News | FFXnow - Part 648

Morning Notes

Published March 1, 2023 at 7:30AM

A train takes a tour of Tysons Corner Center's third floor near the food court (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Child Care Enrollment Starts Next Week — “Registration for 2023-2024 Fairfax County School Age Child Care (SACC) will begin on March 9. Registration will open on a rolling basis in alphabetical order by school…The SACC School Year Program…offers before- and afterschool care for children attending kindergarten through sixth grade in most Fairfax County public elementary schools and several community centers.” [Neighborhood and Community Services]

Couple Found Dead in Fairfax Home — Fairfax County police are conducting a death investigation after an adult man and woman were found dead in a home on the 8900 block of Walker Street. Police believe preliminarily that the “elderly couple” died in a murder-suicide incident. [FCPD/Twitter]

Free dental clinic coming to Richard Byrd Library in Springfield

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 28, 2023 at 3:45PM

Richard Byrd Library (via Google Maps)

A mobile clinic will provide free dental screenings for kids and teens without insurance at Richard Byrd Library in Springfield this weekend.

Vans from the Medical Care for Children Partnership Foundation (MCCP) — a public-private nonprofit based at Northern Virginia Community College’s Springfield campus — will stop by the library at 7250 Commerce Street from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday (March 4).

Bicycling advocates skeptical of lanes proposed on Merrifield’s Ellenwood Drive

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 28, 2023 at 2:15PM | Updated February 28, 2023 at 3:40PM

Ellenwood Drive at the Jersey Drive intersection in Merrifield (via Google Maps)

(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) Fairfax County hopes to get a head start on its annual street paving and restriping efforts this year, thanks to the D.C. area’s warmer-than-usual winter weather.

The county and Virginia departments of transportation program will kick off next month in Merrifield with the proposed addition of bicycle lanes on Ellenwood Drive from Route 29 to Route 50, along with crosswalks at two intersections.

Golf Course Plaza redevelopment in Reston put on hold, opening door for office tenants to return

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 28, 2023 at 1:30PM

An illustrative rendering of the planned Golf Course Overlook housing development (via DCS Design/Fairfax County)

The long-awaited redevelopment of Reston’s Golf Course Plaza office building near Isaac Newton Square is going to remain a reality only on paper for a while longer.

The project is being delayed once again due to “market changes” that have required the landowner Golf Course Plaza LLC to secure new financing, attorney Shane Murphy said in a Feb. 12 letter to Fairfax County Zoning Evaluation Division Director Suzanne Wright.

Advocates say underfunding safety to blame for high pedestrian death count in Fairfax County

By Vernon Miles

Published February 28, 2023 at 11:50AM | Updated March 24, 2023 at 2:36PM

Columbia Pike in Bailey's Crossroads has been partially closed after a fatal pedestrian crash (staff photo by Jay Westcott)

The traffic safety advocacy group Fairfax Families for Safe Streets (Fairfax FSS) says the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is primarily to blame for Fairfax County’s high pedestrian fatality count last year.

The Safe Streets Report compiled by Fairfax FSS examines the crashes that resulted in 32 pedestrian fatalities and 53 serious injuries in 2022. Like the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV) earlier report, Fairfax FFS found that the county saw a dramatic increase in fatalities and serious injuries last year from any other year going back to 2010 — the first year where data is available.

County courts feedback on economic vision for Lake Anne

By Fatimah Waseem

Published February 28, 2023 at 11:00AM

Lake Anne Plaza on a quiet day (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Work on establishing a new economic vision for the Lake Anne area is underway.

In collaboration with consulting firm Streetsense, the county is currently courting feedback via a public survey on economic visioning for the Lake Anne Commercial Revitation Area, an area that was designated as a possible hotspot for commercial revitalization in 1998.

Tysons gets new voting precinct in Fairfax County’s proposed polling place changes

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 28, 2023 at 10:15AM

An absentee ballot drop box (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Each election cycle requires some tweaks to Fairfax County’s polling precincts, and 2023 will be no exception.

This year’s proposed revisions aren’t quite as intensive as 2022’s, which affected over half of the county’s precincts to account for redistricting changes. However, they’ll still have an impact on hundreds of voters in a year when nearly all key state and local offices will be on the ballot.

Morning Notes

By FFXnow.com

Published February 28, 2023 at 7:30AM

A pedestrian bridge over Jones Branch Drive in Tysons (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Four Displaced by Two-Alarm Tysons House Fire — A malfunctioning water heater started a fire in the 200 block of Trailwood Court that resulted in approximately $175,000 in property damages, the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department says. After an initial dispatch at 3:52 a.m. last Thursday (Feb. 23), additional Fairfax County and Arlington units had to be called to the two-story house, but no injuries were reported. [FCFRD]

Maryland Contractor Plans Fairfax County Move — “Amentum Services, Inc., a leading provider of engineering and advanced solutions and services to the U.S. government, allies, and commercial companies, will invest $495,000 to relocate its headquarters from Germantown, Maryland.” Its operations will be consolidated at 4800 Westfields Blvd in Chantilly, a move expected to create 157 new jobs. [FCEDA]

Potential GMU cricket facility has county board intrigued but cautious

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 27, 2023 at 3:45PM

A cricket player at bat (via michael weir on Unsplash)

Fairfax County officials are guarding their wickets carefully as they size up a recent pitch for a possible cricket and baseball facility at George Mason University.

The Board of Supervisors directed county staff last week to monitor and get involved in a feasibility study that Mason and Major League Cricket (MLC) initiated in November.

UPDATED: Dead body found in trash truck around I-66 waste site

By Angela Woolsey

Published February 27, 2023 at 3:00PM | Updated February 28, 2023 at 2:07PM

A Fairfax County police car (file photo)

(Updated at 2:05 p.m. on 2/28/2023) The contents of a truck that appears to have been carrying trash to the I-66 Transfer Station (4618 West Ox Road) included a dead body, police say.

The Fairfax County Police Department has opened an investigation into the body, which it says was found this afternoon “in a trailer used for transporting trash” in the 4600 block of West Ox Road.