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Ballston Bocce Park Under Construction

by ARLnow.com | March 7, 2013 at 11:15 am | 537 views | 29 Comments

Construction is underway on a tiny park near Ballston Common Mall.

The park, adjacent to the Ballston Parking Garage at the corner of Glebe Road and N. Randolph Street, features a pair of bocce courts and enhanced green space. The park is intended to be temporary; the county plans to eventually replace it with a longer-term use.

More about the park from the county website: “Arlington County is constructing interim improvements at Glebe & Randolph Park including two bocce courts, site furnishings, accessible paths, and flowering shrubs that support a variety of butterflies, birds and insects.”

Construction is expected to wrap up “early this summer,” according to parks department planner Scott McPartlin.

Ballstonian

I hope the construction goes well – with a bocce project, that last thing you want is to see something botched.
- http://www.facebook.com/aattura Azar Attura
  
  You mean Bocced.
novasteve

Buffy and I look forward to this venue. I hope there won’t be any people who have never been to Prague there.
Garden City

I hear that bocce has become so popular that they’re going to replace wrestling with it in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
jackson

“Construction is expected to wrap up “early this summer,” according to parks department planner Scott McPartlin.” So it will be built at least a year faster than the bus stop on Columbia Pike in front of Rite Aid.
Bob

Both of the guys that are ever going to use this thing are excited.
Bad Bocce Boys of Bluemont

Looking forward to our first rumble…I assume tht the Bad Bocce Boys of Ballston will soon be forming.

They only put in Bocce Courts where it alliterates…..
pdarl

Arlington wasting money again.
- http://www.facebook.com/aattura Azar Attura
  
  You Bocce your bottom dollar they are!!!
- Heath
  
  Get back to your nap, grandpa.
Buckingham Bandit

Hey, nevermind the fact that a bocce league currently plays just around the corner (http://www.dcbocceleague.com/divisions/arlington.aspx?&printview=1)

Let’s all be snarky instead and joke about how no one will use it, even though there is pretty clearly existing demand.
- Luigi
  
  Then why put another bocce court around the corner?
  - Buckingham Bandit
    
    I don’t know, ask the county, they’re the ones building it. All I’m saying is that there are bocce players in the Ballston area. Plus that land was ugly and dead, so I’m not complaining that they’re upgrading it.
  - Bocce for Bluemont
    
    There is a huge demand in this area for bocce. There is also another one in the works for the Bluemont neighborhood near Ballston. Even thought the PEG wasn’t awarded for it this round, the county is working on a way to get it approved anyway. This will be in the Bluemont Junction Trial.
    - drax
      
      The county is working to get it approved? How exactly?
      
      And this one is less than a mile from the Bluemont site, so it weakens the argument for having a second one.
      - Jimbo
        
        CHANGE BAD
      - mojo
        
        drax’s implications are right on…did the County submit a PEG application on its own behalf?
        
        Also, I doubt that the County would build these two courts at Ballston and then go down the Blumont junction trail to build another one. If so, then maybe they could next saunter over to Quincy Park and build one and then move down Washington Blvd for a fifth and final one…. maybe at Clarendon Metro Plaza. If so, there could possibly be a bocce crawl next year in conjunction with the next St. Paddy’s Day pub crawl. Start at Ri Ra and head to Bluemont utilizing the new cocktail trolley. Brilliant!
      - Bluemont Res
        
        You can check with Diane Probus of the Parks Department for the details, as the Bluemont Court is still in the planning stages.
  - My neighbors love bocce
    
    The makeshift bocce courts at N Quincy St and 5th Rd N will go away when Mosaic Park is upgraded (this year or next, I hope). As a Ballston area mom with little kids, I spend time at County playgrounds and sprayparks. I’m glad, however, that the young, bocce-loving singles who rent homes in my neighborhood, will continue to have a space to socialize and compete. I’ll take bocce practice next door over beer pong any day.
- disqus_GuhOBraj9D
  
  Will you be allowed to drink alcoholic beverages while playing bocce in this park?
  - http://www.facebook.com/aattura Azar Attura
    
    Only if you disguise your drink in a Froyo cup
Pestle

I forget how to play. How many points do you get if you whack the beer bottles into the sleeping homeless guy?
Arlintonian

It’s a thoughful way to inroduce some nice green space on an otherwise blighted corner. Nice work Arlington!
- DCBuff
  
  Then again, they could have used some of that bike lane paint and gotten “some nice green space” a lot cheaper.
Patch

Raise taxes and build a bocce court I now understand
help us all

judah dal cais can now stop his insane petition to create bocce courts on the bluemont trail in bluemont
- The Sky is Falling
  
  Stop the insanity!
Jeff

I’m all for this, even though I don’t play Bocce. This will create a nice new green space in a very ugly part of Ballston, and by having a programmatic use, it will attract more regular visitors. I don’t however understand the whole temporary aspect. I can’t imagine what could go on this tiny sliver of land, and the concrete jungle that is Ballston desperately needs more green space, so I hope it remains there permanently.
- ballstonian
  
  Agreed. I’m no bocce player either, but bocce courts will be much nicer than the vacant lot that was there before. The land is too small for anything else, so putting bocce there seems like a good solution to what would otherwise bye dead space. The cost is modest compared with a lot of other public works projects. And if it is popular, then it serves as a good experiment in creating more bocce courts elsewhere.

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