The proposed repurposing of Inova Health System’s former corporate headquarters in Merrifield as live/work and workforce housing units got a hearty recommendation from the Fairfax County Planning Commission earlier this week.
The commission recommended on Wednesday (June 7) that the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approve the plan from Madison Highland, a developer focused on live/work projects that’s pursuing similar conversions at the Skyline Center in Bailey’s Crossroads.
“This is an art-of-the-possible application,” Providence District Commissioner Phil Niedzielski-Eichner said. “It started with a vision…but then, that interaction between the applicant and staff resulted in an outcome that is so strikingly beneficial to our county that, to me, it’s a remarkable achievement.”
Under the name Madison Investment Portfolio LLC, the developer is seeking to turn a vacant, 245,000-square-foot office building at 8110 Gatehouse Road into 240 live/work units, which are newly defined in the county’s zoning ordinance as areas designed to accommodate both a residence and a “flexible work space.”
The 89,000-square-foot office building at 2990 Telestar Road will be repurposed as 82 workforce dwelling units for residents earning up to 60% of the area median income.
Representing the applicant at Wednesday’s public hearing, McGuireWoods Managing Partner Greg Riegle pitched the new units and accompanying open space, sidewalks, and other amenities as a “significant” improvement over the existing offices, which have been empty since Inova finished moving out last fall.
“The site gets greener, more amenitized,” he said, “and something that was exclusively automobile-oriented becomes much more walkable…We take a significant step toward creating a centerpiece where people can gather and interact that’s never existed in this part of Merrifield.”
The development will feature three publicly accessible parks — a game table community park, a play zone and a “Woof Park” for dog walking — as well as three common areas for residents. Pickleball courts are also proposed on top of the Gatehouse building’s five-story parking garage.
Pedestrians will get 6-foot-wide sidewalks in front of both buildings, internal walkways for the new parks, a connection between the properties, and high-visibility crosswalks at all crossings, pending Virginia Department of Transportation approval.
Two area residents called for more roadway improvements to address safety concerns and vehicle speeds, particularly on Gatehouse Road.
“I see a lot more rush of people cutting off the corner coming up Lee Highway all the way to Gallows,” a resident of the High Point at Jefferson Park townhomes said. “Maybe at 3 o’clock after noon, there are 20 cars waiting for the red light to turn onto Gallows, so it’s already quite congested.”
The resident also said parking has been a persistent challenge for her neighborhood and the adjacent Yorktowne Square Condominiums, requesting that they be allowed to use the Gatehouse garage.
While Niedzielski-Eichner said parking access should be negotiated by the developer and homeowners separately from the rezoning application, Marc Dreyfuss with the Fairfax County Department of Transportation shared that Gatehouse Road is scheduled for a repaving this year that will create buffered bicycle lanes.
“Restriping the road through a road diet and adding the features that are proposed with this application should help slow the traffic,” Dreyfuss said, confirming that “we would not expect to see any significant increase” in traffic with the proposed development.
The application is set for a public hearing before the Board of Supervisors on June 27.
An Arlington-based ice cream shop that brings together flavors from around the world is planting its flag in the Mosaic District to further an ambitious expansion plan.
Mimi’s Handmade will take up residence in the Merrifield neighborhood at 2985 District Avenue, Suite 160, replacing 520 Ice Cream and Tea after the cafe closed late last year.
Currently expected to open around mid-August to early September, the new store will closely resemble the original Mimi’s, which opened in Pentagon City in December 2021, owner Rollin Amore says.
“You’ve got to have consistency across the board, consistency in the quality of your ice cream, consistency in your offerings,” Amore told FFXnow. “I mean, I want to appeal to a broad base. I want to appeal across the age span from 8 months old to 80 years old.”
Mimi’s is a family affair, dedicated to Amore’s daughters — Mimi and Alexandra — and inspired by gelato, custard and sweets recipes passed down by his Italian and German grandmothers, according to the website.
Venturing into ice cream after retiring from a nearly 40-year career as a banker, Amore has developed a diverse assortment of over 40 flavors, from classic options like French vanilla and chocolate to bolder scoops like sweet corn or wasabi peas — one of several to incorporate ingredients he encountered while traveling in Asia.
Mimi’s has 32 flavors on display at any given time, all made in-house with “real” ingredients, not flavoring, Amore says. About 70 to 80% of them are fixtures, while others rotate based on the season or their creator’s inclinations.
“If I get inspired, I’ll try a new flavor,” Amore said. “As an example, a couple of weeks ago, I started making a red guava sherbet…It’s more summer. I’ve been making fresh watermelon and fresh cantaloupe, and I just pureed a few fruit and then add a little sugar and make a sorbet out of them.”
Calling the Mosaic District “a good spot to be in,” Amore says he has always envisioned Mimi’s as “a small chain of stores.” The business is also coming to Chevy Chase in two weeks and Rockville in three months.
Looking into 2024, leases have been signed for locations in Annandale and West Falls Church, though Amore couldn’t share the exact addresses yet. A Sterling shop is also a possibility, along with a commissary kitchen where all of the ice cream production will ultimately be consolidated.
Despite the aggressiveness of the planned expansion, he expressed confidence that Mimi’s can maintain the quality that has earned it near-universal acclaim on Yelp and a nod from Northern Virginia Magazine as one of the region’s best restaurants.
“Ice cream stores, the whole dynamic is changing,” Amore said. “We went from two years ago the Baskin Robbins, the Ben and Jerry’s to now a new generation of more artisan ice creams. There’s a bit of shift in the industry, and I think I’m on the edge of that in terms of my flavor strategy, my preparations and so forth.”
Fairfax County is winding down its groundbreaking experiment with self-driving public transportation.
The autonomous, electric Relay shuttle will cease operations after June 23, concluding almost three years of bussing passengers around the Dunn Loring Metro station and the Mosaic District in Merrifield.
Since launching on Oct. 22, 2020, the shuttle has provided 356 trips, as of last Thursday (June 1). While attracting riders was a struggle at times, the pilot project was successful at demonstrating the potential and challenges of using the technology for public transit, Fairfax County Department of Transportation Chief of Operations John Zarbo says.
“I would think we would determine it as a success,” Zarbo told FFXnow. “Our ultimate goal of the project was sort of to be a test bed and to learn about the technology and sort of have an infrastructure area that we could see what the vehicle did. Ridership was extremely important to us, but it wasn’t everything…There was so much more to it.”
The first state-funded test of its kind in Virginia, the Relay pilot was intended to last just one year but got funding for multiple extensions, as the county and Dominion Energy, which owns the vehicle, waited out the hit that public transportation took nationally during the pandemic.
According to Zarbo, ridership has increased in recent months as the sense of COVID-19 as an emergency has faded. He also attributes the uptick to changes to the shuttle’s route and schedule that took effect on Dec. 5.
Originally, the shuttle traveled from the Dunn Loring Metro down Merrilee Drive, crossed Route 29 onto Eskridge Road, and looped around Merrifield Cinema Drive to stop by the Mosaic District’s Barnes and Noble.
The project team expanded the route to include three stops along District Avenue, giving them the chance to see how the vehicle handled a busier street.
“The vehicle does really well interacting with the pedestrians, which was a concern of ours at the beginning, but it did really well adjusting and driving autonomously on its own with very little interaction from the safety steward,” Zarbo said, referring to the on-board operator who assists riders and can take manual control if needed.
The current schedule of 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday also “definitely worked better” than the original Monday to Thursday timeline, according to Zarbo, though the county wasn’t able to get approval for Saturdays.
The vehicle technology, provided by EasyMile, also improved throughout the pilot. A software upgrade enabled the shuttle to better navigate vegetation so it didn’t detect every overhanging tree branch as an object to be avoided. Read More
Fairfax County’s vision for a redevelopment of the Pan Am Shopping Center in Merrifield will likely include an emphasis on pedestrian and bicycle connections.
At a virtual community meeting on May 22, the county’s Department of Planning and Development offered a preview of its proposed comprehensive plan amendment to allow multifamily housing at the 25-acre retail center (3089 Nutley Street SW).
Among the draft recommendations, which are being finalized for a staff report expected on June 7, is a provision that the new development blocks be designed to facilitate pedestrian and bicycle access and minimize conflicts between different modes of travel.
In addition to keeping an existing path to the Providence Hall Apartments to the south, county staff have suggested adding a “north-south pedestrian connection” between Route 29 and the three residential buildings proposed by Pan Am owner Federal Realty.
The county is also contemplating recommendations for a shared-use path on the east side of Nutley Street and new or upgraded bus shelters on Nutley and Route 29.
“One of the things that we are trying to do as part of this plan amendment…is to really create a sense of place at the Pan Am Shopping Center, so that you can have the type of environment where people are being encouraged to walk there and bike there, not just drive there,” county plan development chief Graham Owen said.
The shared-use path will likely be separate from the street, he added after a community member raised concerns about bicycle lanes taking away space from cars on Nutley.
The redevelopment’s potential impact on traffic has been at the forefront of many residents’ minds. An analysis by county transportation staff found that the proposed overhaul would generate 803 more vehicle trips per day than the existing shopping center.
That would be 4,271 fewer trips than what’s possible under the current comprehensive plan, but community members in the meeting lamented that Nutley already has congestion and accessibility issues.
“Coming on Nutley from the [I-66] bridge side, the county needs to improve that. With that new crossroads, it is dangerous,” resident Francis Forgione said. “There’s no lights, and cars don’t stop entering and exiting the freeway…The county needs to somehow make it safe so you can approach from all directions, not just one direction.” Read More
Some of the D.C. region’s hottest new restaurants can be found right in Fairfax County, according to the Washington Post’s recently released spring dining guide.
Restaurants in the county claimed four spots on longtime food critic Tom Sietsema’s round-up of his favorite newcomers to the regional dining scene — more than any locality other than the District itself.
Leading the pack is Kirby Club, the eastern Mediterranean restaurant that launched in the Mosaic District late last year. The new concept from the restauranteurs behind D.C.’s Compass Rose and Maydān ranked no. 3 on Sietsema’s list, which highlights 25 eateries where he would “be happy to go on my own dollar.”
ICYMI: @tomsietsema has named Kirby Club as Number 3 in the @washingtonpost Spring Dining Guide! 🥂
Read what sets Kirby Club apart: https://t.co/pWuE9RQtlh
Tag a friend who needs to try their signature kebabs and dips this summer. 👇
📸 : @mariahmirandaphoto pic.twitter.com/5qzBC5UDiy
— Mosaic (@mosaicdistrict) May 19, 2023
Opened on Dec. 20, 2022, Kirby Club drew praise for its “always sunny” atmosphere and menu of kebabs and dips, which Sietsema says remain “luscious” even though original chef Omar Hegazi has returned to his home base in New York.
He also highlighted the restaurant’s offerings of both share-able platters and plates fit for one:
Non-sharers will rejoice over the plates for one, featuring a variety of kebabs — chicken, lamb, oyster (mushroom) — that feel like a feast given the fluffy yellow rice, sumac-spiked onions and bright salad that accompany them. “Picnic platters” are a throwback to Previte’s childhood memories of Labor Day spreads with the Kirby Club, a Lebanese social group her maternal grandparents helped found in 1933 in Akron, Ohio. My ongoing fascination is the whole roast chicken, massaged with garlic, turmeric and oil and presented on a raft of flatbread with the aforementioned rice and salad, but also crinkle-cut fries sprinkled with za’atar and a rainbow of sauces.
After initially opening with evening hours only, Kirby Club has expanded its operations to include lunch and to-go options. A second location is in the works in Clarendon.
“We love being a part of the vibrant Fairfax County community and welcoming in so many local friends and family to Kirby Club in the Mosaic District every day,” Kirby Club owner Rose Previte said. “It’s wonderful to have the Washington Post celebrating so many restaurants we know and love.”
Unranked after the top five, the guide also gives some love to Ingle Korean Steakhouse and Jiwa Singapura, signaling that Tysons may at last be breaking free of its reputation as purely an American-steak-and-business kind of town.
Ingle Korean Steakhouse at Pike 7 Plaza instantly won the Post’s food critic over with elegant decor, attentive servers, “distinctive cocktails” and “delicious dips” for its array of grilled meats and seafood.
For Jiwa Singapura, which opened on Feb. 15 in Tysons Galleria, Sietsema emphasizes the luxuriousness of the food and the setting, which he says suggests “a fine-dining lair.” He points to the salted egg shrimp, chicken rice and chili crab as menu highlights, though the “beef rendang isn’t worth the 30-minute wait.”
Moving outside the Tysons area — and price range — Sari Filipino Kusina rounds out the Fairfax County entries in the guide. Sietsema says the fast-casual Filipino restaurant in Annandale stands out for the “haunting” flavors of dishes like kare kare stew and smoked chicken wings glazed with adobo, which draw on co-owner and chef Paolo Dungca’s childhood in Manila.
Four Sisters will serve customers at the Mosaic District for the last time this Sunday (May 14).
The family-owned Vietnamese restaurant will permanently close after 30 years of business, about half of them spent anchoring the prominent corner of Strawberry Lane and Yates Way in Merrifield.
With the restaurant’s lease expiring, Four Sisters co-owner Lieu Lai says the family decided the time had come to wrap up their three-decade journey. She wants to spend more time at home with her kids, making Mother’s Day a particularly fitting final day.
In addition, Lai’s sister Le Lai — who has owned the restaurant with her since 2014 — and brother-in-law hope to travel, she told FFXnow.
Four Sisters has been a Merrifield mainstay since 2008, moving to what was then a mostly industrial area before it redeveloped as the Mosaic District in 2012.
Prior to helping jumpstart the mixed-use neighborhood, Four Sisters began life in 1993 as Huong Que at Falls Church’s Eden Center. Lieu and Le’s parents, Thanh Tran and Kim Lai, founded the modest restaurant with money they made selling hot dogs after they immigrated to the U.S. from Bien Hoa, Vietnam, according to the Washington Post, which broke the news of the impending closure.
Huong Que soon became a local favorite, expanding with a second restaurant in the Eden Center to accommodate its growing customer base and even appearing on the late chef Anthony Bourdain’s show “No Reservations” in 2008, according to Viva Tysons.
When the restaurant moved to the Mosaic District, the family renamed it as a nod to Lieu, Le and their two sisters, acknowledging that the original name was too often mispronounced by non-Vietnamese customers.
Since then, the family has extended their reach elsewhere in Northern Virginia, opening the fast-casual Four Sisters Grill in Clarendon and the 4 Sisters Snack Bar in Ashburn. Both of those locations, which are respectively run by oldest sister Ly and youngest son Thuan Lai, will remain open, per the Post.
An eventual return of Four Sisters hasn’t been ruled out either. Lieu says her sister and brother-in-law may open another restaurant in the future after they finish traveling.
“Deep down, I think that potentially I may open another Four Sisters somewhere,” Le told Post food critic Tim Carmen. “That would make my mom and dad really happy, for sure.”
For now, supporters still have a few more days to get in a final order of pho or a vermicelli rice bowl, among other dishes on the menu of Vietnamese staples. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day except Mondays.
A jewelry store that says it sells ethically sourced diamonds and gemstones has opened at the Mosaic District in Merrifield.
Brilliant Earth, which officially opened its doors yesterday (Thursday), takes up a little over 2,000 square feet of space at 2905 District Avenue in Suite 105.
This is Brilliant Earth’s second Virginia store, although there are other locations in Georgetown, Baltimore and Bethesda.
Taylor Jacobs, a spokesperson for the company, said the location “marks the digital-first jewelry company’s second showroom opening in Virginia.” The company, which is headquartered in San Francisco, has other locations in the works.
The Merrifield location includes services like walk-in consultations, “ethically sourced” jewelry, and gifts like engravable pieces and birthstone pendants.
The business was founded 2015 in order to foster a “more transparent, sustainable and compassionate jewelry industry,” FFXnow previously reported.
The home furniture store Pottery Barn and Faherty, a family-owned clothing business, are also expected to open in the Mosaic District at 2905 District Avenue this summer.
Community organizer Erika Yalowitz has suspended her campaign for the Virginia State Senate’s 37th District.
One of three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination, Yalowitz announced today (Thursday) that she is withdrawing from the race and will instead endorse her opponent, Saddam Azlan Salim, a financial consultant and vice president of the Fairfax Young Democrats.
After launching her campaign in February, Yalowitz says she has decided to work with Salim in a bid to defeat incumbent Chap Petersen, who has represented voters in the now-defunct 34th District since 2008.
“If we want to make progress on the issues we care about, such as gun safety, reproductive justice or housing affordability, we need to elect a different senator,” Yalowitz said in a statement. “That is why I am making the decision to suspend my campaign and endorse Saddam Salim in this race. Saddam is a good candidate that I know supports a lot of the same issues that I do.”
Yalowitz’s campaign has stopped accepting donations and will use its remaining funds to cover remaining expenses, such as staff compensation, she said in a message to supporters. She plans to give any funds leftover after that to Salim’s campaign.
Created by Virginia’s redistricting process in 2021, the new 37th Senate District incorporates Tysons, Merrifield and Falls Church City into the former 34th District’s boundaries, which included Vienna and Fairfax City.
An Arlington Circuit Court officer, Yalowitz lives in Tysons and has held leadership roles in several community organizations, including the Providence District Council, Tysons Community Alliance, and the Fairfax Federation. She also advocated for preserving Oakton’s Blake Lane Park when it was being eyed as a potential school site.
She previously ran for the Providence District seat on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2019.
Both Yalowitz and Salim have criticized Petersen for breaking with Democrats on issues like an assault weapons ban and marijuana legalization.
In a statement released by his campaign, Salim thanked his former opponent for her support:
I want to thank Erika Yalowitz for bringing a progressive voice into this campaign and advocating for important issues like reproductive rights, the fentanyl crisis, gun violence prevention and public education. I also want to thank her for her endorsement – I appreciate it deeply and I look forward to working with her on the campaign trail to give the people of the 37th District a new choice for the first time in sixteen years. Erika will have a great future in the Democratic Party and I look forward to supporting her wholeheartedly in her next endeavors.
Petersen said that he spoke Yalowitz earlier today and wishes her well, but her decision won’t affect his campaign for reelection.
“We’ll continue forward with a positive message focused on our constituents,” he told FFXnow.
Petersen has raised the most money of the 37th District candidates so far, as of Monday (April 17), when the campaign finance reports for the first three months of the year were due.
The Democratic primary will be held on June 20, with this year’s general election coming on Nov. 7. The lone Republican candidate is Ken Reid, a former Loudoun County supervisor.
The robots are taking over the Mosaic District.
Starting today (Thursday), a fleet of boxy, self-driving bots will roam around the mixed-use Merrifield neighborhood, delivering food from restaurants in a pilot program by the delivery service Uber Eats and the robotics startup Cartken.
Right now, robot deliveries are available from the family-owned Greek restaurant Our Mom Eugenia, Pupatella Pizza and the Indian fast-casual eatery RASA, but other tenants could be added later. The pilot is slated to run through April 2024.
The Mosaic District is emerging as a prime testing ground for autonomous technology, hosting Fairfax County and Dominion Energy’s Relay shuttle — though the vehicle is currently sidelined by “mechanical issues” through Friday (April 21).
“We are excited to partner with Uber Eats and Cartken to bring cutting-edge technology to our community, and confident this innovative service will elevate visitor experience and customer engagement at Mosaic,” said Greg Dercach, vice president of property management for EDENS, which owns and operates the development.
Uber and Cartken — an Oakland, California-based artificial intelligence company created by former Google engineers — first teamed up to experiment with food delivery robots in the Miami, Florida, area, launching a pilot in December.
The companies chose to introduce the robots to the Mosaic District, their first site in Virginia, because of the development’s walkability and abundance of dining options.
“Uber and Cartken share a vision to provide greater affordability, reliability, and convenience to merchants and consumers — all at the touch of a button,” Noah Zych, Uber’s head of autonomous mobility and delivery, said. “Our expansion to Fairfax is another important step in this journey, bringing Virginia residents a little more Uber magic through sidewalk robot delivery.”
Sporting six wheels and a red flag, the robots are equipped with sensors and cameras that help them navigate and avoid collisions. They can carry 1.5 cubic feet — about two full paper grocery bags — and reach speeds of 3-6 mph, depending on the environment.
They will travel anywhere within the Mosaic District, though residents will have to step outside to pick up their deliveries.
While made by a different company, Cartken’s vehicles will look familiar to anyone who has recently visited George Mason University’s Fairfax campus, where robots from Starship Technology have been delivering food to students since 2019.
Founded in 2019, Cartken has also worked with Grubhub at some college campuses and deployed its robots to make Starbucks deliveries at malls in Japan.
“Our team at Cartken is excited to further partner with Uber Eats and expand our reach to serve the Fairfax community,” Cartken co-founder and COO Anjali Jindal Naik said. “Cartken is at an inflection point, where we are rapidly bringing our AI, computer vision, and lidar-less autonomous robots to more places, like Mosaic District, in partnership with Uber Eats.”
Patrons of the participating Mosaic District restaurants can request a delivery by robot through the Uber Eats app, which allows users to track the vehicle’s route and arrival time. A standard delivery takes 20 to 30 minutes, but there’s a “priority” option that advertises a 15 to 25-minute wait for a $1.49 fee.
The Mosaic District’s Sip and Stroll map may soon get a new stop.
Grand Cata, a D.C.-based Latin American wine bar and market, is expanding to Virginia for the first time with a new store in the Merrifield neighborhood.
Located in the former Poke Bar at 8298 Glass Alley, Suite 100, next to B Side, the venue is on track to open early this summer, with construction about 60 to 70% complete, according to Grand Cata co-founder and CEO Pedro Rodríguez.
“We look forward to opening our first expansion to the Virginia market, and hopefully, people enjoy what we do,” Rodríguez told FFXnow.
After initially meeting as workers at a media development nonprofit, Rodríguez and Grand Cata President Julio Robledo bonded over a shared passion for wine, but after coming to D.C. from Puerto Rico and Chile, respectively, they noticed a lack of Latin America wines in local stores.
Grand Cata was created to fill that gap, launching as a retail shop in D.C.’s Shaw neighborhood on March 15, 2016.
Listed among the top wine retailers in the country by outlets like Wine Enthusiast and VinePair, the business has become a hot spot for not just buying and tasting wine and spirits, but also learning about the history and cultures of the region where the drinks originated.
A second location with a bar opened in June 2019 as part of the La Cosecha market in Union Market, which shares a property manager with the Mosaic District in Edens.
Now, Rodríguez and Robledo are eager to bring their wine and knowledge to a new audience across the Potomac River.
“We have a really well-established identity here in the capital,” Rodríguez said. “In the more affluent, wealthy area of Virginia, it’s got Fairfax County and McLean, Falls Church, easy access. A lot of fun neighbors are in the mix there, so it’s a destination.”
Like the La Cosecha location, the new Grand Cata will have a wine bar, retail shop and market with sauces, spices and other pantry items. Since Virginia doesn’t allow alcohol-only service, it will also sell food, such as sandwiches and charcuterie boards.
Rodríguez says the menu will be simple and intimate in keeping with the space, which is just 908 square feet in size, per a permit from Fairfax County. Featured wines will include selections from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, Bolivia, and even Spain and Portugal.
“The best way to get to know the wines we feature is to taste them,” Rodríguez said. “So, people are going to have the opportunity to taste them with us and get to know them, and hopefully they like them and buy them and come back.”
