Fairfax County Public Schools officials are willing to at least explore the idea of selling naming rights to high school athletic facilities.
At its Sept. 8 work session, the Fairfax County School Board directed county staff to gather more information from the business community, while the elected officials try to hammer out policy guardrails.
The Fairfax County School Board voted last week to rename a Westfield High School athletic facility as the “Rob Hahne Memorial Baseball Field.”
Hahne, who died May 14 at age 57, was a leader in youth sports and served as Westfield’s head baseball coach for a decade.
Two school board members have proposed a new way for Fairfax County Public Schools to add revenue: selling the naming rights to school athletic facilities.
Introduced as “new business” last week, a motion directing Superintendent Michelle Reid to develop a plan to accommodate such negotiations is set to be voted on by the full Fairfax County School Board at its meeting tomorrow (Thursday).
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.
(Updated at 4:10 p.m.) It has not been a great week for plans to bring professional sports teams to Northern Virginia.
Just a day after negotiations for a Washington Wizards and Capitals arena in Alexandria officially fell through, George Mason University has announced that it’s no longer planning to build a joint baseball and cricket stadium in Fairfax for the Washington Freedom.
The Fairfax County Park Authority is still scouting for its next sports tourism project.
After opening Patriot Park North, a $28 million baseball and softball facility, near George Mason University last spring, the park authority put out a call in June for potential private partners on a new, multi-sport tournament complex that it hopes could benefit both residents and visitors.
George Mason University is poised to complete the construction of a functional cricket field at its Fairfax campus by the end of this summer and a new ballpark by 2025.
During a virtual town hall meeting on Monday (Jan. 29), GMU staff and Sanjay Govil, owner of the Washington Freedom cricket team and a founding investor in Major League Cricket (MLC), outlined the project and listened to feedback from local stakeholders.
Some facility upgrades are in the works for three Fairfax County parks.
The Fairfax County Park Authority (FCPA) Board approved a total of $55,325 in Mastenbrook grants on Wednesday (Dec. 13) to help fund improvements at Lake Fairfax Park in Reston, McLean Central Park and Frying Pan Farm Park south of Herndon.
Reston’s Hunters Woods ballfield has finished its transformation from an underutilized baseball diamond into a park with walking paths, new trees and other features is now complete.
Construction on the redevelopment started on Aug. 11 and wrapped up last week, coming in not only four months ahead of schedule, but also about 10% under approximately $400,000 budget, according to Reston Association, which owns the park.
A nearly 10-acre site just outside Herndon that is currently used as a cricket field is on the path towards redevelopment.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Oct. 24 to transfer county-owned land at 13500 Dulles Greene Drive to the Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority for an affordable housing project.
