Ballston

Ballston’s New Pizza Autentica Expected to Have Outdoor Seating

By ARLnow.com

Pizza Autentica has applied for sidewalk seating outside its forthcoming Ballston restaurant, and county staff is recommending that the request be granted.

The county board is expected to decide on the matter at Saturday’s board meeting. Staff is recommending that the board approve seating consisting of eight tables with two seats apiece at the northwest corner of Wilson Boulevard and North Randolph Street, facing Ballston Common Mall.

Pizza Autentica has apparently done its homework on the county’s outdoor seating do’s and don’t. It has agreed to not have any outdoor speakers in the cafe area, the seating will still allow for a clear seven foot path on the sidewalk and the Ballston Partnership is supporting restaurant’s request.

Pizza Autentica is also slated to open a new location in Crystal City in the near future.

Kid Protesters Hopping Mad Over Uncle Julio’s Menu Item

By ARLnow.com

A group determined to kick frog legs off American menus came to Ballston over the weekend to protest in front of Uncle Julio’s Rio Grande Cafe.

Fifteen demonstrators, including two George Mason University students and eight elementary and middle school students, held homemade signs calling for Uncle Julio’s to stop serving frog legs.

“Uncle Julio: Stop driving frogs to extinction,” one young girl’s sign read.

The protest was organized by Save the Frogs, a California-based group dedicated to saving “the world’s remaining amphibian species.” This was the second time this year the organization held a protest outside the Ballston Uncle Julio’s. The non-profit has also demonstrated outside Uncle Julio’s restaurants in Maryland and Texas.

“America is on track to overtake France and Belgium to become the number one frog-eating country on the planet,” Save the Frogs founder and Manassas native Dr. Kerry Kriger said in a statement. “The frog leg trade is responsible for the spread of infectious diseases, the depletion of wild frog populations, and the spread of harmful invasive species”.

The CEO of Uncle Julio’s has previously denied that the chain’s frog legs come from an endangered species or are raised in an unhealthy environment.

Photos courtesy Save the Frogs

Major Renovations at Ballston Apartment Building

By ARLnow.com

Residents of 1020 North Quincy Street have started a blog in response to the building owner’s plan to renovate the aging apartment complex.

The renovations will force residents to pack up their stuff and vacate their apartment for 2-3 weeks. They will be moved to a vacant apartment elsewhere in the building, and will have the option of staying in that apartment permanently or moving back to their old apartment once renovations are complete.

According to one of the many commenters on the blog, management expects rent to be raised $100 to $150 per month post-renovation.

A number of commenters expressed frustration with the project, the rent increases and a perceived lack of tenant input. Some have called for residents to organize to resist the renovations.

Metrobus Service To Be Discussed At Public Meetings

By ARLnow.com

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is planning a series of public meetings to discuss Metrobus service on certain routes. Two of the meetings will take place in Arlington.

One meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 21 at the Shirlington Library (4200 Campbell Ave). Another is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 23 at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association building (4301 Wilson Blvd). Each meeting will take place from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

At both meetings, service on the 23A, 23C, 25A, 25C and 25D routes (The McLean-Crystal City and the Ballston-Bradlee-Pentagon City lines) will be discussed. WMATA is reviewing the travel time and reliability of the routes.

Other meetings are planned for Oxon Hill, Northeast DC, and McLean.

Flickr pool photo by Aaron Webb.

Last Day For Free Family Flick In Ballston

By ARLnow.com

It’s the final day for this summer’s free family movie festival at the Regal Cinema in Ballston Common Mall.

The G-rated Space Chimps and the PG-rated Hotel For Dogs will be screened at 10:00 this morning, free of charge. Seating is first come first serve. Doors will open at 9:15 for those hoping to reserve a seat.

You can bank on the free family films coming back next summer. Regal has been running the festival every year since 1991.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Pizza Autentica Adds Ballston Location — Crystal City isn’t the only Arlington neighborhood on the radar for fast-growing local chain Pizza Autentica. WBJ’s Missy Frederick reports that Pizza Autentica has signed a lease at 850 North Randolph Street in Ballston.

Arlington Food Blogger Profiled — The Fairfax Times takes a look at Arlington mom Colleen Levine and her natural food and cooking blog, Foodie Tots. A government affairs consultant by trade, Levine has amassed 2,500 Twitter followers by focusing her blog on kid-friendly, healthy cooking. The recipe for spaghetti caprese — part of Levine’s effort to promote “meatless Mondays” — looks especially appetizing.

Oil Spill Dogs Need an Adoptive Family — Arlington’s Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation is trying to find a home for the last three of 12 dogs brought up from Louisiana after the Gulf oil spill. The shihtzu family — Gizmo, Trixie and Rocky — were given away by their former owner after he lost his job as a fisherman as a result of the spill. The story and photos from Fox 5.

Get Ready For the Ballston-Virginia Square Patch

By ARLnow.com

Internet giant AOL is rolling out a local news site devoted exclusively to the Ballston-Virginia Square area. The Ballston Patch will launch on September 13 with a paid, full-time editor at the helm.

As we first reported in February, AOL has been planning on launching dozens of its Patch local news sites in the DC area. Then in May, we noted that the company was hiring editors for two different Patches in Arlington. A “Rosslyn-Court House-Clarendon” Patch may still be in the works, but so far it’s not listed as “coming soon” on the Patch web site.

Over here at ARLnow.com, we’re taking the competition for neighborhood news in stride. So we want to know: what sort of stories in the Ballston-Virginia Square area should we cover that we’re not already covering? What events should we be adding to the events calendar? Please let us know in the comments section.

Building Permit Up at the New Ballston Sweetgreen

By ARLnow.com

Salad-and-froyo joint Sweetgreen is coming to Ballston as soon as next month. And one of our spies has spotted the future restaurant’s building permit.

According to the permit, the new Sweetgreen will be located in 4075 Wilson Boulevard, a stone’s throw away from Ballston Common Mall and the same building in which Rustico will be opening soon.

We also learn from the permit that Sweetgreen has so far paid the county $10,187.84 in fees. Ouch — that’s a lot of $4 frozen yogurts.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if north Arlington has enough of a froyo appetite to support Red Mango, TangySweet and Sweetgreen.

Update at 11:40 a.m. — Sweetgreen’s Phil Moldavski tells us that the store will open at some point this fall, after the company’s Reston store opens.

Why Ballston, we asked?

“We really love the Ballston neighborhood,” Moldavski wrote. “It has [lots] of young professionals and other like-minded people who are likely to appreciate what Sweetgreen is all about… we are excited to be coming there.”

Moldavski says the Ballston Sweetgreen will be similar in design to their current stores.

Thanks to “A Sweetgreen Cobb Salad Addict” for the tip.

Ballston Beaver Pond Spared From I-66 Widening Impacts

By ARLnow.com

An oasis of wetlands and wildlife, tucked between the office towers of Ballston and the traffic of I-66, is safe from highway construction impacts, the county’s Department of Environmental Services says.

The Ballston Beaver Pond, as it’s called, was initially designed to collect stormwater runoff from I-66. But that started to change in the 1990s when beavers moved in and dammed up the drainage system, creating a pond and wetlands to form. The Beaver Pond is now a habitat frequented by muskrat, geese, ducks, heron, egrets, redwing blackbirds, fish, turtles and the occasional beaver.

The Beaver Pond is located next to a bike trail that connects Ballston and the Custis Trail, just north of the ramp from Fairfax Drive to I-66.

Residents of the nearby Waycroft Woodlawn neighborhood have become fond of the pond and became worried when a bulldozer arrived in the area as part of the I-66 widening project. But not to fear says Aileen Winquist, of the county’s Environmental Management Bureau.

“The Beaver Pond is not in danger from the current I-66 spot improvement project and widening of westbound I-66,” Winquist said in an email.

Winquist noted that the design work on a planned restoration of the Beaver Pond will begin this fall. The restoration will clean up trash and sediment from the pond and provide better water quality treatment. There will be several public meetings held to educate residents about the project.

Although the Beaver Pond will be largely unaffected by the I-66 widening, a VDOT-owned stormwater retention pond across the street will be impacted. Construction is planned for the facility, but details about the exact nature of the work were not immediately available.

More photos after the jump.

(more…)

Bank Robbery Suspect Arrested

By ARLnow.com

(Updated on 12/23/21 at 11:35 am.) An Arlington man was arrested outside the Wachovia Bank in Ballston Saturday morning after police say he passed a note demanding money.

[Name redacted], 54, was arrested outside the bank at Fairfax Drive and North Stafford, across from the IHOP. Police say he passed the note to a bank employee around 10:20 a.m.

[Redacted] was charged with robbery and held without bond.

Ballston was the scene of another bank robbery back in April. The HSBC bank was robbed by a white male who entered the bank and demanded cash. So far, police have not announced any arrests in the case.

View More Stories