The ducks, turkeys and peafowl at Frying Pan Farm Park now have a reason to celebrate.
A new bird enclosure was recently completed to house the park’s creatures, funded by contributions from the nonprofit Friends of Frying Pan Farm Park. Local officials gathered last Thursday (Aug. 24) to celebrate the grand opening of the project.
The $9,000 project included demolishing the old structure, regrading the site, and installing a new foundation, sheds, pond, drainage system, lighting and fencing.
Fairfax County Park Authority Executive Director Jai Cole said the project emphasizes the importance of partnerships.
It may not seem like much, but this enclosure not only allows our park guests to get up close and personal with the animals, it also improves the overall safety and living accommodations for the birds themselves – not to mention the improved drainage and restoration of the pasture in the process. We are grateful for the continued involvement and investment of our Friends of Frying Pan Farm Park that helps us continue to provide a fun and unique experience here on the farm.
The oldest working farm in the county, the park includes animals like pigs, horses, goats, and chickens. It’s located at 2739 West Ox Road.
A new pedestrian bridge at Sugarland Run Stream Valley Park has officially opened.
The steel bridge, located in a section of the park between Heather Down Drive and Eddyspark Drive, was added to connect the community to the Sugarland Run Stream Valley Trail on the opposite bank of the creek.
The 10-foot-wide structure now completes the connection, which was previously broken due to flood and storm damage for many years.
The project was funded by nearly $740,000 from a park bond in 2020, according to the Fairfax County Parks Authority.
“We celebrated National Park and Recreation Month in July, and the theme of this year’s observance was ‘Where Community Grows,'” FCPA Executive Director Jai Cole said during the ribbon cutting. “I can’t think of a more fitting example of how parks and recreation, particularly our trails and bridges, bring communities together and connect residents to a wide range of opportunities, amenities and to one another.”
Crews demolished and removed the remaining structure so the previous bridge, installed a prefabricated steel bridge and built 10-foot-wide, connecting approaches to the bridge.
Local officials and staff, including Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn, celebrated the grand opening of the bridge earlier this month.
A new shop in Old Town Fairfax hopes to spark fresh joy with its shelves of vintage wares.
Lucy Loves celebrated its official grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday (Thursday) after initially opening its doors at 10414 Main Street on Saturday, July 1.
With its eclectic, handmade items, the vintage shop is appropriately located down a small alleyway tucked behind the Vietnamese restaurant East Wind, offering the impression of a hidden gem.
Though narrow, the hallways of the store managed to fit local residents, Old Town Fairfax Business Association members, Fairfax City Economic Development Authority officials and Fairfax City Mayor Catherine Read.
“This kind of business is the kind of business that Old Town Fairfax has been missing,” Read said.
Lucy Loves is an outgrowth of the Fairfax Funky Flea, an outdoor flea market that operates on the last Saturday of every month from April to November. Owner Sharon Buttram says she and longtime friend Kathy Hackshaw decided to launch the now-popular flea market in 2021 after bonding over a mutual love of hunting for vintage odds and ends at thrift shops and estate sales.
“I love mixing old stuff and new stuff, and I like making it current,” Buttram said. “…I don’t want my house to be a museum of old stuff. I like to mix it up and be really eclectic in my approach. So we just thought we should do a flea market. We love going to flea markets.”
Lucy Loves currently sells a mix of items like clothing, jewelry and pottery from 16 commissioned local vendors, many of whom Buttram recruited from Fairfax Funky Flea. But in the future, Buttram hopes to also use the cozy space for community gatherings.
“I’d also like this to become a cornerstone of the community as well as an event space,” Buttram said. “Like, if you want to have a conversation about something, let’s have conversation nights. I think after a couple of years of isolation with Covid, we were starved for person-to-person [interaction]. We want to touch things…Everything you see here, you can find online, but it’s a different experience when you go, and you can touch it, and you’re supporting somebody small.”
Read sees Lucy Loves as “exactly the kind of business that people want in a historic downtown.”
“They want some place where they can go to lunch or go to dinner and wander around and pop their head into shops and spend 30 minutes looking at everything in the shop,” she said.
According to Read, Fairfax City has been working to attract more businesses and shoppers so it can better compete with major shopping centers like Fairfax Corner, Mosaic District and Tysons Corner Center.
“I think Lucy Loves is the beginning of seeing more of this kind of retail want to come to our downtown,” Read said. “This is a very promising turn of events for the City of Fairfax because we want to attract visitors. But we also want our residents to stay here. We want our residents to dine here, shop here, attend our events here and to support businesses just like this one.”
In the future, Buttram envisions collaborating with George Mason University students to further engage them in the creative process.
“I’m really excited about a bigger partnership with GMU, and I’ve talked to them about doing workshops for students in their makerspace,” Buttram said. “But I’m also talking to them about even [giving] makers on campus that want to sell things [an opportunity to sell here].”
But for now, Buttram is proud of what she’s accomplished, finally cutting a ribbon on a shop named after her grandmother — “an original thrifty soul” who loved everything, she says.
“I’m really proud of the shop and the turnout today and of all my friends and family in the city,” Buttram said. “I love doing it here in the city. I’ve lived here for 30 years, and it’s just my absolute favorite place here in Virginia. So to have this here is the culmination of all the things I’ve wanted and then to have all my friends come out and support me, it’s been really meaningful to me.”
“This is a small shop, and I fully expect that one of these days, they will outgrow this space,” Read said. “But for now, having a space that’s over full of things is a good thing.”
The first segment of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s planned shared-use trail along I-66 has been completed.
State and Fairfax County officials will celebrate the milestone today (Wednesday) with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11 a.m., followed by an inaugural bicycle ride or walk on the finished section, which starts east of the Vienna Metro station and extends to Cedar Lane near Merrifield.
The segment includes a tunnel under Nutley Street, one of several below-grade crossings planned for the 11-mile, mostly 10-foot-wide trail being built from Gallows Road in Dunn Loring to Route 29 in Centreville.
More portions are expected to be finished later this month, including a crossing at an I-66 entry ramp at the Nutley Street interchange and a segment from Blake Lane to Route 123 in Oakton.
“The 66 Parallel Trail and new bike and pedestrian access across the I-66 bridges supports VDOT’s commitment to providing multimodal travel options to ‘move more people — not just vehicles,'” VDOT said in a statement to FFXnow.
VDOT’s private partner I-66 Express Mobility Partners (I-66 EMP) and construction contractor FAM Construction built the 66 Parallel Trail — a name chosen by a Fairfax County survey — as part of the Transform 66 Outside the Beltway project, which added 22 miles to the I-66 Express Lanes.
Including sidewalks being added on bridge crossings over I-66, the project will deliver 18 miles of new pedestrian and bicycle facilities, according to VDOT.
The trail’s inclusion in the highway widening project came after a campaign by local pedestrian and bicycling advocates, including the nonprofit Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling (FABB).
“The new 66 Trail will significantly improve east-west connectivity for people walking and biking in the corridor that does not exist today,” said former FABB President Sonya Breehey, who’s now the Northern Virginia advocacy manager for the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “The trail opens up the opportunity to walk, bike, roll to the Metro, schools, parks, restaurants, retail, and other places throughout the corridor.”
The design process for the trail was contentious, as cycling advocates pushed to keep it outside the I-66 soundwalls. However, adjacent homeowners objected to giving up part of their backyards, fearing a loss of privacy and green space.
The final design placed approximately three miles directly next to the highway, while about eight miles will be behind a noise barrier or have no noise barrier.
Breehey calls the trail’s placement inside the soundwalls an “unfortunate compromise,” but VDOT mitigated some concerns by elevating some portions above the highway and putting others behind a 50-inch concrete barrier. Read More
A fitness studio that quietly opened near The Boro in Tysons during the COVID-19 pandemic will finally get an official welcome this week.
P20 EMS Fitness Experts will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its Tysons studio this Friday (May 19) — more than two years after the location opened inside OneLife Fitness at 8250 Greensboro Drive.
Supported by the Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, the ribbon-cutting is also intended to mark the company’s rebranding to P20 from its previous name of Personal 20, according to co-founder and owner Connie Ruiz.
“Realizing our clients have been referring to us as P20 for years, we decided it was a good time to rebrand and refresh with a new name and a new logo,” Ruiz said. “We changed our tag line as well to reflect that we are EMS Fitness Experts.”
EMS stands for electronic muscle stimulation, which involves devices that send electric impulses to mimic muscle contractions. Used in physical therapy as well as workouts, EMS devices can help strengthen or tone muscles but, by themselves, don’t result in a major change in physical appearance, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
The Tysons studio is P20’s second location.
A native of McLean, Ruiz and her husband Pedro discovered EMS in Portugal and wanted to bring the concept to the U.S. With their daughter Carmen, the couple launched Personal 20 in January 2017 with a studio in Herndon.
The business claims to offer “a 20-minute workout with all the benefits of a 90-minute workout.”
“We love what we do, helping our clients get stronger, healthier and happier with P20,” Ruiz said. ” …We are not only the first to bring EMS to [Northern Virginia], but we are confident that our quality-controlled program and continuous education for our trainers has us on the right path to success for our clients.”
A cocktail reception to celebrate the rebranding will be held from 4-6 p.m. at the studio on Friday, with the ribbon-cutting taking place at 5 p.m.
Fairfax County leaders will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony and an inaugural bicycle ride and walk tomorrow (Friday) to celebrate the completion of the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway Trail.
Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck will join the Fairfax County Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Works and Environmental Services at George Washington’s Gristmill to mark the finishing of the trail.
The purpose of the project was to complete missing trail segments between Richmond Highway (Route 1) and Southwood Drive, a span of approximately two miles.
The project completes the missing links for the:
- East Coast Greenway Trail
- Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail
- NoVa Loop Trail
Storck told FFXnow he has been pushing to get the project completed to connect more of the county’s Potomac Banks tourism sites and to provide new transportation and recreation options for residents.
“This new shared-use path now provides a continuous pedestrian and bicycle way from Richmond Highway to George Washington’s Mount Vernon Estate, then north to the City of Alexandria and the District of Columbia,” Storck said. “It will also provide connections to the future ‘The One’ Bus Rapid Transit System.”
The project constructed a 6,400-foot-long, 10-foot-wide shared-use path, which includes a pedestrian bridge adjacent to the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway bridge crossing Dogue Creek.
“The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail will provide a continuous facility for pedestrians and cyclists along Mount Vernon Memorial Highway from Route 1 to the Mount Vernon Estates,” the county website states.
The project also provided marked crosswalks and curb ramps compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations and standards to improve pedestrian crossings.
The county incorporated comments from a 2018 pedestrian safety public information meeting into the design plans.
“As an avid runner and cyclist, one of my priorities as supervisor has been pedestrian and bicycle safety, and completing missing trail and sidewalk connections,” Storck said.
The locally funded project cost approximately $6.5 million. The ceremony will start at 10 a.m.
Sunrise of McLean Village has officially opened.
As anticipated, residents began moving into the new senior living community at 1515 Chain Bridge Road this week, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 27, Sunrise Senior Living announced today (Wednesday).
The facility can house 122 residents in 61 assisted living residences and 39 units for individuals with memory loss. It is Sunrise’s second community in the McLean area, joining an existing Sunrise of McLean in Odrick’s Corner that also provides short-term stays and hospice coordination.
“We look forward to proudly continuing our legacy in McLean with the opening of Sunrise of McLean Village,” Sunrise of McLean Village Executive Director Maureen Davis said. “Being raised locally, I appreciate our uniqueness. This community will help make the area even more remarkable. My team and I will eagerly welcome our new residents and their loved ones into the Sunrise family.”
Located on the edge of downtown McLean, the three-story, nearly 90,000-square-feet facility replaced the McLean Medical Building after the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors turned down Sunrise’s original proposal for a site on Kirby Road in 2017.
The building was designed by Rust Orling Architecture, and construction by the general contractor, The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, began on June 18, 2021.
Here’s more on the design from Sunrise’s press release:
The building’s brick façade fits seamlessly into the surrounding area’s historic and traditional feel but brings a unique touch to the area with its large, picture windows and subtle modern design elements. Sunrise of McLean Village’s interiors were designed by Sunrise’s in-house design team that took every detail into account while designing the spaces. Using the natural light from the large windows, the common spaces are bright and stylishly decorated with curated furniture, built specifically for this community. Residents will enjoy the community’s sophisticated air paired with its cozy, home-like feel. A special piece of Sunrise of McLean Village’s design can be found along the interior walls which are lined with works from local artists and creators.
Sunrise of McLean Village offers several intentionally designed amenity spaces to promote activity and engagement throughout the community. These amenities include large common spaces like the dining room and the contemporary bistro, which will feature a bar for entertainment, social hours and events for residents and their families. Additional amenities will include a fitness center, library, two sunrooms, activity room, hair and nail salon and a massage room. A special element of the community is its emphasis on access to outdoor space. These amenities include five covered porches, a large outdoor terrace, two rooftop terraces, and a public-private heritage garden. This area will have sections for public use and a section for residents only. The garden will feature landscaping with native plants, benches as well as accessible walking paths. The community is pet-friendly so residents can look forward to enjoying this area with their own furry friend if they would like.
Sunrise has over 280 senior living communities in the U.S., including 19 in Northern Virginia. The company says it’s “nearing” completion on a Sunrise of Vienna that’s on track to open later this year.
Inova Mount Vernon Hospital will open a new behavioral health unit next week, marking an expansion of mental health care along the Richmond Highway corridor.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held yesterday morning (Tuesday) for the nearly $10 million facility, which will increase bed capacity at the hospital by 67%.
Close to $4 million was donated by Amyia and Jeff Veatch, a local entrepreneur who founded the engineering firm Apex Systems. The family previously donated money to help modernize the hospital’s emergency room.
Hospital leaders and a number of elected officials attended the ceremony, including Rep. Don Beyer, State Sen. Scott Surovell, Del. Paul Krizek, Mount Vernon District School Board Rep. Karen Corbett Sanders, and Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck (who had to leave to vote on the county budget).
The Inova Veatch Family Behavioral Health Unit will open to hospital patients on May 16. It will feature 20 additional beds, private rooms, “quiet” spaces, modernized equipment, and enhanced safety features, like impact resistance windows and drywall.
Along with the hospital’s existing adult psychiatric unit, the total capacity for behavioral health patients will now be 50 beds.
As many noted during the ceremony, mental health care and behavioral services have become a priority in Fairfax County, as rates of depression and suicidal thoughts, specifically among young people, have risen drastically in recent years.
“We have a significant shortage of mental health services all over Virginia and especially acute here in Northern Virginia,” Surovell, who represents Hybla Valley, Woodlawn, and parts of Franconia, told FFXnow. “That’s the big reason we need to expand these services. If you don’t have a place for people to go when they need help, it can result in really tragic consequences.”
He called private contributions like the one made by the Veatch family “critical” to expanding care, particularly since behavioral services “are often not the most profitable areas for a hospital to invest in.”
But he said it’s also on the state to make the necessary investments as the need for mental health care continues to skyrocket.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed $230 million in this year’s budget for addressing gaps in behavioral health services. Surovell said that doesn’t go far enough.
“This is about half of what we need because the state is so far behind in investing in behavioral health,” he said.
Mount District Supervisor Dan Storck agreed, stating at the ribbon-cutting that “we’ve never done enough” to provide mental health care both locally and across the country. Adolescent care in particular is lacking, he told FFXnow.
“We need more adolescent psychiatry units. Our adolescents are bearing the brunt of Covid,” Storck said. “They need more support than we can provide. Inova is stepping up in their Fairfax hospital, but that’s still inadequate to our adolescent needs.”
Beyer shared that his son suffers from schizophrenia and has been hospitalized “many times” at Inova Mount Vernon Hospital. The additional unit will hopefully provide care to more people in need like his son, he said.
While more resources are needed, the Veatch behavioral health unit and emergency room are potentially life savers for residents of the Richmond Highway corridor, Surovell said.
“They don’t have to travel to either Alexandria [City] or Franconia or Fairfax to get these services,” he said. “Having a facility that’s close can be the difference between life or death for a lot of people.”
The cold and rain didn’t dampen enthusiasm for the opening of Metro’s long-awaited, $3 billion Silver Line Phase II.
Yesterday marked the much-anticipated public opening of the 11.4-mile extension of the rail line from Reston into Loudoun County. Along with six new stations, this marks the first time that locals can take a train to Dulles International Airport.
Over multiple ribbon-cutting ceremonies throughout the chilly, wet November day, local officials touted the debut of the line as a “game-changer” and a “new era” for western Fairfax County and the D.C. region as a whole.
“It really is the establishment of a new identity for the Dulles corridor,” Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn said at the new Reston Town Center station. “Now, what we’re going to see is the Dulles corridor tied together with transit in a way that was really never anticipated…We are in a new era.”
Riders, too, recognized what this could mean for the region and their daily travel.
“It’s going to change my life,” Raj Paradaar told FFXnow while riding the extension’s first passenger-filled train heading westbound. He lives in Ashburn and works near the Reston Town Center station, so he plans to ride the Metro most days.
Inside the Innovation Center station, commuters came and went, including a United Airlines flight attendant headed to work at Dulles. He lives in an apartment building across the street from the new station, along with a number of other flight attendants, FFXnow was told.
“That’s where we live,” the United Airlines flight attendant said pointing outside. “And that’s where we work…Honestly, taking a train is just much easier.”
Other riders said the extension won’t significantly affect their day-to-day habits, but they agreed it will make getting to the airport simpler.
Franconia resident Terry Rice, clutching luggage, happened to have a trip to Italy scheduled on the extension’s opening day. While planning, she realized that Dulles Airport was now only a train ride away.
“It may not change my life, but it’s going to make my life much easier,” Rice said.
Pulling into Reston Town Center station, the first stop on the new line. pic.twitter.com/83JP2LwMQh
— Matt Blitz (@WhyBlitz) November 15, 2022
During yesterday’s ceremonies, officials tried to make clear that the Silver Line extension’s impact is anticipated to go beyond simply being a link to the airport, reiterating a message that many have been saying for years.
“We have within our grasp…the ability to completely reinvent, reimagine [this corridor] as mixed-use development, as transit-oriented development, as environmentally friendly, as improving quality of life, as reducing carbon emissions, and as restoring choices for people who live in Northern Virginia,” said newly reelected Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-11) at a ceremony outside of the Innovation Center station. Read More
Fairfax County’s inventory of pickleball facilities has expanded with the arrival of 10 courts dedicated to the increasingly popular sport.
Newly renovated courts at Lewinsville Park in McLean and George Washington Park in Mount Vernon will officially open on Saturday, Oct. 15, the Fairfax County Park Authority announced yesterday (Thursday).
The festivities will start at 9 a.m. with a ribbon-cutting at GW Park (8426 Old Mt. Vernon Road) led by Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck. Park officials and local pickleball advocates will also make remarks, and there will be time for photos and “light refreshments,” according to the news release.
The park authority began demolition work on the GW courts this spring, one of five court renovation or maintenance projects planned for this year.
The park’s four tennis courts have been converted into six courts dedicated to pickleball and two courts that can be used by both sports. The $202,306 renovation also added new surfacing, fencing and nets.
Lewinsville Park (1659 Chain Bridge Road) will get its ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m. Expected speakers include FCPA Executive Director Jai Cole, Board Member Tim Hackman and Fairfax County Advocates for Pickleball, the release says.
Costing $650,000, the Lewinsville project resurfaced and added new fencing for all six of the park’s courts, but only one was turned into dedicated pickleball courts, a downsizing from the park authority’s original plans to repurpose two or three of the facilities.
Tennis players had argued that the county doesn’t have enough courts for their sport to cede or share that many with their pickleball-playing counterparts, a conflict that has emerged as a top challenge to the county’s efforts to add more pickleball facilities.
“The improvements align with recommendations in the recently completed Pickleball Study and are an effort to introduce a greater variety of court sports to accommodate the diverse users across the county,” the FCPA said of the Lewinsville and GW renovations. “Interest in pickleball locally and countywide is growing quickly, and the introduction of pickleball at these locations will address the need for additional facilities for this emerging sport.”
This summer, the park authority celebrated the launch of the Wakefield Park Pickleball and Tennis Complex in Annandale, a $410,000 renovation project that installed two pickleball courts and accessibility improvements.
