This past weekend, the owners of Green Owl Design soft-launched their new lifestyle store, Nest Proper, which is right next door to their current location.

Located at 5303 Baltimore Ave., Suite 102, Nest Proper features home decor items, candles, jewelry, bath and body essentials, stationery, wearables and a small inventory of furniture from both local and international sources.

Co-owners Erica Riggio and Angela Justice, who have helped spur the redevelopment of the downtown area of Hyattsville around Franklins with their work at Green Owl Design, used the same experience in interior design to launch the new store.

One wall of the store is adorned with a six-foot birdcage and light fixtures that feature palm leaves and feathers to draw out the bird theme. Other walls are painted a lush green.

“We feel like there is nothing like this in Prince George’s County or in the City of Hyattsville, and we are proud that we established this re-brand and new concept in Hyattsville,” Riggio told the Hyattsville Wire.

The store is a spinoff of a similar effort inside Green Owl Design, which will now be redesigned as a standalone interior design studio.

A grand opening for Nest Proper with wine and appetizers is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 12 from 4 to 10 p.m.

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The co-host of a new NPR podcast on the economy grew up in Hyattsville.

The national public radio system announced recently that it has hired Adrian Ma to co-host a daily podcast called “The Indicator from Planet Money,” which aims to decode the state of the economy with “a daily dose of nerdery, banter and storytelling.”

Ma previously worked as a business reporter at WBUR in Boston and WCPN in Cleveland and has won multiple awards, including two National Edward R. Murrow Awards.

He talked with the Hyattsville Wire recently about growing up on the Route 1 corridor.

Where did you grow up? What were your favorite places to go along Route 1 as a kid?

My family moved to Hyattsville when I was about 5-years-old—so like 1990-ish? As for old Route 1 haunts, what immediately springs to mind is SOAP’S (now it’s called Laundry World, I think). I never did laundry there, but my friends and I used to go all the time to play pool and arcade games. I would love to know how much money in quarters I dunked into those machines over the years. Smoothie King was another favorite stop. My dad was a professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, so I was often on campus visiting him.

What does your new job entail? 

About a third of the time is spent reporting (looking for stories, doing research, conducting interviews, etc.), a third of my time is spent crunching all the reporting together (synthesizing findings, playing with audio, writing scripts, editing the story with colleagues) and the last third is production (recording narration/banter with my co-hosts, listening to mixes, and working with producers and editors to polish the whole thing as much as we can before we have to publish).

It looks like you worked in Boston for a while. Are you back in the D.C. area now? 

Before NPR, I worked as a business reporter for a Boston public radio station called WBUR for about three years. It was a great experience and I made some good friends there. I moved to Washington D.C. just a couple of months ago. My mom still lives in Hyattsville, and some of my best friends live in Maryland/D.C., so the best part about moving back is getting to see them all the time.

Have you been back to Hyattsville recently? If so, how has it changed? 

Since I moved back to the area, I find myself in Hyattsville quite often. Mainly, I’m there visiting my mom, but a couple of times I’ve gone to meet a friend for dinner. The variety of restaurants that have popped up in recent years in Hyattsville and adjacent areas is fantastic. When I graduated from UMD in 2007, it seemed like the predominant food options were pizza and sandwich places. Now, there’s so much more! I’m a big fan of Northwest Chinese Food in College Park. I just tried Little Miner Taco in Brentwood and that was delicious, too.

How does working on a podcast differ from broadcast radio? 

Probably the biggest thing is when I do a story for a podcast, as opposed to for the radio, I have a little more time to say the thing I’m trying to say. That doesn’t necessarily make it easier; a lot of times, it just means I have more time to agonize over how to say the thing I’m trying to say!

What was your favorite story to report?

It’s impossible to pick just one. Some stories I’m very attached to because they were just plain fun to report and write, like a piece I did about an old convenience store chain that went extinct, only to be reborn years later as a Japanese retail giant. Other stories I’m proud of because they seek to hold institutions accountable, like a piece I did on discriminatory lending. And other stories I’m fond of because reporting them gave me the chance to witness something important, like when I covered pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong or racial justice protests in Boston. I suppose what all these stories have in common is that, in reporting them, I got to meet people and learn something new. And that’s the best part of the job.

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Hair + Space Blowdry and Beauty Bar has relocated to the spa inside the Hotel at the University of Maryland and opened its new location on Friday, Oct. 21.

Started by University of Maryland graduate Regina Holbert, the three-year-old beauty salon has been operating near Starbucks in the College Park Shopping Center until now.

“When I opened Hair + Space, I wanted to provide an affordable, convenient, on-trend, and luxurious hair styling experience for all women and all hair types,” Holbert said.

The new salon at 7777 Baltimore Ave., has room for nine stylists stations, which Holbert said will allow Hair + Space to expand its services, which includes a signature blowout service complete with shampoo, scalp massage, blow-dry and styling, natural curl styling, and braided and protective styles.

Its new space, located on the fourth floor of the hotel, was designed by Green Owl Design of Hyattsville, which has also revamped a historic strip near Streetcar 82 Brewing Co. and two buildings at 5804 Baltimore Ave., helped @sangfroiddistilling build a tasting room, and renovated a local doctor’s office in Riverdale Park .

The hours of operation for Hair + Space are Mondays, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., Tuesdays – Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sundays 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. Walk-ins are available, but appointments are preferred.

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A new clothing store in Hyattsville aims to elevate both men’s and women’s fashion.

Located at 5113 Baltimore Ave., next to Franklins, 1968 Haberdashery features clothes for those that want to shop local, but up their fashion and style for work and leisure.

“We are in a time where people don’t dress up as much, and when they do it is casual or hip hop,” owner Maurice Flythe told the Hyattsville Wire. “We’re striving to bring dress back as the thing to do.”

The Hyattsville shop carries a wide variety of clothing and accessories, including items like a vegan leather jacket and a Chanel sweatsuit, a camouflage puffy jacket and white Oxford shoes for men. Flythe also offers a list of a la carte styling and grooming services including custom tailoring, shoe-shining and repair, closet building and arranging and even offers a personal shopper.

The shop has even attracted the likes of D.C. drummer and street performer Malik Dope who paid a visit over the summer.

After running stores in Maryland and D.C., Flythe said he opened the men’s clothing store in Hyattsville earlier this year because it’s a “quaint and small community” where people could walk to the store if they wanted.

“I saw that there were several clothing stores in Hyattsville, but none were for men — well-dressed men,” he said.

Flythe said he named the store 1968 Haberdashery after the year he was born which he added has a lot of history in itself.

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The new Trader Joe’s location in College Park will open on Thursday, Oct. 27.

In an email sent to the Hyattsville Wire, a spokeswoman for the popular grocery chain said that its new location at 4429 Calvert Rd. in the Aster mixed-use development will hold a ceremonial ribbon cutting at 8 a.m. next Thursday.

The 11,000-square-foot store, first reported by the Hyattsville Wire last year, will be the tenth Trader Joe’s in Maryland and the first in Prince George’s County.

In signs of how heavily it will market to college students, the interior of the store features murals of buildings on the University of Maryland campus and the college football stadium as well as the nearby College Park airport.

The store has already hired more than 100 staffers and store manager Joseph Martorellais is continuing to hire, with positions posted online here.

Grocery stores have become popular anchor tenants in developments such as Aster College Park because they draw customers throughout the week and are an added amenity for potential residents of the 393 apartments on site.

Trader Joe’s joins a competitive local grocery scene on the Route 1 corridor, with nearby Whole Foods in Riverdale Park and a Lidl in College Park, among others.

It will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

A two-level parking garage is accessible next to the store entrance on Calvert Road. Trader Joe’s customers can validate their parking in the store for 90 minutes of free parking. There are also three free street parking spots in front of the store.

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Another new, large-scale mural has added to the artsy vibe on Mount Rainier’s Otis Street.

Located on the home of the Otis Street Arts Project at 3706 Otis St., the mural shows a woman’s face complemented by parallel lines.

The mural, which is being painted by Jeff Huntington, a Filipino-American painter from Annapolis who goes by Jahru, is debuting at the Otis Street Arts Project’s ARTgineering V 2.0, a science-oriented art exhibit that opened last weekend.

Huntington’s work has appeared throughout the U.S. and in Panama, Brazil, Colombia, France, Philippines and India, with his most recent mural of the Iowa state bird in a redeveloping neighborhood in Cedar Rapids.

He is the co-founder of Future History Now, a nonprofit arts outreach program for teens.

The mural is steps away from another new public art display by Spanish artist Iker Muro which is located on a nearby building off Wells Avenue.

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An artist from Barcelona created one of the newest murals along the Route 1 corridor.

The Spanish artist Iker Muro painted the colorful geometric painting on the side of a building off Wells Avenue in Mount Rainier near the Washington Glass School and the Otis Street Arts Project, joining several other large-scale murals nearby.

Originally an illustrator and graphic designer, Muro has become known for splashy paintings in abandoned spaces that illustrate his belief that “color makes people happy.” He’s also painted murals in places as different as Taiwan and Boston.

He told the Hyattsville Wire that he used roller house paint and spray paint to make the untitled mural over the course of three days in late September.

“Everything around me inspires,” he said.

Muro also recently painted a mural on the side of a building at 101 Harry Thomas Way NE, just off the Metropolitan Branch Trail in D.C.’s Eckington neighborhood. It was part of the D.C. Walls Festival, which brings muralists from around the world together each year to make art and attend lectures.

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