Ballston Quarter’s food court, which is still not open.
An entrance to Ballston Quarter’s food court, which is still not open.
An entrance to Ballston Quarter’s food court, which is still not open.
(Updated at 1:50 p.m.) A potential opening date for Ballston Quarter’s revamped food court has arrived, but its new restaurants still aren’t open to diners.
Representatives for the overhauled Ballston Common mall previously told ARLnow that the new “Quarter Market” would open today (Wednesday). But barriers and signs still block off all entrances to the new, so-called “food hall.”
Several hungry would-be patrons arrived to make such a discovery as lunchtime neared today, only to be disappointed.
Ballston Quarter’s Twitter account tweeted shortly afterward that the 14-restaurant food court will “begin to open within the next week,” pledging to announce the move on its social media channels.
Rachel Buckly, a public relations representative for Ballston Quarter developer Forest City, said late last week that Quarter Market would begin to open Feb. 27. Signs around the development have promised a February opening date for months.
Shortly after ARLnow published a story to that effect, Buckly reversed herself and wrote in an email that “the first restaurants will begin to open their doors at Quarter Market in early March.” But she did not answer questions about what prompted the sudden delay.
Signs around the property now merely list a “spring 2019” opening date for Quarter Market. (Spring starts March 20.)
This is far from the first delay the development’s experienced since it first neared opening late last year.
Plans for a new pedestrian bridge stretching over Wilson Blvd also encountered some construction delays last year. Workers mounted the bridge on its supports earlier this month, but it’s not quite ready for use just yet.
Idido’s Coffee and Social House opened its doors recently in the base of the Columbia Place condo complex, located at 1107 S. Walter Reed Drive.
Readers told ARLnow that the eatery opened up this past Saturday (Feb. 23). Its owners have been working to set up the space since March 2017, according to county permit records.
Idido’s offers a fully array of caffeinated beverages, snacks and even beer and wine.
The new cafe sits adjacent to the Pureluxe Nails and Spa nail salon, which is also located on the first floor of the building.
It sits across the street from a BB&T Bank branch and the Avalon apartment building (formerly the Halstead).
The running apparel-focused shop is welcoming customers once more on the first floor of the revamped Ballston Common mall. The shop is located behind the CVS, in the outdoor section of the development.
Potomac River Running didn’t have to go far to move to Ballston Quarter — the chain moved into a space near the corner of N. Fairfax Drive and N. Glebe Road in 2013 before making the switch over to the development.
The shop also has locations in D.C., Fairfax, Burke, Leesburg, Ashburn, Reston and Vienna.
Potomac River Running is the latest in a series of stores to begin opening to customers in the development, which has experienced a series of delays over the past few months.
The future home of a new Solidcore pilates studio in Courthouse.
A Courthouse office building at 2311 Wilson Blvd.
A new Solidcore Pilates studio looks to be on the way for a Courthouse office building.
The company announced plans to expand to the neighborhood earlier this month. A recent Facebook post promises that the new location, Solidcore’s second in Arlington, will be open by April.
However, the company has so far been tight-lipped on where the studio will be located in Courthouse. The company’s website does not list an address for the new location, and a spokesperson did not respond to questions about the company’s plans.
But an eagle-eyed ARLnow reader recently spotted plans in the base of an office building at 2311 Wilson Blvd suggesting that the studio is bound for a ground-floor space there.
Ballston Quarter’s newly revamped food court, dubbed “Quarter Market,” is now set to open this week.
A spokeswoman for Forest City, the company working to redevelop the former Ballston Common mall, told ARLnow that the food court will “begin to open” on Wednesday (Feb. 27).
She did not, however, provide additional details about which restaurants in the 25,000-square-foot space will be open to hungry customers this week. Stores in the rest of the newly renovated mall began opening last fall, even as others remain under construction, and Quarter Market could follow a similar path.
Dubbed a “food hall,” the new food court is set to welcome a variety of upscale eateries, many of which will offer outdoor seating in the development’s plaza along Wilson Blvd in warmer months.
So far, the developer has confirmed that the following restaurants will be included in the space:
The sushi burrito chain Buredo and hot dog food truck Swizzler also previously announced that they’d open up locations in Quarter Market, but they’re not currently listed on the mall’s online directory.
Compass Coffee, South Block, Ted’s Bulletin, True Food Kitchen and Union Kitchen are all set to have locations nearby as well, with outdoor seating included.
Whenever the development’s restaurants open, they’ll join Chick-fil-A and Punch Bowl Social as eateries serving up food in Ballston Quarter.
An Amazon executive joins leaders from around the region for a panel discussion.
A crowd of pro-Amazon demonstrators outside a town hall event at George Mason’s Virginia Square campus.
Amazon executives say they’re looking forward to becoming “good neighbors” in Arlington, delivering a decidedly optimistic message to local leaders in one of the company’s first public events since tabbing the county for its new headquarters.
The tech giant’s head of worldwide economic development, Holly Sullivan, assured a crowd of government officials and business executives last night (Thursday) that the company is looking to build a “sustainable long-term partnership” in the region. That presented a stark contrast with Amazon’s recent decision to spurn New York City over concerns that local leaders were insufficiently supportive of a new headquarters there.
The event, organized by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and held at George Mason University’s Virginia Square campus, also came just a few days after Arlington officials and activists expressed concern that Amazon executives haven’t done enough to engage the community as it gears up to move into the area.
Sullivan challenged that idea Thursday, arguing the company plans to be “active in the community” and has “just started our outreach” in Arlington. But only a limited group of Arlingtonians had the chance to hear that message — the event was “invitation-only,” though the COG did offer a livestream for anyone hoping to watch from home.
That stricture prompted some local critics of the project to refuse to attend the event, calling on the company to hold public hearings with community members instead. Many have been especially critical of Arlington’s proposed incentive package for Amazon — if the County Board approves it next month, Arlington would fork over $23 million over the next 15 years to a company owned by the world’s richest man.
On that front, Sullivan was able to offer significantly less reassurance. In response to a rare question from a reporter at the event, she pointedly would not say whether the company would pull the plug on its Arlington plans if the Board rejects the incentive package.
“The talent in the area was the primary driver of this entire process,” Sullivan said. “But incentives are important to us. They give us an opportunity to reinvest in our infrastructure and development opportunities for our workforce.”
Of course, it’s quite unlikely that the Board would take such a step. Even Board members who have expressed some unease with the incentive package have reasoned that it’s a small price to pay for the 25,000 (or more) jobs Amazon hopes to bring to the county.
The business community has also been increasingly vocal in support of the project. Not only has the Arlington Chamber of Commerce repeatedly thrown its weight behind the effort, but the Crystal City-based Consumer Technology Association recently joined in the fight as well. The CEO of the tech advocacy group attended the event to welcome Amazon to the neighborhood, and the CTA organized a crowd of dozens of pro-Amazon demonstrators to hold signs outside the gathering.
“We know this is a historic moment, not just for Arlington, but the whole region,” said Victor Hoskins, head of Arlington Economic Development.
To assuage anyone concerned that the company would bring a huge surge of out-of-state workers to jam area roads and pack local apartment buildings, Sullivan stressed that, in a perfect world, company executives “hope to hire all 25,000 workers locally.”
But she followed that up with a laugh, acknowledging that such a possibility is a bit unlikely. However, she is confident that D.C. region has enough highly skilled tech workers to provide a deep hiring pool for Amazon. And it helps, she believes, that the company already has corporate offices in both Herndon and D.C. to draw from too.
“A few people may choose to relocate from our Seattle headquarters, but this is not a relocation of corporate employees from Seattle,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan added that, wherever the company’s employees hail from, Amazon plans to design its offices in a way to “push employees out into the neighborhood to support local businesses.”
While the tech giant is still in the most preliminary phases of designing the office space it plans to lease from JBG Smith in Crystal City and build in Pentagon City, she said the company fully expects to draw from the design principles it used in Seattle.
“We’ll be trying to take the indoors outdoors and vice versa,” Sullivan said. “We want it to feel very much like a neighborhood. There will be no walls around it, no big sign that says ‘Amazon’ on it.”
That includes a focus on welcoming retailers and other restaurants onto the ground floor of the company’s offices. Though JBG has already worked fervently to bring more mixed-use developments to the area, it’s a process the area’s dominant property owner is hoping that Amazon will accelerate, to the whole neighborhood’s benefit.
“Crystal City gets pretty quiet at night, because everyone leaves right after work,” said Andrew VanHorn, JBG Smith’s executive vice president. “It may not be 24/7, but we want to make it more of an 18/7 environment.”
Until the Board signs off on the incentive package and Amazon starts submitting construction plans for its new offices, VanHorn pointed out that any design conversations are quite preliminary at this point.
However, he said JBG is working under the general assumption that the company will move into all of its leased office space in Crystal City by 2020. Then development work on a new building at Metropolitan Park in Pentagon City will run roughly from 2021 to 2025; construction at the former “Pen Place” development will run from 2023 to 2027.
Sullivan stressed that the buildings won’t look too out of step with the existing skyline, saying executives hope to “integrate into what’s already there” in Pentagon City.
Arlington’s notoriously extensive civic engagement process for new developments offers a long road ahead for the company, but Sullivan said she’s looking forward to embarking on it to answer a simple question: “How can we be a better neighbor?”
“We’re all doing this together,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to be neighbors.”
Another Food Hall Coming to Rosslyn — “Two local hospitality ventures have already announced plans for food halls in Rosslyn, and now a third food hall-type venue is being floated for the Arlington neighborhood. Even weirder? All three are on the same block of North Moore Street, the street where the Rosslyn Metro station is located.” [Washington Business Journal]
HQ2 Boosting Real Estate Market — “Real-estate professionals from across the local area already are seeing spring-level interest among prospective buyers, raising hopes for a solid start to the year. ‘The Amazon HQ2 announcement, plus favorable interest rates and a relatively mild winter, have all contributed to bringing the buyers out early this year,’ Northern Virginia Association of Realtors president Christine Richardson said.” [InsideNova]
Local Healthcare Firm Makes Acquisition — “Arlington-based Advantia Health LLC has acquired Illinois-based OB-GYN practice Heartland Women’s Healthcare in a deal that nearly doubled the local group’s size overnight.” [Washington Business Journal]
‘Coffee with a Cop’ Next Week — “The Arlington County Police Department, in partnership with the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City is hosting its next Coffee with a Cop event on February 26, providing the public with an opportunity to meet and interact with the department’s Community Outreach Teams.” [Arlington County]
More Ballston Road Closures Planned — Additional road closures are planned along Wilson Blvd near the mall this weekend for continued work on the new Ballston pedestrian bridge. [Twitter]
‘Tree Action Group’ No Fan of Bike Trails — The Arlington Tree Action Group, a vocal local activist organization that often speaks out against plans to cut down trees, is apparently no big fan of bike trails. In response to a photo of a dog in front of the Eden Center after Wednesday’s snow, the group wrote on Twitter: “To [sic] bad the County doesn’t care how icy the sidewalks are as long as the bike trails and the other trendy County thoroughfares are clear.” The Eden Center, however, is in the City of Falls Church. [Twitter]
A Spanish restaurant complete with a “sangria garden” is the latest eatery looking to set up outdoor seating at the new Ballston Quarter development.
The fast casual restaurant Copa is applying for the permits necessary to include outdoor cafe tables in the development’s yet-to-be-opened plaza area, located near Ballston Quarter’s Wilson Blvd entrance.
So long as the County Board signs off on the request at its meeting Saturday (Feb. 23), Copa will become the seventh restaurant to win permission for outdoor seating at the development in recent months. The Board approved similar plans for Bartaco, Compass Coffee, South Block, Ted’s Bulletin, True Food Kitchen and Union Kitchen in October.
Copa is backed by the creators of Bethesda restaurants Butchers Alley and Pescadeli, and is set to offer small plates, homemade sangria and Spanish flatbreads.
It looks set to be located alongside a bevy of other upscale restaurants in the development’s revamped food court, dubbed a “food hall,” which is one of the largest sections of Ballston Quarter that has yet to open since stores began slowly coming online last fall.
Signs posted around the development continue to list February as an opening date for the new “Quarter Market.”
The EvolveAll fitness studio is returning to Columbia Pike, with plans to move back to South Arlington sometime this spring.
The gym’s staff announced plans to move into a space at 1058 S. Walter Reed Drive, just off the Pike, last week. Owner and founder Emerson Doyle said in a video laying out his plans that he’s aiming to have the studio open by “the end of May.”
The gym is currently located in a shopping center near Bailey’s Crossroads, but it has a long history in Arlington.
Doyle and the rest of his EvolveAll instructors first started teaching classes at the Walter Reed Community Center and Thomas Jefferson Fitness Center more than a decade ago, according to a release from the studio.
The gym opened its first physical location at 2526 Columbia Pike, next to the Celtic House Irish Pub. It then moved to the Food Star shopping center, but was forced to relocate when the redevelopment process to transform the space into “Centro Arlington” got rolling.
This new space will be just down the street from its original home on the Pike. It was once home to True Health and Wholeness gym, which closed back in June 2017, and EvolveAll staff say the new space will be about 2,900 square feet larger than the gym’s current location.
That will open space for additional classes, and locker rooms with showers for both men and women.
EvolveAll currently offers classes in martial arts, yoga and massage therapy.
The jewelry and accessory shop Fornash is now set to re-open in the Ballston Quarter development, after the mall’s redevelopment forced the store to move elsewhere years ago.
Signs posted at a Ballston Quarter storefront indicate that the shop is set to open sometime in spring 2019.
County permit records show that Fornash applied for building permits last spring. It will be located behind the CVS and Punch Bowl Social, in the outdoor section of the mall’s first level.
The store, founded by Stephanie Fornash Kennedy, got its start in Georgetown back in 2002. But Kennedy moved the shop to the old Ballston Common mall in 2012.
Fornash was forced to move out, however, in 2016 as developer Forest City began its extensive rehab work on the mall.
The site of a new coffee bar in a Courthouse office building.
An office building at 1310 N. Courthouse Road.
A new coffee bar appears to be on the way for a Courthouse office building.
Workers have been setting up what looks to be a small shop offering espresso drinks and other breakfast options in the lobby of a building at 1310 N. Courthouse Road. The building sits near the county jail and courthouse, and not far from the county government center.
There are no signs posted at the location just yet, nor are there any permit applications pending for the space, according to county records.
However, an ARLnow reader says staff at the building are telling tenants that the space has been leased out to a business planning to offer both coffee drinks and breakfast sandwiches.
The lobby is already home to a “Fooda” pop-up stand, a company that works with local restaurants to temporarily offer a rotating menu of lunch options at office buildings.
The Gold’s Gym in the building could soon be on the move as well — its lease is set to expire there in March, though its staff is hoping to negotiate an extension.
