It may be a while before Lake Anne’s fountain is functional again.
Repairs are expected to take at least two more months to complete due to supply chain issues, according to Reston Association.
“The repair facility is basically rebuilding the motor/working parts. It had to be done at their shop. They are experiencing part delays which is typical in this post-pandemic era,” RA spokesperson Mike Leone wrote in a statement to FFXnow.
The fountain closed in late August after its pump and motor burnt out. At the time, staff estimated parts would be available within three to four weeks.
Leone said that the association hopes that the fountain will be operational by Thanksgiving — assuming that the rebuilt motor arrives on schedule.
“If there are further delays, then it could be pushed into December,” Leone said.
The fountain was inspired by Jet d’Eau, a 140-meter single geyser fountain on Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
Photo via Reston Association/Twitter
The Mykle Lyons Commemorative Concert will return to Reston this weekend with a new charitable component.
The Lake Anne & Washington Plaza Merchant Association (LAWPA) introduced the now-annual music festival last year to celebrate the life of Mykle Lyons, a jazz musician and longtime Reston resident who died in May 2021.
Initially set for last Saturday (Oct. 1), the concert was postponed to Oct. 8 due to the threat of inclement weather from Hurricane Ian.
Organized by LAWPA in conjunction with Kalypso’s Sports Tavern and Roxplosion, the free concert will be held from noon to 6 p.m. at Lake Anne Plaza (1609 Washington Plaza).
“This free, family-friendly event celebrates the accomplishments, generosity, and compassion demonstrated by a well-loved member of our community — featuring acclaimed artists, exquisite food, and lots of fun,” LAWPA said in a press release.
New for this year, the organizers announced that they are establishing a memorial scholarship fund in Lyons’s name. Donations will go to the Friends of Music at Mason to help a music student attend George Mason University.
LAWPA says checks can be made out to the George Mason Foundation and mailed to GMU-CVPA Development Office, Friends of Music, 4400 University Drive, MS 4C1, Fairfax, VA 22030. The association says to write “in memory of Mykle Lyons” on the check’s memo line.
The second annual Mykle Lyons Commemorative Concert line-up will feature the Dan Lamaestra Trio, the Peter Fraize Quartet, the Chris Timbers Band, and a trio from GMU’s jazz ensemble.
In addition to playing at music venues around the world and frequently performing for former vice president Al Gore, Lyons was a regular at Reston Town Center’s now-closed Market Street Bar and Grill. He founded the Lake Anne Jazz and Blues Festival, which returned to the plaza for a 15th year on Sept. 3.
After a nearly decade-long effort to redevelop a 1970s-era housing community, the Lake Anne House is finally open.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held last week to open the $86 million redevelopment project at 11444 North Shore Drive in Reston. The Lake Anne House is a 240-apartment complex for low-income seniors that is replacing the five-decade-old Lake Anne Fellowship House.
Conceived by the nonprofits Fellowship Square Foundation and Enterprise Community Development, the new building will house those 65 years or older who are living on incomes 60% and below the area median income.
“This new state-of-the-art building in terms of energy efficiency and accessibility sets a new standard for what affordable housing can be,” Fellowship Square CEO Christy Zeitz said in a press release. “Most importantly, it will enable financially fragile older adults to be able to age in place here in Northern Virginia for many years to come.”
While the official opening was just last Thursday (Sept. 29), residents already relocated from the Lake Anne Fellowship House to the new building over the summer.
Built in 1970, the Lake Anne Fellowship House was the first high-rise and first dedicated affordable apartment complex for seniors in Reston. It was also part of Robert Simon’s original vision for the community.
But after more than 50 years of use, the building is now considered aging, and since its construction predated the Americans with Disabilities Act, accessibility for many residents became an issue.
With the opening of the Lake Anne House, the hope is that those challenges are now solved.
In attendance at the ribbon-cutting ceremony last week were local officials, including Hunter Mill Supervisor Walter Alcorn, as well as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Adrianne Todman.
“Lake Anne House is an example of the high-quality affordable housing we can build with ingenuity, tenacity, and partnership,” Todman said. “It is what fixing our housing supply looks like — a demonstration of how we can work collaboratively at all levels to build and rehabilitate housing — project by project, block by block, community by community — across the country.”
The idea of building a whole new complex on an underused portion of the site next to the Lake Anne Fellowship House was proposed in 2013. It took five years of design and development before the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the project in 2018.
Two years after breaking ground in October 2020, the Lake Anne House is now officially open to residents. It has 56 studios, 178 one-bedroom, and six two-bedroom apartments, including 54 fully handicap-accessible units, per a press release.
The building also has a fitness center, arts and crafts room, a social hall, a sunroom, a game room, an outdoor terrace, a wellness clinic, and on-site residents’ services offices.
Lake Anne House was mostly financed by a combination of state and local funds, including $47 million from a tax-exempt bond financing from state-created Virginia Housing.
The old building next door is now vacant and currently being used as a training location for fire departments. It’s set to be demolished early next year and the land sold to a private developer for new townhomes.
Fellowship Square also completed a renovation of its affordable housing at Hunters Woods this summer.
Visitors will have a chance to step into an assortment of Reston lifestyles at the Reston Home Tour this November.
A ticket unlocks self-guided tours of eight homes, according to a press release from the tour’s host, the Reston Museum. These include the new Lake Anne House and a home close to Lake Audubon that is filled with art.
The event will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5.
Though the home tours are self-guided, attendees can keep an eye out for docents equipped with information about particular rooms and home features.
The tour is a little bigger this year to recognize the event’s 20th anniversary, Reston Museum Executive Director Alex Campbell told FFXnow in an email. Typically, there are six or seven homes on display, compared to the eight featured this year:
From the press release:
This year’s featured homes include an award-winning modern masterpiece tucked back in a wooded oasis, a beautifully-landscaped personal “club house” offering amazing views of the golf course, a newly-renovated Reston Town Center townhouse with a water view, and an art-filled home near Lake Audubon with soaring ceilings and a delightful garden pond. Highlighted homes also include a renovated colonial near North Point with lots of unique personal touches, brand new EYA model townhouses with elevators near the Wiehle Avenue Metro and the newly-constructed Lake Anne House for seniors.
Tickets are available on the Reston Museum website or in-person at the museum. In addition, The Wine Cabinet, Chesapeake Chocolates and the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art will sell paper tickets, according to the press release.
Tickets cost $30 until Oct. 17. After that, the price increases to $35.
In addition to the Reston Home Tour, the Reston Museum hosts the Lake Anne Cardboard Regatta and Reston Founder’s Day, among other events. The home tour continues to be the Reston Museum’s biggest fundraiser, Campbell wrote.
In past years, tours have featured work by a local architect and a Marilyn Monroe bathroom, among other attractions.
The son of one of Reston’s first 500 residents is paying homage to his family and hometown with the launch of a new Belgian-inspired gastropub at Lake Anne Plaza.
Owner Jan Carlos Byl plans to open Common Ground in the next six months at the space formerly filled by Local VA, another local restaurant that abruptly closed up shop earlier this year at the plaza.
“This is a way for me to honor my father, my father’s legacy at Lake Anne and fulfill my childhood dream of one day owning a restaurant,” Byl told FFXnow.
Byl returned to Reston after his father, Adhemar Byl, became ill in 2021. After his death, Byl launched the business, which has the motto “good vibes, great food.”
“This is to honor my father and our very special Lake Anne community,” he said. “The Lake needs more watering holes and gathering places where you can break bread and drink with your neighbors and loves ones from just a short walk away.”
The son of a Belgian father and a Nicaraguan mother, Byl hopes to marry different culinary cultures from remote regions and bring together his exposure to different culinary traditions in one place.
Byl moved to Europe at age 21 and remained in Amsterdam for 10 years before returning to the U.S., where he became an investor and creative partner in some D.C.-based transitional bars and restaurants, he says.
In Europe, he spent nearly a decade managing platinum recording artists from around the world, he says.
For now, Byl returns to his roots. The name of the new restaurant fittingly pays homage to a daycare that occupied space above what is now Reston Community Center’s Lake Anne facility years ago: Common Ground Daycare.
It’s also where he and his brother went for daycare. An exact opening date is still pending as work continues on the site.
Lake Anne is welcoming a new festival on Sept. 10 at the plaza (1609 Washington Plaza North) in Reston.
The first annual Reggae at the Lake Festival will feature international reggae bands, food, crafts and family activities.
Ramon Pardo — a local realtor with Terra Properties and member of the Lake Anne Washington Plaza Merchants Association (LAWPMA) — created the festival after Culture Reggae Band, an internationally known band, performed at his wedding in Jamaica.
“Their performance just made the day even more magical for them,” the association said in a statement to FFXnow. “He wanted to bring some of that magic to Lake Anne because of his love for the Plaza and its balance of nature and architecture, residents and businesses, and to give back to the community. He proposed the idea of a reggae festival and led a small committee of LAWPA members to make sure it happened.”
The event will run from 1-9 p.m.:
- 1 p.m. — Proverbs Reggae Band
- 2:30 p.m. — Eclipse International Band
- 4 p.m. — Ras Lido & the Regg’Go Band
- 5:30 p.m. — Kurlou Reggae All-Stars
- 7 p.m. — Culture featuring Kenyatta Hill
The festival will take place at the waterfront of the plaza and is free for all. If needed, a rain date will be announced at a later point.
“We feel this is a perfect festival for Lake Anne because its residents and business owners are so diverse with many ethnicities and cultures melding into one community,” LAWPMA said. “Music and dance brings people together, and we are happy to provide opportunities to make that happen.”
Frequenters of Lake Anne in Reston will notice a change in the waters of the lake.
The lake’s fountain is currently not in operation after a mechanical issue was discovered, according to Reston Association.
Mike Leone, RA’s spokesperson, said that the fountain’s pump and motor burnt out.
“Replacement parts have been ordered and right now we are being told it will be three to four weeks, if not longer, to receive the replacements parts,” Leone wrote in a statement to FFXnow.
The timeline could change depending on supply chain and delivery demands, Leone added.
The fountain was inspired by Jet d’Eau, a 140-meter single geyser fountain on Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
Due to a mechanical failure, the Lake Anne fountain is currently not in operation. Our CSF team is working to resolve the issue and currently estimates a 3–4 week turnaround for parts and installation. #EnjoyReston #Reston #FXVA #LoveVA pic.twitter.com/fVKh9BxyBz
— Reston Association (@RestonOnline) August 23, 2022
Thousands of spectators converged at Lake Anne Plaza over the weekend for the annual Lake Anne Cardboard Boat Regatta.
This year, the event returned after a two-year pause due to the pandemic. More than 40 boats took part in the race, with Hunters Woods Elementary earning first place in the cadet category.
The annual event is organized by the Reston Museum, which is based at 1639 Washington Plaza North. The event is designed to encourage community pride in Reston. Teams construct and their life-sized cardboard boats, which take part in timed heats.
“We could not be happier with how the return of the Lake Anne Cardboard Boat Regatta went!” Reston Museum Executive Director Alex Campbell wrote in a statement to FFXnow. “The boat designs were amazing and it was wonderful to connect with the community again through this favorite event. This event always brings joy, but this year’s race was truly something special.”
YMCA won the navigator race, while Cinder won the skipper race. The people’s choice award — selected based on attendee votes — went to Mr. Matt and the WildFlowers. The Titanic award went to Terraset Elementary School.
Pre-registration for next year’s event is already underway. It will be taken through Saturday and the race will be held next year on August 12.
This year’s title sponsor was 123 Junk.
Army Nurse Thanks Fairfax County Firefighters — “Sunday, August 7, was a powerful and inspiring day at Station 11, Penn Daw, C-Shift. U.S. Army Captain Paul Petrie, an OR Nurse at Fort Belvoir, stopped by to thank the shift for their role in saving his life in May. Injuries he sustained are fatal a vast majority of the time. Watch to learn more!” [FCFRD/Facebook]
Long-Term Fix for AT&T Service Issues in Reston Coming — A permanent proposal to restore full cell service in the Lake Anne area isn’t expected to come until later this fall, according to Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn. Alcorn says AT&T is looking at installing equipment on the new Fellowship House roof, but that will require approvals from Fairfax County and the Reston Association Design Review Board. [Patch]
Fairfax County Parkway Targeted for Traffic Enforcement — “Officers from our Motor Squad are focusing on traffic enforcement on the Fairfax County Parkway this month. On the first day of this enforcement campaign, an officer stopped a car going 108 MPH on the County Parkway at Barta Road, a 50 MPH zone!” [FCPD/Instagram]
Vienna Trail Closed for Repairs — “The Wildwood Park trail that runs between Follin Lane SE and Niblick Drive SE, along with the Mashie Drive Park entrance, will be closed tomorrow, Tuesday, Aug. 9, between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. for repairs. Please use caution when in the area and plan for detours.” [Town of Vienna/Twitter]
Police Seek Help with Centreville Cold Case — “One of the DNA-analysis companies that Fairfax County Police in Virginia have been working with is Texas-based Othram, which is now crowdfunding help to identify a woman who was found dead…nearly 30 years ago. Even today, there isn’t a lot that police know about the woman, whose remains were found in 1993 near a cedar tree around what’s now the corner of Sharpsburg Drive and Calvary Place in Centreville.” [WTOP]
Connector Buses Not Affected by Metro Shutdown — The closure of several Blue and Yellow Line stations next month will have no impact on Fairfax Connector routes, but instead of taking a train, passengers will transfer to free shuttle buses. Drop-off and pick-up locations at the Huntington, Van Dorn Street, Franconia, and Crystal City stations may also be slightly different. [Fairfax County Government]
Reminder to Get Kids Immunized for School — “Parents, you’ve probably reminded your kids about summer reading and started purchasing school supplies. Have you booked your immunization appointment yet? Don’t wait until the last minute, make sure your children are up to date with their school required immunizations.” [Fairfax County Health Department/Facebook]
Maryland Toll Lanes Project on Hold — “A key federal agency has delayed Maryland’s plan to build toll lanes on the Capital Beltway and I-270, the latest setback for the star-crossed project. The move was immediately criticized by Gov. Larry Hogan (R), who said the delay will imperil the state’s efforts to ease one of the nation’s worst bottlenecks.” [Maryland Matters]
It’s Tuesday — Humid throughout the day. High of 94 and low of 78. Sunrise at 6:18 am and sunset at 8:12 pm. [Weather.gov]
Cellular service issues continue to plague residents in the Lake Anne area of Reston, but a recently added, temporary truck will at least ensure AT&T customers can call 911.
A spokesperson for AT&T said that since Friday (July 29) — when information about the outage was first released — the company has been trying to restore an antenna in the area.
AT&T says it is working on placing a temporary cellular support truck in the Lake Anne area to help give customers a boost and improve service until the issue is resolved.
“We have deployed temporary emergency coverage for first responders, and are working as quickly as possible to restore full service in the area. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience,” an AT&T spokesperson told FFXnow.
The company did not provide information on when the issue was first identified and what efforts have been made to restore the site.
However, Fairfax County said in a statement that it worked with the telecommunications company “to expedite placement of a cellular support vehicle” that was put in place Saturday morning (July 30).
“The AT&T cellular support vehicle allows for residents to call 9-1-1 and provides cellular coverage for public safety,” county spokesperson Tony Castrilli said. “The full restoration for AT&T customers in Lake Anne is scheduled to be completed in two weeks.”
The problem comes after Verizon and other cell carriers removed a cell phone communications facility at the rooftop of Lake Anne Fellowship House, which is set to be demolished next year.
Fairfax County is encouraging residents to use a landline or make calls through the WiFi on devices where that’s an option.
A spokesperson for Verizon said the company is actively looking for a replacement site. Its original plans fell earlier this year. Since then, the company says that it has been looking for another site but with no success.
