Countywide

Fairfax County has a new ambassador for poetry.

Danielle Badra will serve as the second Fairfax Poet Laureate through 2024, leading a program to bring poetry-related activities to local parks, ArtsFairfax shared yesterday.


News

(Updated at 6:55 p.m. on 2/28/2024) Five MS-13 members have been sentenced to life in prison yesterday for kidnapping and killing two teens at Holmes Run Stream Valley Park in 2016.

Elmer Zelaya Martinez, Ronald Herrera Contreras, Henry Zelaya Martinez, Pablo Velasco Barrera, and Duglas Ramirez Ferrera were each handed six terms of life imprisonment as well as two 120-month terms by U.S. District Court Judge Rossie D. Alston, Jr., the Justice Department announced yesterday.


Around Town

(Updated at 11:45 a.m. on 10/14/2022) The Richmond Highway corridor’s first parklet and southern food restaurant Della J’s are both getting grand openings at Mount Vernon Plaza next week.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for 11 a.m. on next Wednesday (Oct. 19) to unveil a new 3,200-square-foot parklet in the shopping center at 7694 Richmond Highway, adjacent to Moe’s Southwest Grill.


News

The ongoing widening of I-495 from Tysons to McLean will require the permanent taking of 1.15 acres from Scott’s Run Nature Preserve.

As compensation, the Virginia Department of Transportation has proposed building a new park for the Fairfax County Park Authority on a 1.83-acre site at the corner of Georgetown Pike and Balls Hill Road that it currently uses as a maintenance yard.


News

Fairfax County is seeking public input on plans that could put Trailside Park (6000 Trailside Drive) in Springfield in a new light and add more utility to the location.

A new master plan amendment would add field lighting to the eastern-most baseball diamond. The other two at the site are already lit.


News

With the region’s office market still in flux, the developer behind Arbor Row in central Tysons will bet on housing instead.

Cityline Partners recently submitted a proposal to Fairfax County asking to swap an office building that had previously been approved for the neighborhood’s Block C2 for a residential high-rise with ground-floor retail.


Around Town

It has been one year since The Perch opened, providing a slice of publicly accessible, recreational space on Capital One’s growing Tysons campus.

To celebrate the first anniversary of its elevated park, Capital One Center announced yesterday (Thursday) that its now-biannual Perchfest will return on Sept. 16-18 — almost one year to the date after the grand opening in 2021.


Countywide

Mount Vernon Woods Park is set to add a playground, picnic shelter, multisport court, a field, and a skate park.

Design work is underway on the county-owned, 7-acre park on the southeast side of Huntley Meadows Park in Hybla Valley. The proposed improvements are based on the park’s 2015 master plan, which calls for a number of additions including a playground, a half-court, a skate park, on-site parking, a pavilion, and an open playing field.


News

A new playground is on the horizon for Horsepen Run Stream Valley Park in Herndon. 

The Fairfax County Park Authority is expected to begin construction to replace the aging equipment. Demolition of the existing playground will begin the week of Sept. 19, according to FCPA. 


Countywide

Within the next decade, Fairfax County could see pedestrians and bicyclists split up along its stretch of the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, among other potential changes at its regional parks.

In a new, five-year strategic plan released last Tuesday (Aug. 9), the Northern Virginia Regional Parks Authority (NOVA Parks) proposes expanding the “dual trail” design introduced last year in Falls Church to other segments of the 45-mile, cross-county park.


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