With Halloween around the corner, Arlingtonians will have several chances to celebrate the upcoming holiday.
The Ballston Halloween Market is set for tomorrow (Thursday, October 26) at Welburn Square (901 N. Taylor Street).
This week’s market, part of the neighborhood’s regular farmers market, will include a beer and wine garden with live music, as well as pumpkin decorating and face painting. The market is open from 3-7 p.m., with attendees encouraged to wear a spooky costume.
And the last of Crystal City’s Fridays at the Fountain events for the season will have a Halloween theme too, with pumpkin painting, seasonal drinks and candy available at the beer and wine garden on Friday, October 27 from 5-9 p.m. at the Crystal City Water Park (1750 Crystal Drive).
Meanwhile, Rosslyn will host its first harvest festival on Friday, October 27 from 4-10 p.m. and Saturday, October 28 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Continental Beer Garden, Central Place Plaza and Gateway Park East.
More than 20 vendors will sell various crafts and gifts, while there will be live entertainment and activities including a pie eating contest, corn hole, a pumpkin toss, costumes contests for children and pets.
A Lebanese fast-casual restaurant will replace the former NKD Pizza in Ballston.
Badaro is set to move into 933 N. Quincy Street, according to signs in its window and its social media accounts.
“You don’t have to travel far to soak up the flavors, hospitality and culture of Beirut,” the restaurant wrote. “Badaro is a fast casual restaurant bringing it to your neighborhood.”
Signs say it is aiming to open this fall. The restaurant is next door to the 9Round Fitness studio.
The new eatery means that both of Arlington’s former NKD Pizza locations have replacements in place. Its other former site at 1101 S. Joyce Street in Pentagon Row is set to become a Mediterranean restaurant and kabob house.
A new co-working space will move into Ballston next year, across the street from the under-construction Ballston Quarter mall.
TechSpace will move into the eighth floor of Two Liberty Center (4075 Wilson Blvd); its 10th location in the United States. It expects to open in June 2018. TechSpace already has similar co-working spaces in New York, California and Texas.
The new 20,000-square-foot Arlington office will include 56 private, interconnecting office suites with 198 workstations as well as open co-working desks and spaces for working. That will include fully-equipped conference rooms and lounges. Members who work in the space will also have access to building amenities like a rooftop terrace, bike storage, locker rooms and showers.
“Our new Arlington location extends TechSpace’s heritage of delivering extraordinary flexible, modern office space and technology services to all businesses as well as enterprise companies,” said Victor Memenas, Chief Executive Officer for TechSpace, in a statement. “We’re excited to bring our model of creative flexible office space and collaborative social experience combined with our exceptional customer service to the Arlington community.”
More from a TechSpace press release:
TechSpace Arlington will be prominently positioned along the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor within easy reach of Washington DC, The Pentagon, Tyson Corner, Maryland Suburbs, the Ballston-MU Metro, I-66 and Route 50. The campus is also close to retailers including Sweetgreen, Taylor Gourmet and celebrity Chef Mike Isabella’s 3 concept restaurants, Kapnos Taverna, Pepeita and Yona. This campus will join nine existing TechSpace locations in New York City, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco, California and Austin and Houston, Texas.
“TechSpace Arlington will allow us to expand our outstanding customer service and highly flexible, low-commitment model to many more companies seeking to grow their businesses without the burdens of long-term leases and unnecessary capital investment,” said Memenas.
TechSpace will complete with a number of existing coworking spaces in Arlington, including the soon-to-open Spaces in Rosslyn, MakeOffices in Clarendon and WeWork in Crystal City, among others. There is demand for coworking space in Arlington: latter two offices are both at or near capacity.
Water main break on N. Taylor Street in Ballston (courtesy Pablo P.)
Water main break on N. Taylor Street in Ballston (courtesy Pablo P.)
Water main break on N. Taylor Street in Ballston (courtesy Ron B.)
Water main break on N. Taylor Street in Ballston (courtesy J.M.)
Water main break on N. Taylor Street in Ballston (courtesy @steadman_amanda)
(Updated at 10:40 a.m.) A water main break in Ballston resulted in a geyser of water shooting up from N. Taylor Street.
The break happened shortly before 8 a.m. this morning, just north of Fairfax Drive near the Nature Conservancy building. The street was being milled as part of repaving work.
Arlington Dept. of Environmental Services spokeswoman Kathryn O’Brien said the break is affection water service for about 500 customers.
“Crews are repairing the break and are expected to be completed by 5 p.m., barring any complications,” she said.
Update at 3:45 p.m. — Via O’Brien at DES: “The water main has been repaired and water service is being restored to impacted customers. Crews are expected to complete road repairs by 7 p.m. this evening, barring any complications.”
Stageplate Bistro in Ballston hasn’t always been open during normal business hours recently, but it’s not closing down. In fact, despite the limited service hours, the staff is preparing for the new restaurant’s upcoming grand opening.
A message on the front door at 900 N. Glebe Road, which is also posted on the restaurant’s website, thanks patrons who already have tried the restaurant during its recent soft opening. The grand opening is scheduled for Monday, October 16.
General Manager Mary Marchetti said the limited service has been to work out any snags, as this is the team’s first restaurant. She said customer feedback has been positive and staff has been able to incorporate customer suggestions in order to perfect operations.
“Just those little things, we were working it out,” Marchetti said. “We’ve had wonderful interactions with guests. I feel really good and really confident now that we’re going to be great.”
When an ARLnow reporter passed Stageplate Bistro during the typically busy dinner hours one day last week, customers trying to go in were met with locked doors. Upon reading the sign, though, several said they would come back for the grand opening and that they were just glad the locked doors didn’t mean the restaurant had met its demise so quickly.
The restaurant will serve its full menu at typical operating hours starting on Monday, October 16. It will open starting at lunchtime from Monday through Saturday, and for now it will be closed on Sundays, although brunch will be added in the future.
Marchetti says the Stageplate Bistro team is excited to be a part of the Arlington community. “We tried to talk with every single table [of customers] that came in,” she said. “Everyone was really interactive. The community has been so unbelievably great.”
In about a year, the newly renovated Ballston Quarter mall is expected to open. For now, construction workers are plugging away daily at tearing down parts of the old Ballston Common Mall and building up the new development.
A portion of the mall’s brick facade along Wilson Blvd has been torn down, revealing steel beams, concrete columns and a lot of workers. The hole in the side of the existing structure is part of the plan to transform the previously enclosed mall into a more open design with more street-facing storefronts and a courtyard.
The new overhead pedestrian bridge connecting 4201 Wilson Blvd to the mall will be near the new courtyard.
At the intersection of Wilson Blvd and N. Randolph Street, where the Macy’s furniture store used to be, upward progress is being made on what will be a high-rise apartment complex. The tower will have more than 400 units and leasing should begin next year, according to the Ballston Quarter website.
In addition to a few holdouts who remain in place during construction — such as CVS Pharmacy and the Regal Ballston Common movie theater — at least two new businesses have committed to opening locations in the renovated mall: fast casual eatery Mi and Yu Noodle Bar and “eatertainment” destination Punch Bowl Social.
The entire Ballston Quarter development is still scheduled to open in fall 2018.
The building has 267 units ranging in size from studios to two bedrooms, and a rooftop deck on the 15th floor.
Several of the first-floor windows at the apartment tower sport posters with a retro-looking, mustachioed man in sunglasses, keeping in line with the the development’s “vintage” vibe. According to a spokesperson for the development, “The Rixey combines a vintage Americana aesthetic with luxurious amenities, a prime location, and incredible 360 views of both Virginia and DC.”
The building is one of the two replacing the demolished Blue Goose at the corner of N. Glebe Road and Fairfax Drive. Marymount’s Newside building next door is a 9-story, mixed-use office building that currently houses a Starbucks.
A malfunctioning elevator at the Ballston Metro station made for an unpleasant morning commute for a woman at the Ballston Metro station Thursday.
The woman was trapped inside the station’s elevator at ground level after the doors would not open.
The Arlington County Fire Department was called and firefighters used the “jaws of life,” a heavy-duty hydraulic tool, to pry open the elevator doors. The started passenger was then able to squeeze out of the gap between the doors, where she was evaluated by paramedics.
ACFD posted a video of the incident on its Twitter account.
Units used the "Jaws of Life" to rescue a passenger stuck in a Ballston @wmata Metro station elevator this AM. No injuries during incident. pic.twitter.com/QBPufIxiQN
A new Silver Diner restaurant will be opening in Ballston.
The 6,700-square-foot eatery will join Target and Enterprise Rent-A-Car as retail tenants in the currently under-construction 750 N. Glebe development. Set to open in 2020, 750 N. Glebe will be a 12-story building with nearly 500 apartments, across from Ballston Quarter mall.
The new Ballston location will be the 14th Silver Diner in the D.C. area. The company has an existing Arlington location at 3200 Wilson Blvd in the Clarendon area.
The Washington Business Journal reports that, at least for now, Silver Diner plans to operate both Arlington locations simultaneously. (It has a long-term lease in Clarendon.)
Current plans are to operate both Ballston and Clarendon, although [Silver Diner founder Bob] Giaimo has acknowledged in the past that site where the Clarendon Silver Diner sits at 3200 Wilson Blvd., would likely be the subject of redevelopment at some point, putting the diner’s future there in flux.
More about the lease signing from a Ballston Business Improvement District press release, after the jump.
The courtyard’s N. Stafford Street entrance (via county presentation)
The western view of the courtyard (via county presentation)
The courtyard facing south (via county presentation)
The courtyard’s access from Fairfax Drive (via county presentation)
The courtyard is behind the Berkeley at 1000 N. Randolph Street (via county presentation)
Efforts by residents to remove a requirement for a public courtyard behind their Ballston condo building was unanimously rejected on Saturday by the Arlington County Board.
Members of the Berkeley Condo Association (1000 N. Randolph Street) applied to remove the requirement for 24-hour public access to the courtyard, citing concerns about safety and public nuisances.
Peter Schulz, a staffer at the county’s Department of Community, Planning, Housing and Development, acknowledged that the easement for the courtyard — which also serves as a cut-through to the Ballston Metro station — had not been properly recorded by county staff. But county staff recommended against removing the easement, arguing that without it “there is no guarantee that the space will remain open to the public.”
The issue came to light after the association erected gates at entrances to the courtyard without a permit and someone complained about it to the county. A notice of violation was issued and then upheld by the Board of Zoning Appeals; the case is pending in Arlington County Circuit Court after the applicants sued to keep the gates.
Residents said there are problems with nuisance behavior like littering, public drunkenness, drug use and loud music playing in the courtyard, exacerbated by the presences of nearby bars like A-Town Bar & Grill, on the opposite side of Fairfax Drive. Residents said problems persist day and night, and are not confined to bar patrons.
“We’ve really had to put up with a great deal of noise,” said resident Charles Richter. “It’s sometimes at very uncomfortable hours, both from people who have had too much to drink in the evening, and in the day we’ve had several dog fights [and] people fights.”
“When people come out after an evening of drinking, they help themselves to our rear yard,” said William Lawson, the attorney for the condo association.
Police, however, did not report any significant issues associated with the space.
“Staff has only been able to find one (1) police report concerning the outdoor space in the past year,” said the staff report.
In letters to the County Board, both the Parks and Recreation Commission and members of the Ballston-Virginia Square Civic Association opposed closing off public access to the park.
While County Board members were sympathetic to the condo owners, and promised to look again at finding ways to improve public safety in the area, they said they could not get rid of the public space requirement.
“This was an easement granted to the people of Arlington County,” said Board member Libby Garvey. “We can’t just give it up willy-nilly because there were some mistakes made.”
Fellow Board member John Vihstadt said there were “dirty hands here all around.” Schulz, the county staffer, said with better coordination between plan reviewers on staff, such mistakes are unlikely to be repeated.
“It was an unfortunate case of too much silo-ing in county staff at the time,” he said.
Urban Tandoor is set to move into 801 N. Quincy Street
The Indian restaurant will have indoor and patio seating
It is set to be the fourth restaurant in the space in recent years
An Indian restaurant is set to be the latest to move into a Ballston space that has had several eateries come and go in recent years.
The restaurant, known as Urban Tandoor, hopes to be open at 801 N. Quincy Street on the ground floor of the Quincy Crossing office building around November, said owner Rajeev Mainali.
Mainali said there will be around 95 seats inside, with another 40 on an outdoor patio. He said it will have an “extensive” bar menu, while the food will mostly be Indian, with some subtle differences.
“It’s going to be mainly Indian food,” he said. “We have expanded the menu, and will be adding a lot of seafood and grill items. We put it as a tandoor. There’s going to be a little bit of a twist on the menu to cater to the young crowd.”
Mainali said he saw an opportunity to move in due to what he said is a dearth of ethnic food in the fast-growing neighborhood.
“They don’t have a lot of options for ethnic food in the Ballston area,” he said. “The area is growing so fast, we feel like it has been underserved as far as restaurants go. We feel like there are not enough good restaurants there. There are some, but not enough to serve the growing clientele there.”
With Halloween around the corner, Arlingtonians will have several chances to celebrate the upcoming holiday.
And the last of Crystal City’s Fridays at the Fountain events for the season will have a Halloween theme too, with pumpkin painting, seasonal drinks and candy available at the beer and wine garden on Friday, October 27 from 5-9 p.m. at the Crystal City Water Park (1750 Crystal Drive).
