Ballston

Ballston Macy’s proposal draws concerns about density, land use

By Jo DeVoe
1/3

Concerns are emerging about a proposed residential redevelopment that would replace the Macy’s in Ballston.

Insight Property Group proposes to demolish the longtime department store and vacant office building at 685 N. Glebe Road and replace it with a 16-story, 555-unit apartment complex atop a grocery store. In response to online engagement, it is adding a second, 1,400-square-foot retail space on the ground floor.

The units would be spread across two 14-story towers joined at the penthouse level. Residents would have 250 underground parking spaces while grocery store patrons would have 148 spots on the building’s second story.

Insight is considering how to celebrate the building’s history as part of the D.C. area’s first indoor regional shopping center, built in 1950, possibly by preserving some tiling and stairwells.

But during the first Site Plan Review Committee meeting last week, the proposal elicited apprehension from community members about density, from Planning Commissioners about community benefits, and county planners about cohesion with the rest of the mall.

Insight proposes to use two mechanisms to earn the right to build 275 additional units on top of the base density allowed for the site of 280 units. First, by using a novel zoning tool called a Transfer of Development Rights, it can tack on another 236 units.

The TDR rewards developers who commit to preserving affordable housing, open spaces, historic sites and community facilities on Columbia Pike. In exchange for this commitment, they can either build double the number of preserved units elsewhere in the county, or build triple the units preserved elsewhere on the Pike.

Insight proposes preserving 118 units of garden apartments on Columbia Pike as affordable for 30 years so it can tack on 236 extra units to its Ballston Macy’s project. Some civic association leaders oppose this, however.

“This is a dangerous precedent and should never be done,” said Bernie Berne, representing the Buckingham Community Civic Association, which voted to oppose this aspect of the project. “Keep it to Columbia Pike — find a place to transfer the units in Columbia Pike. There’s no reason to put it in Ballston.”

Representing the Arlington Mill Civic Association, Cate Harrington said the group also opposes the TDR.

“It commits that entire area to being the same for 30 years, which we object to, we would like our area to grow and change organically,” she said.

Insight intends to build an extra 39 units by achieving LEED Gold certification for the building. The developer proposes powering the building almost exclusively with electricity, save for gas-powered kitchens within the grocery store, installing solar panels on the penthouses and dedicating 10% of parking spaces for electric vehicles.

(more…)

Group gaming experience Electric Gamebox opens in Ballston Quarter

By Jo DeVoe
1/4

An “immersive group gaming” experience called Electric Gamebox is officially open in Ballston Quarter mall.

Electric Gamebox opened its Arlington outpost on Thursday, and we’re told the opening weekend went smoothly and business was steady. The entertainment facility is located in Suite 2233 of Ballston Quarter (4238 Wilson Blvd), in a 2,217 square-foot space, the entrance to which is on the second floor of the outdoor portion of the mall.

“We chose Arlington because of its reputation as a young, vibrant, family friendly community,” said Will Dean, Co-founder and CEO of Electric Gamebox, in a statement. “Visitors to the Ballston Quarter location can enjoy a range of games, including our recently launched Shaun the Sheep game, and they can feel assured that they are doing so in a Covid-safe and family-friendly environment.”

The debut follows openings in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, Texas, as well as Salt Lake City and Chicago — all part of the London-based company’s foray into the U.S. that began in December 2020.

Dean and his co-founder David Spindler founded the popular obstacle race Tough Mudder and Tough Mudder Bootcamp, respectively.

Inside Electric Gamebox, visitors will find a series of rooms called “gameboxes,” which can host two to six players for games that last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.

Users don visors with motion tracking that allow them to use their entire body to play games that are projected onto the four walls of their “gamebox.”

New games, to be released monthly, “can only be successfully completed through collaboration,” according to a press release.

Electric Gamebox says its games are suitable for all ages. Ticket prices range from $20 to $35 and can be purchased both online and in-store.

The location is open 12-9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 12-10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday.

The now-annual Ballston Quarterfest Crawl is coming back in May

By Matt Blitz
1/3

Ballston Quarterfest Crawl is coming back in May.

The now-annual free event put on by the Ballston Business Improvement District is set for Saturday, May 21 this year.

It’s expected to follow a similar format as last year, with neighborhood restaurants offering food and drink specials throughout the day. In 2021, organizers emphasized that the event would be spread out and more “free-flowing,” as opposed to 2019 when it was more concentrated in one location.

This year, as in past years, there will be live entertainment, local art, and music. Maps, a list of artists, a schedule and additional details are forthcoming, organizers noted in an announcement.

After three decades, the “Taste of Arlington” — a popular annual event that drew massive crowds to sample dishes from restaurants throughout Arlington, arranged in booths along Wilson Blvd — was replaced in 2019 by “Quarterfest” as Ballston’s annual springtime event. The event was canceled the following year due to the pandemic and was restructured as more of a “crawl” of Ballston area restaurants in 2021.

UPDATED: Preschool in Ballston evacuated after threat

By ARLnow.com
1/2

Update at 12:25 p.m. — The all clear was given, police told ARLnow around 11 a.m. “The school had elected to evacuate out of an abundance of caution. The all clear has since been given and officers are returning to service,” an ACPD spokeswoman said.

Earlier: The Children’s School, a preschool for the employees of Arlington Public Schools, has been evacuated after a threat.

Numerous police vehicles are on scene near the school, located inside an office building on the 4400 block of Fairfax Drive in Ballston.

“Police are investigating the credibility of a telephone threat,” Arlington County Police Department spokeswoman Ashley Savage tells ARLnow.

Savage was not able to elaborate on the nature of the investigation, nor the location to which students in the school were evacuated. The initial police dispatch suggested that person who called in the threat sounded like a teenager.

A permanent location for The Children’s School is currently under construction along Langston Blvd.

Marymount proposes housing-hotel conversions for hospitality courses

By Jo DeVoe
Marymount University’s office and educational building and “The Rixey” apartments (file photo)

Marymount University is seeking Arlington County Board approval to convert some of its student housing in Ballston into hotel rooms permanently.

The conversions would occur at “The Rixey,” an apartment building Marymount owns and operates at 1008 N. Glebe Road as graduate student housing. Marymount intends to repurpose 133 of the 267 units into hotel rooms to give students studying hotellery practical experience.

“The addition of hotel units to the Rixey building will be used to support and enhance Marymount University’s Hospitality Innovation Master of Business Administration (MBA) program by providing students with hands-on experience in the hotel industry,” a county report said.

This request follows several other recent proposals to temporarily convert apartment units into hotels during the initial leasing of these buildings, the report said.

For example, to recuperate revenue losses from pandemic-era vacancies, Dittmar asked the Arlington County Board last summer to allow three- to 30-day stays in 75 furnished units that are typically used for longer residential stays.

Some worried these conversions would harm rental housing affordability, but the County Board ultimately approved Dittmar’s request. County planners intend to study these conversions “in the next few years” to inform a potential hotel conversion policy, according to the report.

Staff say Marymount’s proposal, however, is “distinctly different” because the conversions would be permanent, would figure into a hands-on learning program and would add hotel rooms the county needs.

“The proposed conversion would also establish a concentration of new hotel rooms to help counterbalance the loss of 1,600 hotel rooms in Arlington over the past two years and would allow Marymount University to broaden its offerings as an anchor institution in Ballston,” the report said.

Recent losses include the Americana Hotel and the Inn of Rosslyn, both of which were sold to developer JBG Smith for residential redevelopment, as well as The Highlander and the Rosslyn Holiday Inn.

Marymount purchased “The Rixey” for $95 million in 2019 after it had purchased the land underneath in order to lease it to local real estate developer The Shooshan Company, which built the apartments. Marymount also owns the Ballston Center office building next door, using some floors for office and educational space and leasing other floors.

The Board is slated to review the proposal this Saturday.

DEVELOPING: Police investigating possible shooting near Ballston

By ARLnow.com
1/6

(Updated at 11:20 p.m.) Arlington County police are investigating a possible shooting in the Ashton Heights neighborhood near Ballston.

The investigation seems to be centered around the intersection of N. Piedmont Street and 5th Street N., about two blocks from Mosaic Park to the north and the Buckingham Center shopping strip to the south.

The gunfire happened around 3:45 p.m. Multiple people called 911 to report hearing 2-3 shots fired and seeing an SUV fleeing from the scene, along with a man fleeing on foot, according to scanner traffic.

So far no injuries have been reported, but officers say they found some broken glass, potentially from the SUV’s back window.

Photo via Google Maps

Essential tips for creatives running a business, according to this Ballston digital agency

By Jo DeVoe

Sponsored by Monday Properties and written by ARLnow, Startup Monday is a weekly column that profiles Arlington-based startups, founders, and other local technology news. Monday Properties is proudly featuring 1515 Wilson Blvd in Rosslyn. 

Two millenials coding websites from a co-working space in Ballston have spent the last two years building their digital agency Exobyte from the ground up.

And along the way, Taylor Bagwell and Dominic Giacona — who are both brimming with ideas, inventions and solutions — say they’ve learned a lot about the balance required to grow a company while indulging their creative side.

“We have certainly had our fair share of growing pains,” says co-founder Bagwell.

Website development was a bit of a side-gig for both co-founders. Bagwell was bored at his government contracting job and began designing people’s websites for free until his name got around and he decided to monetize his skills. Giacona was in the U.S. Navy for five years and after leaving, got into user interface/user experience design (which is known by the abbreviation UI/UX) because he needed more work.

As he dove deeper, he became increasingly fascinated by the idea of telling hypervisual stories through website design.

“It all starts with user experience,” he said. “Making something visually appealing is one thing, but the goal is making it easy to use so that they don’t have to think at all.”

Some examples of their work include websites for a candy brand, fitness devices and a health coach-turned-podcaster.

Growing Exobyte, which offers web design, app development, e-commerce and marketing services, has taught both entrepreneurs business lessons. Bagwell says he now cannot understate the importance of vetting potential hires with real-time skills tests. As for finances, he realized a good accountant is key to an unsurprising tax season.

Exobyte co-founders Dominic Giacona, left, and Taylor Bagwell, right (via Exobyte)

Most of all, building Exobyte taught them not get distracted by “shiny things.”

“We’ve made mistakes with getting excited about things we wanted to work on and pulling our attention away from things that mattered,” Bagwell said.

At one point, they tried to design an app that helps people find temporary contract labor — a market they learned is already saturated with options.

They’re taking a more measured approach with a new idea, which Giacona says came from a family member. It is aimed at making people feel safer on the road, and particularly during traffic stops.

“I always had ideas and solutions for problems,” Giacona said. (Bagwell and Giacona met because Giacona had the idea for a biodegradable liner for a protein shake, and he needed a website for the product concept.)

The fitness industry, from workout apparel to nutrition, also became one where Exobyte made a name for itself. But now, Bagwell and Giacona say they’re hoping to take on more clients outside that niche.

“You get burnt out working with the same industry: at the end of the day, they all want the same thing and they’re competing with each other. It makes it harder to work with clients and differentiate them,” Bagwell said.

The key to staying happy as a digital creator, he says, is to be flexible and not to get too deep into one niche.

In the coming year, the two are looking to take on new clients and hire a developer so they can focus on building up Exobyte — and devote some more time to their side projects.

BREAKING: Firefighters battling sauna blaze at Ballston mall

By ARLnow.com
1/10

(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) A large fire department response is on scene at the Ballston Quarter mall for a fire on the third floor of the building.

Initial reports suggest that the fire was in a sauna inside the men’s locker room of the Onelife Fitness gym. Light smoke could be seen coming from the roof of the gym near the Ballston pedestrian bridge.

A larger response was dispatched to the mall after the first firefighters on scene confirmed a “working fire” inside the sauna. The flames have since been brought under control, according to scanner traffic.

So far no injuries have been reported. Wilson Blvd is currently blocked in front of the mall.

The gym was evacuated due to the fire. Patrons in their exercise gear could be seen standing around in other parts of the mall.

Firefighters are now starting to set up fans to remove the thick smoke that has filled the gym.

McLean-based The Union restaurant is coming to Va. Square

By Matt Blitz
The Union is coming to 3811 Fairfax Dr. (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

The Union, a McLean-based “casual fine dining” restaurant, is opening a second location in Arlington.

The hope is to start serving at 3811 Fairfax Drive, in the Virginia Square area, by the end of the month, chef and owner Giridhar Sastry tells ARLnow.

The Union is coming to the former location of Burgerim, which closed early last year. The menu, decor, and experience at the Arlington location will be “exactly the same” as it is in McLean.

Sastry describes The Union’s menu as a showcase for a diverse range of cuisine.

“The DMV is a melting pot of different cultures,” Sastry says. “So, we have a little bit of everything.”

That includes shrimp po-boys, Asian salad, Thai coconut shrimp soup, Mumbai paninis, and churros. The beer menu will keep things closer to home — everything on tap will be local.

Sastry is originally from Calcutta, India and came to America for culinary school about two decades ago. He’s worked as a chef at the Ritz-Carlton, Mayflower Hotel in D.C., and other Northern Virginia restaurants.

He opened The Union in McLean in February 2020, having “one good month” before needing to shut down due to the pandemic. But 2021 was a solid overall, he says, and opening a second location was always part of the plan.

Sastry says he chose the neighborhood, within easy walking distance of Ballston, because of the demographics.

“The menu is geared towards the fast paced, younger crowd who’s hungry,” he says.

Construction is nearly done, Sastry said, and the restaurant is now waiting on licenses and final inspections.

Employees of Union Kitchen in Ballston are looking to unionize

By Matt Blitz
Union Kitchen in Ballston (staff photo)

(Updated, 5:00 p.m.) Employees at Union Kitchen in Ballston are looking to unionize, joining colleagues at other area locations.

The employees cite pay cuts, lack of sick leave, and staffing shortages among the reasons for organizing.

In late January, employees at three Union Kitchen stores in D.C. filed union petitions, as DCist reported. Within days, workers at the Ballston location joined those efforts, Union Kitchen union organizing committee member and Ballston employee Mckenna Willis tells ARLnow.

Now, employees at all five open locations have signaled their intent to unionize. That includes eight eligible employees in Ballston.

A mail-in election is set for Tuesday, March 8 with a count planned for March 28. Workers are holding a “pre-election rally” in D.C. this Saturday.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400 would be the collective bargaining agent for the store’s employees if the vote passes.

Union Kitchen started as a food accelerator, helping food and beverage startups by providing business and technical expertise, and has since grown into a retail shop and restaurant. The Ballston location opened at 4238 Wilson Blvd in August 2020, offering a mix of packaged food, beverage and convenience items for sale as well as a takeout menu of breakfast items, sandwiches, salads, melts and pizzas.

Many of the reasons for organizing are common across all of the locations, but Willis explains that a number of these grievances are acutely felt at the Ballston location.

Earlier this year, management stopped providing customers the option to tip on their payments. This has effectively cut employees’ pay by three or four dollars an hour, according to Willis.

In February, management sent a notice, which was provided to ARLnow by Union Kitchen CEO Cullen Gilchrist, to workers that they were “increasing compensation by almost 20% on average across all positions.”

Willis says that increase does not come close to making up for the lost wages from losing tips. She explains that the Ballston location has more “established” employees — those with families, mortgages, and long-term relationships — than the other locations and can not afford what is effectively a pay cut.

Union Kitchen management, which has said it won’t voluntarily recognize the union, wrote that employees’ compensation is “industry leading pay.”

“We pay a minimum wage of $18/hr with an average compensation in our Ballston store of $28.5/hr,” Gilchrist wrote to ARLnow in an email. “We are very proud of our ability to pay so well.”

As for why tips were cut, Gilchrist said this is what customers wanted.

“The vast majority of customers don’t tip, and many of those who did felt pressure to do so,” he told DCist. “We’re trying to make our customers comfortable.”

Sick leave is also an employee concern, with Willis calling Union Kitchen’s Covid policy “horrible.” During the pandemic, Willis says employees wanted to take sick leave as a precaution but didn’t want to risk not getting paid.

Willis says she lives with her father and when he contracted Covid, she told work she wasn’t coming in because “it was the right thing to do.” She was told it would be unpaid leave.

Additionally, “severe” staffing shortages have hit the Wilson Blvd location of Union Kitchen hard. While Willis acknowledges that this is an issue across the industry at large, she says management is not handling it appropriately.

(more…)

Ballston bridge illuminated in blue and yellow in support of Ukraine

By Matt Blitz
1/3

The Ballston pedestrian bridge is shining blue and yellow tonight in support of Ukraine.

The two-year-old pedestrian bridge that stretches over Wilson Blvd, connecting with Ballston Quarter mall, will be running “blue and yellow lights 24/7 for the time being,” a county spokesperson tells ARLnow. It is a show of solidarity with the country that remains under attack by Russia.

Officials worked quickly with Arlington public arts staff to make this happen, after ARLnow was previously told that something of this nature was not in the works.

This comes as other neighboring localities, like D.C. and Alexandria, have enacted similar symbolic gestures in recent days.

On Monday night, the County Board issued a resolution condemning Russia’s “unprovoked attack” on Arlington’s sister city Ivano-Frankivsk in southwestern Ukraine.

“The Arlington County Board… stands in support and solidarity with the people of Ivano-Frankivsk and all of Ukraine in their defense of sovereignty and democracy,” said the resolution.

View More Stories