Around Town

Rose Hill Plaza’s future will include Safeway — at least for the immediate future.

Owner Combined Properties announced on Nov. 20 that the grocery chain has signed a lease extension keeping it at the shopping center in Rose Hill “for more than a decade to come.”


Around Town

A new art installation has been unveiled at Springfield Town Center.

The gallery wall, which opened last week through a collaboration between the mall and ArtsFairfax, features seven works from a handful of local artists.


Countywide

More than one in four Fairfax County households meets the definition of “food-insecure,” and that figure is likely to rise in coming months as the full impacts of federal worker and funding cuts materialize.

“More challenging times are ahead,” Hilary Salmon, senior director of marketing and communications for Capital Area Food Bank, predicted when briefing board members of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) yesterday (Wednesday).


News

Fairfax County is revisiting its vision for downtown Springfield in the hopes of adapting it to a new era.

The county’s Department of Planning and Development will formally kick off its Franconia-Springfield Planning Study with a virtual community meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. Interested members of the public must register to receive a link to the Zoom meeting.


News

Fairfax County is developing a “Slow Streets” pilot project to slow traffic and scale back cut-through traffic on a residential street in Springfield.

Supported by a federal grant accepted by the Board of Supervisors last week, the project will drop speeds at Cumberland Avenue and Dinwiddie Street to 15 mph from the current 25 mph and make changes to the street in an effort to calm traffic.


News

Residents concerned about a proposal for additional single-family homes in one Franconia neighborhood may not have much recourse, they learned at a recent community meeting.

“I don’t have the ability to stop this process,” Franconia District Supervisor Rodney Lusk said at a community forum last Thursday (Aug. 14) attended by about 35 residents.


Countywide

Fairfax County supervisors wrapped up the 2024-2025 Site-Specific Plan Amendment (SSPA) cycle at their meeting on Tuesday (June 10) with a few tweaks to recommendations from the Planning Commission.

Projects that made the cut will now be placed on a county staff work plan for further review and community outreach. Rejected submissions can return in the next cycle, expected to start in about 18 months.


News

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors around midnight on Tuesday (May 13) voted 9-0 to move forward with a plan for affordable housing on the soon-to-be-vacated Franconia Governmental Center site.

The vote — unanimous except for absent Springfield District Superivsor Pat Herrity — came after hours of public testimony for and against the proposal to amend the county’s Comprehensive Plan related to the 22.75-acre site known as the Franconia Triangle.


News

Redevelopment of vacant commercial parcels in Springfield into housing is one step closer to reality, though there are still contentious issues to be worked through later in the process.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Comprehensive Plan amendments on Tuesday (Nov. 19) to permit up to 732 multifamily units and ground-floor non-residential uses on multiple parcels along Springfield Blvd and Amherst Avenue.


News

A push to redevelop the former Franconia Governmental Center site with affordable housing is still in its early stages, but passions are already running high among local residents and housing advocates.

Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA) commissioners got to hear both supportive and oppositional arguments at a public hearing last Thursday (Sept. 12), as they weigh whether to accept an interim agreement with the project’s developers.


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