Leeway Overlee Civic Association

Leeway Overlee Civic Association (LOCA)

GENERAL MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

Topic: Langston Boulevard Alliance & Plan Langston Boulevard

Speaker: Ginger Brown, Executive Director, Langston Boulevard Alliance

Date: Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Location: WESTOVER LIBRARY, Longfellow Room

Via Zoom, https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83882017990?pwd=O2OfBcEOykkelBUkVQRTBtzRY3IIF6.1

Meeting ID: 838 8201 7990

Passcode: 321456

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Langston Boulevard Alliance (LBA) established a Community Centers Committee to evaluate community centers in its corridor, including advocating with Leeway Overlee to save, renovate, and reopen Lee Center.

Langston Boulevard Alliance: In 2012, grassroots efforts to plan Langston Boulevard began. Civic association presidents meet at regular breakfast gatherings. Walking tours and community meetings offered residents the opportunity to learn and exchange ideas. The establishment of the Lee Highway Alliance, which evolved into Langston Boulevard Alliance (LBA), resulted in the development of guiding principles, a preliminary community vision, and recommendations to create an adopted County plan for Langston Blvd. The vision called for Langston Blvd. to become a walkable main street with a string of neighborhood activity centers between Rosslyn and East Falls Church, with new transportation and housing options, better public spaces, and more.

Plan Langston Boulevard: In 2019, the County recognized community support for that vision. Plan Langston Boulevard (PLB), passed by the Arlington County Board in 2023, built upon the work of hundreds of citizens and the many previous community visioning efforts.

The Plan envisions economic sustainability, environmental resilience, and equity, connecting the key planning elements into a cohesive roadmap toward the future.

We applaud the volunteers who deliver our newsletter. We have approximately 20 walking routes to bring this newsletter to you several times annually. Please join me in thanking our volunteers for their dedication -- many have been delivering the newsletter for decades.

LOCA ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

LOCA uses a web service, Groups.io, to distribute information electronically, including the newsletter. 92 individuals are signed up, out of approximately 900 households -- about 10%.

· We use a free version of Groups.io and we can't sign you up.

· You sign up yourselves — very easy!

· Everyone on the Leeway Overlee groups.io can read all messages posted — this is an advantage as it's for community information.

· If you wish to communicate with anyone confidentially, please email them directly.

HOW TO SIGN UP FOR GROUPS.IO:

· Open the web site: https://groups.io/

· If you have not used this before, Sign Up (top right-hand corner) of opening page and create a password

· When you are signed in, search for Leeway Overlee and sign up as a member.

Stumbling Stones Update

At the LOCA January 21, 2026, General Meeting, Tim Aiken of the Arlington Historical Society presented a powerful overview of Arlington's Stumbling Stones project. Inspired Leeway Overlee residents offered to sponsor Stumbling Stones ($300 each) to memorialize identified formerly enslaved individuals who lived in what is now Leeway Overlee. We're working with the Historical Society to dedicate Stumbling Stones at the Centennial Celebration on October 24!

Neighborhood Signs

Do you experience Sign Envy when you're greeted with a Neighborhood Welcoming Sign when entering another neighborhood? Don't despair! We've started the process to get some of our own! Arlington will help design and manufacture up to four signs per civic association. Renee Braden, our ArNAC representative, is managing the project and has at least one committee member! If you have artist skills and are interested in participating, please contact Renee at ArNAC@LeewayOverlee.org.

SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, October 24, 2026, afternoon

Lee Center & Leeway Overlee Civic Association Centennial Celebration!

The forerunner to LOCA held its first meeting in the spring 1925 at the new Lee School. Stay tuned for more information about our Centennial Celebration in the "Lee Center Park," or as I like to call it, the Park with No Name. Included in the Celebration will be the dedications of several Stumbling Stones!

Langston Arts Center Studios & Lee Center Park / Former Lee Center Updates

For the purposes of this discussion, the building and park will be referred to as Lee Center. As of this writing on April 8, 2026, Arlington County is not demolishing the building which formerly hosted the LAC Studios and Lee Community Center.

Step One: Evaluate the Building and Park: Completed

Please refer to the Lee Center Study on the Arlington County web site: open the County web site and enter “Lee Center Study” in the search box near the top of the page. The study results are presented in three sections; links to each are on the opening page of the study discussion. Public engagement will strongly influence final uses of the building.

Step Two: Public Engagement: the next phase in determining the future of Lee Center

Langston Boulevard Alliance (LBA) is partnering with Arlington County’s Department of Environmental Services (DES) to manage the public engagement phase to evaluate future community uses of the building and park and the configuration of both to best provide those uses to the community. LBA created a Community Centers Committee to assess community centers in the Langston Boulevard corridor (Langston Brown, Dawson Terrace, and Lee Center). Langston Brown is fully functional and provides a variety of Arlington Parks and Recreation programs. Dawson Terrace is closed except for one class; rooms can be reserved for meetings. Lee Center is closed. Jean Henceroth, the President of Leeway Overlee, chairs this committee.

The Leeway Overlee CA Executive Committee welcomes LBA leading this phase of the project; it has resources beyond our civic association.

Please stay tuned and participate in any future activities about the project to ensure your voice is heard regarding the future of Lee Center.

Arlington reviews its long-term capital budget (Capital Improvement Plan or CIP) every two years at which time new items for funding are added and others are modified. Two years ago, the county allocated $15+ million for future renovations to Lee Center. The County Board and staff is reviewing the CIP again this spring: the funds allocated for Lee Center renovations could be moved sooner, pushed out farther into the future, the amount reduced or increased.

Arlington Babe Ruth T-Ball

Arlington Babe Ruth T-Ball hosts games almost every weekend during its seasons in the park at Lee Center. Have your children played here? Did you play here? Please stay tuned for our discussions regarding the future of the park at the (former) Lee Center to ensure the softball backstop will continue to serve the Babe Ruth T-Ball.

COMMITTEES

LOCA Yard Sale Committee: Chair, Ladd Connell

LOCA Sign Project Committee: Chair, Renee Braden

Stumbling Stones Committee: Chair, Renee Braden

LOCA Centennial Celebration Committee: Open

Pollinator Garden Committee: Chair, Jennifer Michener

LOCA Membership Committee: Open

LOCA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

President: Jean Henceroth (president@leewayoverlee.org)

Vice President: Karen Guevara (vicepresident@leewayoverlee.org)

Vice President: Mike Weinstein (vicepresident@leewayoverlee.org)

Secretary: Ladd Connell (secretary@leewayoverlee.org

Treasurer: Jennifer Michener (treasurer@leewayoverlee.org)

ArNAC Rep: Renee Braden ArNAC@LeewayOverlee.org

Website: https://www.leewayoverlee.org

Historian: Renee Braden

Are you willing to switch from paper to electronic documents?

LOCA’s primary expense is printing this newsletter which is distributed 3-4 times annually by volunteers walking door to door.

To reduce newsletter printing costs and paper usage, the LOCA Executive Committee is considering sending via email the Newsletter, Notices of Meetings, etc. If you would like to receive these electronically, please send an email including your name, street address and phone number to: president@leewayoverlee.org. Both the Notices of Membership Meetings and the Newsletter will continue to be available on our web site and Facebook page.

LEE COMMUNITY CENTER / LAC STUDIOS / LEE COMMUNITY PARK

(located between Langston Boulevard / 24th Street North and North Lexington / North Kentucky Streets)

Did you know that this property and its facilities have been a vital and publicly available gathering place and park within the Leeway Overlee community as one of Arlington's earliest public schools (1926), Lee Community and Senior Center, then the LAC Studios?

Did you know that County planners are proposing to repurpose the Lee Center block by removing almost a century's worth of athletics on that property, which is the ONLY PUBLIC PARK WITH OUR CIVIC ASSOCIATION?

Are you willing to abandon these historic limited public recreational options within our neighborhood?

Most importantly, it has been used for almost 100 years for children's recreation. This was true when the original elementary school was opened in 1926. It remained true when Arlington Public Schools (APS) closed the school in 1971 and transferred the property to Arlington County. It was true when the former school building housed the Lee Center Children's Cooperative. Today it continues to be true with its playground equipment, softball diamond, basketball court, and open green space providing neighborhood children with multiple recreational opportunities.

The Executive Committee of Leeway Overlee Civic Association requested Arlington County preserve The Lee Community Center Park "as is" with no new construction on the site. IF YOU SUPPORT THIS, PLEASE TELL THE COUNTY BOARD and send it in writing to the County Board and Planning Commissioners -- they count the number of letters received regarding issues (a LOCA Executive Committee letter to the County is available below and on the LOCA Facebook page; you can print it and add your signature and your printed name, scan it, and email it to the County Board via its web site).

Please refer to pp 28-32, 61 the Langston Boulevard Area Plan Draft 1: June 2023 detailing the county's plans: www.arlingtonva.us/files/sharedassets/public/projects/documents/plan-langston-blvd/draft-langstonboulevard-area-plan.pdf

Date: September 13, 2023

To: Residents of Leeway Overlee Civic Association (LOCA)

From: Jean Henceroth, President

Leeway Overlee Civic Association

RE: Langston Boulevard Area Plan, Draft 1: June 2023 ("the Plan") and

LEE PARK AND FORMER LEE COMMUNITY CENTER/LAC STUDIOS

Hello Neighbor,

Today I'm writing to ask you to send an email or letter (via email) to the Arlington County Board regarding the future of Lee Park and the former Lee Community Center / LAC Studios, both of which are threatened by the current version of Langston Boulevard Area Plan ("the Plan"). Although not yet approved by the County Board, the Plan refers to the former Lee Community Center as demolished, with the probability that a building replacing it could be 5 stories high and its footprint could take half of the park. Its purpose had not yet been determined but it probably would not be a community center.

If you support saving our park, please use the attached sample letter or email to write to the County Board. The County Board considers the volume of letters or emails received regarding a specific community issue when voting on it -- YOUR LETTER COULD HELP SAVE OUR PARK!

The LOCA Executive Committee is determined the park and any structure built therein be committed to serving our community and wrote a letter on August 31, 2023, to the County requesting:

"Arlington County conduct a public evaluation with public input to determine the short- and long-term uses of the former Lee Community Center (now LAC Studios) and the Lee Community Center Park (located between Langston Boulevard / 24th Street North and North Lexington / North Kentucky Streets) to commence no later than early 2024."

HOW TO SEND A LETTER OR EMAIL:

A Word copy of this letter is provided for your use, either to send in a traditional letter format or as an email. Please:

remove the red writing in the document
add your name
email to the County Board at the following address: Countyboard@arlingtonva.us

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

Link to Traditional Letter (to be mailed via USPS): document for mailing

Link to Electronic (to be copied and pasted into an email and then emailed): document for emailing

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