact with County and State officials as well as private developers who are bringing about many changes in Cherrydale. These changes have a real impact on your lives, so you should be a part of them. The CCA can only serve you if you come to our meetings, where you can meet your fellow Cherrydalers, become better informed, make yourself heard, and, most-importantly, vote. We look forward to meeting you at our next meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 7:30pm, St. Agnes Parish Hall, 1910 N. Randolph St.

​Come Meet Dorothy Hamm Middle School Principal Ellen Smith

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Join us at our next meeting of the Cherrydale Citizens Association on Wednesday, April 24, at 7:30pm in the St. Agnes Parish Hall, located at 1910 N. Randolph Street, to meet Ellen Smith. Ellen is the new principal of our new neighborhood middle school, Dorothy Hamm Middle School, opening this fall right here in Cherrydale. 

As you know, our much loved H.B. Woodlawn program and Stratford program are moving out of the former Stratford Middle School building located at 4100 Vacation Lane in Cherrydale at the end of this school year. Starting this fall, Dorothy Hamm will be our neighborhood middle school for all of Cherrydale.

​Although construction of the addition and new driveway entrance is way behind schedule, Dorothy Hamm Middle School is opening on time this fall. Ellen has been working hard to ensure the school will be ready for her new students. She is very glad that we Cherrydalers have been working so hard to try to make the Five Points Intersection safer for kids who will be walking, biking, and/or scootering to the new school, that we have a new sidewalk on the south side of Old Dominion, and that we’ll have a signaled crosswalk on Old Dominion next to the new driveway entrance. 

Ellen is excited to tell you about the rest of her plans for the school. Although she’s had a chance to meet with many parents and future parents at various PTA meetings, this will be one of her first opportunities to meet with everyone here in Cherrydale. We are very excited to work with Ellen to help make Dorothy Hamm’s opening and expansion a success.

New “Ed Center” High School Addition Plans are Almost Final

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Arlington Public Schools (APS) is finalizing its plans for its $37 million renovation the former Ed Center into a 600-seat high school addition to Washington-Liberty High School. The new space is set to open in fall 2021. 
 
Arlington County’s Public Facilities Review Committee (PFRC) Ed Center subcommittee and APS’s Ed Center Building Level Planning Committee (BLPC) have held numerous meetings to coordinate with the community about the design of the building and surrounding area. Thank you to Cherrydalers Cynthia Hilton and Mine Sasaguri for representing Cherrydale at these meetings.  
 
The APS School Board approved the plans in February, but APS has continued to propose last-minute changes. APS's application to the County for a use permit asks for a plan that would eliminate the community's request to add a basketball/volleyball court in the Ed Center parking lot. APS also now proposes to place drop-off and pick-up zones on the south side of 15th Street near Quincy Street and the north side of Washington Boulevard near Quincy Street instead of in front of the Ed Center on Quincy Street. 
 
Meanwhile, the County will be conducting a comprehensive traffic study of Quincy Street this summer to address traffic impacts of the Ed Center addition and the County’s proposed uses of the Buck Property. APS is submitting its use permit application to the Planning Commission and County Board next. 
 
You can email comments to the Planning Commission. The sooner the better. 

Artis Senior Living Revises its Proposal to Build Assisted-Living 
and Memory-Care Facility at Old Lee Highway & Taylor Street

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After many constructive meetings with the Cherrydale Citizens Association, Waverly Hills Civic Association, and Lee Highway Alliance, Artis Senior Living has submitted a preliminary site plan proposal to the County to build an assisted-living and memory-care facility on the 2.8 area site at 2134 N. Taylor Street, on the corner of Old Lee Highway.

Artis is a for-profit senior care company. It plans to place 184 units on the property, about half of which would be devoted to memory care. Artis guestimates that there might be about 45 employees on the site during the day shift. It would have to go through Arlington County’s site-plan process. The site is currently zoned primarily for multi-family housing and townhouses. The process still has years to go.

Artis’s revised proposal shows promise. They are now proposing a 6-story instead of a 7-story building. They are also now proposing a publicly-accessible park on the corner of Old Lee and Taylor Street and are now prosing to move the parking underneath the building. They have hired local architects who seem to have a good understanding of design concepts and have studied the neighborhood. 

​We really like these initial changes, and we look forward to continuing to work with Artis as they move forward. Please join us as we move forward together. ​

Help Us Envision a
​More Connected Cherrydale

The CCA is working with the Lee Highway Alliance to move Lee Highway away from a “cars-first” design that speeds commuters through Arlington to a series of interconnected neighborhood main streets focused on Arlington residents and businesses.
Cherrydalers love to visit shops in and around the Lyon Village Shopping Center. But too few of us walk or bike there because of the narrow, unlit sidewalks underneath I-66, and the long stretch of sidewalks hemmed in by huge retaining walls.

We can change this. First, we hope to light the under-pass and turn it into a destination for walkers and bikers. Second, we need to reclaim the retaining walls, and maybe even an unnecessary traffic lane, and turn them into a fea-ture.

​This is where you come in! We need input on what this will look like in Cherrydale. The NoMa Business Improvement District in DC is leading the way for us on lighting. NoMA is hiring an artist to light the railroad underpasses that divide that neighborhood.T he CCA is already moving forward with the LHA and VDOT to explore our own light installation under I-66. We need your ideas about what our under-bridge lighting project could look like. Do we keep our costs down and follow NoMa’s lead? Do we find our own artists and create our own design? How do we incorporate a design that accounts for sidewalks on both sides of the street and the bike path?
Similarly, we need your ideas for reclaiming the huge stretches of sidewalks that pass underneath the bridge and continue along the concrete retaining walls. Fortunately the County has redesigned the traffic signals and crosswalks at I-66. It’s a great start, but what else can we do? Do we turn the walls into painted murals? Hang other art installations on the walls? Or maybe we reclaim one of the unnecessary driving lanes with concrete planters and industrial-scale art installations?
While always cost conscious, we want to be bold. We invite you to think about what you’ve seen in other parts of Arlington, other parts of the DC area, and other cities around the country and the world that you think could work along this stretch of Lee Highway. Lots of other communities have, without breaking the bank, found creative ways to reclaim spaces for walkers and bikers that were originally designed with only cars in mind. We can do it, too.

Bus Stop Changes Recommended

Arlington County has recommended changes to the Bus Stops in Cherrydale. The recommendations include improving, moving, and eliminating various bus stops. Proposed improvements on the eastbound side include adding benches, trash & recycling cans, and ADA space at Quincy St. and a bench at the stop after Kenmore St. Proposed eliminations include the westbound stops near Klein's Auto Repair and near Sun & Moon Yoga studio, and stops in both directions at Utah St. We'll update you when we have more information.      

Proposed Redevelopment of Kirkwood-Washington Boulevard Properties

Three developers have submitted plans to change the General Land Use Plan (GLUP) for properties along Kirkwood Road and Washington Boulevard. The properties include the YMCA, the former Sport and Health Club, and continue down Washington Boulevard past Lincoln St. They would allow for high density development. Quincy Park North Residents have started a petition to ask the County to better study impacts to traffic, parking, building heights and setbacks along 13th St., and the future of the YMCA.   

Contribute to the Sweet and Sour News

The Sweet and Sour News is a great way for the Cherrydale Citizens Association to reach every Cherrydaler, young and old. It is a unique resource for providing news and information about Cherrydale and Cherrydalers.

​Over the years, we’ve had a number of Cherrydalers contribute articles or even start a column. We’re looking for folks to start doing that again. 
And delivering the Sweet and Sour News is a fun and easy way to join our tremendous network of Cherrydale volunteers. The newsletter comes out five or six times a year, and volunteers adopt a street and have two weekends to hand deliver the newsletter. It only takes about 20 or 30 minutes and is a great way to stay in touch with your neighbors.

​Email CCA President Jim Todd  at president@cherrydale.net if you are interested in contributing an article or volunteering. Thanks! 

VINCI Early Learning School Opening Third Location
​at 3508 Lee Highway

VINCI Early Learning School, a private child care and education center, has purchased the 8000-square-foot site at 3508 Lee Highway (the former Columbia Masonic Lodge on the corner of Lincoln Street), to open a third location in the region in fall 2020. VINCI serves children twelve months through pre-K offering a brainscience based, skill-driven curriculum and using technology as a tool. More information is available here.
We are excited to see this kind of use of our commercial space in Cherrydale. VINCI is not planning any exterior changes to the site and plans 8 to 9 classrooms in the building. It plans to serve up to 96 children with 18 staff members, including two administrators. It will operate between Monday-Friday, from 7:00am or 8:00am to 6:00pm. Entrance and egress to the site is on Lincoln Street. The site has twelve parking spaces, six of which will be reserved for drop-off and pick-up. VINCI director Dr. Dan Yang looks forward to meeting with you at our next CCA meeting on Wednesday, April 24, 7:30pm, St. Agnes Parish Hall, 1910 N. Randolph St.

Cherrydale's July Fourth Block Party a Huge Success!

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Wow! What a great neighborhood celebration! Thank you to everyone who came to our Cherrydale July Fourth barbecue and potluck! What great fun! What great music! What a great view of the fireworks! A special thank you to our organizers, our sponsors, our set-up crew, our grillers, our band, our Declaration of Independence reader, our clean-up crew, and everyone who brought a side dish or dessert! It was a lot of work, but it was so worth it! We can’t wait to do it again next year, and we hope you will join us in keeping this great tradition going! If you’d like to be a part of next year’s celebration, please let us know. Thanks again, everyone, for making Cherrydale the best neighborhood there is. Cherrydale rocks!

​The Great Annual Cherrydale Neighborhood Yard Sale
Saturday, June 8, 8:00am to 1:00pm

Now is the time to list your home on the map for the Great Annual Cherrydale Neighborhood Yard Sale! This year’s yard sale will be on Saturday,June 8th from 8am to 1pm. The deadlineto be included on the map and in the sale is Wednesday, June 4th.
 
Here is how it works –

• Gather your “treasures,” collectibles, antiques, sporting goods, toys, books, furniture, clothes, or “whatever.”

• Call or email Scott Springston or Kathy Holt (703-528-1548, sdakss@aol.com) by June 4th and they will put you on the map for a mere $5 donation–which (barely) covers the cost of the ads, flyers, maps, signs and arrows!

• The evening before or the morning of the sale, put the items out in front if your house and wait for the hordes of buyers to come pouring in–that’s all there is to it!!
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• Kids can set up a lemonade stand, and sell lemonade and other goodies! No fee for children-run sales!

Joint Facilities Advisory Committee Update on the Buck Property

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In 2017, Arlington County purchased the six-acre parcel known as the Buck Property located at 1425 N. Quincy Street for $31 million. This is one of the largest parcels of land in north Arlington. 

Working with County and Arlington Public Schools (APS) staff, the new citizen-lead Joint Facilities Advisory Commission (JFAC) has been studying potential uses of the property for potential County and APS uses ever since.  

​After many JFAC meetings, APS and the County seem to be zeroing in on a plan to reuse the existing buildings for a number of short- to medium-term uses: 

The County proposes to use the first building closest to Quincy Street for fire logistics and reserve vehicle storage. 
APS is proposing to use the second building for future classroom space. 

The County is proposing to use the third building for police storage, and possibly reconfiguring it for an impound lot. 
APS and the County are considering using the fourth building either for additional classroom space or for public safety communications and emergency management. 

Some proposed uses would conflict with others, and the County and APS would still need to work that out. 
APS also asked JFAC to study demolishing the existing buildings and parking adding three playing fields. It would be a squeeze, but it would work. 

There may be some evaluation of the possibility of expanding the playing fields over I-66. County staff has, of course, expressed concern about the County’s need for other County uses, and about the potential costs of expanding over I-66. Given the per-square-foot price of what the County already paid, several Cherrydalers think expanding over I-66 wouldn’t cost that much more.    

The County is studying traffic implications of all proposals. And since this is happening at the same time as the new Ed Center addition to Washington-Liberty High School, the County will be studying the impact of both.

​JFAC cancelled its next meeting. Check back here to see when it is rescheduled.

Additional Changes Coming to
​Five Point Intersection

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After many Cherrydalers attended many meetings with County and VDOT staff to express our concerns, we’ve all seen a few to the County’s re-working of the Five Points intersection, and we’re looking forward to promises of a few more. 

You may have noticed that the County has added a few seconds to the left-turn signal on westbound Lee Highway during afternoon rush hour. Although it’s not much, we’ve learned that making even this change required serious rebalancing of the traffic light pattern in the intersection.
We’ve also convinced the County to add a few more signs clarifying the new left-turn lane patterns for Quincy Street and Military Road. We’ve also convinced the County to reset the pedestrian walk signals so that pedestrians don’t have to wait quite so long to cross Military Road, Old Lee Highway, and Quincy Street.

The County has promised a few additional changes:
  • To study and readjust as needed the signal timing of Lee Highway and Old Dominion along with the rest of Lee Highway in an effort to improve the flow of traffic.
  • To add dashed north-bound and south-bound bike lane markings between Quincy Street and Military Road. In addition to helping carve out a safer space for cyclists, we also hope that the markings will help guide north-bound and south-bound cars farther away from each other in the intersection, hopefully giving move space for cars turning left from Quincy or Military. 
  • To add “stop for pedestrian” signs in the slip lane leading from Military Road to Old Dominion Drive. 
  • To replace the “stop for pedestrians” crosswalk signs on Military Road at its intersection with Vacation Lane. It’s a mystery to us why this one is taking so long. 
  • To work with VDOT to maybe increase parking along Lee Hwy near N. Oakland St. 

​If you have additional questions or concerns about Five Points, please email CCA President Jim Todd.

Marymount Farmers Market

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The Marymount Farmers Market is returning this summer beginning in late May. It will be open every Saturday from 9am to 1pm. Shop for local produce, fresh eggs, baked goods, pickles, meat & cheese. Parking at Blue Garage.

​This year the Farmers Market is starting the Adopt-a-Saturday program. They are looking two people from civic associations, churches, scouts, or other groups to volunteer to help set up and take down the Market one time. Several other civic associations have been able to round up volunteers. The Cherrydale Citizens Association would love to be able to adopt a Saturday. Come to our March, and May CCA meetings or email CCA President Jim Todd at president@cherrydale.net if you are interested in volunteering. Thanks!

County Moving Foward with Lee Highway Planning

Arlington County is moving forward with its Plan Lee Highway, a comprehensive long-range planning effort to revision the entire five-mile Lee Highway corridor.  The County is continuing to work closely with the Lee Highway Alliance (LHA), a citizen-led organization dedicating to planning for a more economically-viable, walkable, and attractive corridor that benefits the neighborhoods and the business community.  The LHA published a Visioning Study in May 2016 after three years of meetings and community-outreach efforts.  

Working with AECOM, County planners are holding a series of open design studios on May 3, May 17, May 31, June 14, and June 28. All sessions will be held in LHA's offices, located at 4620 Lee Highway, Suite 208.  

Cherrydale already has its own planning documents.  The County Board adopted the Cherrydale Revitalization Plan in 1994, and the Board has approved Cherrydale's Neighborhood Conservation Plan (NC Plan) in 2014.  The Revitalization Plan focuses on economic redevelopment of Lee Highway through design initiatives, while the NC Plan focusses on the neighborhood's preferences for Lee Highway and our residential streets.  

The Revitalization Plan is over twenty-years-old.  The question for Cherrydale is whether to ask County planners to leave Cherrydale out of initial Lee Highway planning or to begin its Lee Highway planning with a re-examination the Revitalizaiton Plan.  This could be a chance for the County to understand what worked and what didn't, and it could be a chance to update elements of our plan that are showing their age.  But it could also reopen long-settled debates about the future of Lee Highway through Cherrydale.  

Since the goal of this planning is to develop a unified vision for Lee Highway's future, rather than letting decisions happen on a ad hoc basis, now is a great time to focus more resources on Cherrydale.  

How to Get Involved in Arlington

As quick glance at messages on the listserve and Nextdoor or an evening stroll will tell you, Cherrydale neighbors are an opinionated bunch. Many of our ideas, suggestions and complaints relate to the services of Arlington County and Arlington Public Schools (APS).

Luckily, we all live in an accessible jurisdiction, where the staff and leadership of both the county and APS value and act on input from the public. However, sometimes figuring out how to get involved can be daunting. Here are various ways you can find out what's going on and make your voice heard.

1.     Find and comment on the projects that the County and APS are currently working on;
2.     Join or give feedback to county and school commissions and committees (and answer the question “what is JFAC”);
3.     Have your voice heard during the budget process;
4.     Let the County and APS know about issues they are not currently working on but should;
5.     Report a problem/Request a Service

Updating the CCA for the 21st Century

Since its founding more than 100 years ago, the Cherrydale Citizens Association has been an unincorporated association.  Moving forward, it may be better to incorporate the CCA as a non-profit 501(c)(4) association organized to promote the social welfare.  The move would provide greater protection for officers and members alike, and would allow us to explore obtaining liability insurance.  It would also improve our ability to accept donations via credit card payment.  We’ve found a law firm that will donate their services to help us with the process and to file all the necessary paperwork.  If this works out, we hope to move forward with this in the next few months. 

Nominate a New NC Project!

We need your ideas for our next Cherrydale NC project. NC projects can include sidewalks and street lights, street lights only, park improvements, beautification, and other capital improvement projects to benefit the neighborhood.  Download the forms and send completed forms to our NC Representative.   Our next project in sidewalk improvements on North Quebec St. between 17th St. and 18th Rd.  But we are already thinking about our future projects.   Submit your ideas today!​
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