Reston Association is kicking off a project to make the Hook Road Recreation Area more safe and accessible for local Little League players.
The park, first created in 1965, is a group of baseball fields, tennis courts and other athletic fields ringed by Hook Road and Fairway Drive in Reston.
Cara O’Donnell, director of communications for RA, said the plan is to move the ballfields further away from the roads to make them safer.
“There will be new updated backstops, fencing, dugout areas and a new water fountain,” O’Donnell said. “A concrete walking path will be installed around the perimeter of the park.”
Construction is scheduled to start sometime during the week of Aug. 11. The baseball fields will fully close to the public, while the tennis side will remain open. O’Donnell said the plan is to open the first phase in spring 2026.
According to O’Donnell, future planned phases will extend the walking path made in Phase I and construct a permanent restroom, though there’s no timeline for Phase II yet.
The park is currently served by a single portable restroom. The new bathroom facility would have two unisex restrooms with time locks to secure the facilities during off-hours and include an overhead pavilion with picnic tables, according to a conceptual design for Phase II approved by RA’s Design Review Board (DRB) in 2023.
One of RA’s most popular parks, per its website, the Hook Road Recreation Area was identified as in need of a major renovation by the RA board back in 2016. The board approved a new master plan in 2018 that included curb bump outs and a crosswalk along Fairway Drive as well as the new pedestrian walkways and athletic facility improvements.
The park’s tennis courts underwent a renovation in 2021 that introduced new asphalt surfaces, fencing and LED lighting.
RA began working on a site plan for the improvements around the baseball field in early 2023, though the traffic calming measures weren’t included in the design ultimately approved by the DRB.
O’Donnell says the bump outs and crosswalk will be addressed separately. Since they’re in the right-of-way, those improvements require the Virginia Department of Transportation’s approval.
“The surrounding community is leading that effort through a county process,” she said.
