Last month, developers of the Arlington Temple United Methodist Church, perhaps better known to local citizens as “Our Lady of Exxon” because the church built on top of a gas station, now Sunoco, filed for a demolition permit. to the county board, according to the Arlington Permits website.
The church, located at 1830 Fort Myer Drive in Rosslyn, will be redeveloped into two mixed-use residential towers by the Northern Virginia-based Snell Properties. The redevelopment will include 740 new housing units—and a rebuilt gas station and church, according to a 2021 press release from Snell.
Snell Properties did not immediately respond to Washingtonian’s request for comment.
The holy alliance between the church and the station began in the 1960s, according to the Washington Post. Wealthy Arlington logger William P. Ames was looking to build a hotel and church on his backyard timber property, located in the center of an upcoming town. Rosslyn.
Still, there was already a fuel station on the site where Ames intended to build his hotel. So he struck a deal, according to the Post: The church would be built in the most sensitive part of the gas station and next to the hotel, now the Arlington Hyatt.
The church’s congregation has temporarily relocated to 1701 N. Bryan Street in Arlington, but it plans to move back into the Rosslyn site when construction is completed, a spokesperson for the church told Washingtonian.