(Updated at 3:30 p.m.) Expect significant police activity in the Ballston area following a pair of bank robberies.
The Citizens Bank at 4075 Wilson Blvd was the scene of an attempted robbery shortly after 2 p.m. The suspect ran off without cash after hopping the counter, per initial reports.
McLean-based The Union restaurant has opened its second location in the Virginia Square neighborhood.
The “casual fine dining” eatery opened last Monday (April 4) at 3811 Fairfax Drive, chef and owner Giridhar Sastry confirms to ARLnow. Business, so far, has been “okay,” but Sastry says it may take some time for locals to know that the restaurant is there and open.
George Mason University has ceremonially broke ground on the quarter of a billion dollar expansion of its Arlington campus.
At an event held yesterday (Wednesday), ceremonial shovels picked up ceremonial dirt to mark the beginning of construction of Fuse at Mason Square, a new $235 million building in Virginia Square that will house the university’s new School of Computing.
George Mason University is celebrating its 50th anniversary and the Arlington’s campus $250 million expansion this week with a concert, a new photo exhibit, and groundbreaking.
Beginning today (Monday), the Northern Virginia-based university will be hosting a week full of events at its Arlington campus in Virginia Square on Fairfax Drive, now known as Mason Square, culminating with an outdoor concert from a local cover band on Friday night.
Famed philosopher Dr. Cornel West will be speaking in Arlington next month.
West is coming to George Mason University’s campus on Fairfax Drive in two weeks, on Thursday, April 14. As the event listing notes, he’ll be in conversation for two hours with the school’s director of the Race, Politics, and Policy Center Dr. Michael Fauntroy and speaking on “the current state of American democracy, human rights, and critical race theory.”
Giant Spiders May Drop In — “An invasive species of spider the size of a child’s hand is expected to ‘colonize’ the entire East Coast this spring by parachuting down from the sky, researchers at the University of Georgia announced last week… Andy Davis, author of the study and a researcher at Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology, tells Axios that it isn’t certain how far north the spiders will travel, but they may make it as far north as D.C. or even Delaware.” [Axios, Fox 5, NPR]
Anti-Growth Group Decries Route 29 Planning — “On March 6, ASF wrote to the Arlington County Board expressing concerns that significant new land use and zoning plans will cause seismic shifts for the communities now lining Langston Blvd. We believe the process — which will soon produce a new Preliminary Concept Plan that likely will be fast-tracked like other county planning processes — will neglect or defer costs of critically-needed new infrastructure, will displace those earning 60% or less than the Area Median Income, and will make it difficult for local entrepreneurs to stay in business.” [Arlingtonians for Our Sustainable Future]
If you didn’t know better, you’d think that an unusual walk signal in Virginia Square was trying to signal that the South would rise again.
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.
You might have never heard of the “9th Street Greenway,” an unheralded ribbon of greenery that crosses Ballston and Virginia Square, but it’s been decades in the making.
On a cold winter’s day, there’s a calmness to the ten-block-long stretch. The greenway follows 9th Street N, starting near N. Kansas Street and American Legion Post 85, in Virginia Square. It eventually crosses Oakland Park and Welburn Square, before ending as a walking path at N. Vermont Street, next to the Westin hotel.
George Mason University is breaking ground on the massive $235 million expansion of its Arlington campus.
“This is the start of something big for Mason,” Carol Kissal, the university’s senior vice president for administration and finance, said in a statement. “And when it’s done, it will have fundamentally changed our campus, as well as the broader Arlington community.”
Arlington police have not had much of a holiday break.
An eventful weekend has given way to a busy week, with three additional notable incidents over the past couple of days, each involving knife-wielding suspects.
(Updated 2:15 p.m.) The county has crystallized plans for temporarily storing and dispatching Arlington Transit (ART) buses near Washington-Liberty High School while a new bus facility in Green Valley is built.
Nearly 30 ART buses will come and go from the site, on the 1400 block of N. Quincy Street, where the county currently parks some fire and police vehicles, as well as a portion of the Arlington Public Schools vehicle fleet. The site also has warehouse storage for Covid-related supplies and serves as the drop-off center for E-CARE recycling events.
