You’ve heard of food trucks, but a fashion bus?
As the Reston Farmers Market kicks off its season at Lake Anne Plaza on Saturday, a big pink bus will be the venue for fashionable clothing sales. The Pink Armoire bus will be in the plaza parking lot decked out with “fashionable finds at affordable prices,” according to its website.
Inside, the bus features a dressing room, sitting area and television. Items available for sale include clothing, shoes, jewelry and accessories.
Vendors at the farmers market itself, which will be open from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, include 78 Acres, Arnest Seafood, Baguette Republic, Blue Ridge Dairy Co., Breezy Meadow Farms, Cherry Glen Goat Cheese, Colonial Kettle Corn, The Farm at Sunnyside, Fresh Crunch Pickles, Glascock’s Produce, Kiwi Kuisine, Misty Meadow Farm Creamery, Mt. Olympus Farm, Potomac Vegetable Farms, Reid’s Orchard Winery, Smith Family Farm and Toigo Orchards.
For more information about the Reston Farmers Market, visit its website. For more on upcoming promotions at Lake Anne Plaza, follow it on Facebook.
Photo via Lake Anne Plaza/Pink Armoire
Diana Turecek of Windleaf Court calls changes in hours in the 2017 Reston Association swimming pool schedule a “slap in the face to Reston residents who continue to face substantial increases in annual Association dues.”
In a letter to the editor submitted to Reston Now, Turecek says the changes — which include no weekday swimming prior to Memorial Day weekend and only two pools open the week before Labor Day — will result in frustration for Reston residents who just want to go swimming.
“This year fewer pools will be open, and those that are open will be open fewer hours. If you like swimming at the end of the season, have kids who like to swim on the weekdays, or are a lap swimmer, the pools are going to be much more crowded.”
This year, no pools will be open on weekdays prior to Memorial Day; in 2016, both the North Shore and Ridge Heights pools were open from 1-7 p.m. each weekday beginning May 14. Through June 23, only four pools will be open on weekdays, with one (Glade) open only three hours a night.
Mike Leone, RA’s communications director, said the pool schedule is developed annually based on a number of factors including historical use, geographic distribution of facilities, current program and rental use, potential future program and rental use, staffing requirements and budget implications.
“During the 2017 budget development process, the Board directed staff to identify significant cost savings in the budget to accommodate other strategic goals. Based on facility usage data collected over the past three years that shows a decline in pool attendance as well as feedback from the Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee, the Board of Directors approved pool schedule options by which the proposed aquatics budget could be reduced while still serving the interests of the membership as a whole.”
Another reader who contacted Reston Now about the changes says the new schedule fails “to take into consideration that most people want these pools open when the weather is warm enough to swim through Labor Day.”
North Shore and Ridge Heights will be the only two pools open the week preceding Labor Day, from 4-7 p.m. each evening. All other pools will see their seasons end by Aug. 27. In 2016, Glade and Lake Newport pools also remained open through the first weekend in September.
Leone said pool staff is made up mainly of high school and college students. Fairfax County Public Schools changed its school schedule for 2017-18, beginning classes the last week of August (Monday, Aug. 28) instead of after Labor Day as in the past. Leone said a school schedule that ends June 23 and begins again Aug. 28 results in only nine full weeks of summer for pool scheduling.
Leone said the pool “season” schedule was tweaked this year to allow two more pools to stay open prior to school returning to session. In addition, he said, RA “will reopen as many pools as possible for the three-day Labor Day weekend, prioritizing those facilities which have the most capacity for swimmers and recreational users of all types.”
Turecek also expressed concern about Lake Newport pool being closed until 1 p.m. most weekends in June and July for Reston Swim Team Association meets. Other pools will be affected three weekends during the summer for meets.
“I also suspect — as in past years — there will be other non-announced pool closures to accommodate local day cares, summer camps or the dreaded ‘hygiene incidents,'” Turecek wrote.
Leone said staff has looked strategically at pools that can “generate additional revenue from rentals and activities during ‘closed’ hours.”
North Shore and Ridge Heights pools will open for the season Saturday, May 13, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
As the federal government inches closer to a possible shutdown at the end of the week, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) says the local economy would be severely affected if no agreement is found.
“As we witnessed during the 2013 Republican government shutdown, Northern Virginia’s economy would be significantly affected. That 16-day shutdown cost nearly $24 billion in lost economic output,” Connolly said in a prepared statement Monday. “It is a reckless way to govern that hurts all Americans and must be avoided.”
The 2013 shutdown is estimated to have cost more than $217 million per day in federal and contractor wages in D.C. metropolitan area. In addition to a large number of federal employees, Reston is home to many government contractors including Leidos, which said in a statement to investors earlier this year that a shutdown could “result in our incurrence of substantial labor or other costs without reimbursement under customer contracts, or the delay or cancellation of key programs, which could have a negative effect on our cash flows and adversely affect our future results.”
Connolly put the blame for a potential government shutdown squarely on the shoulders of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.):
“If Speaker Ryan wants to resort to hostage-taking over a border wall, then Republicans will own this shutdown,” the congressman said. “If he is willing to work with Democrats and pass a clean funding measure, however, then I am confident we can keep government open and working for our constituents.”
For 23 students from South Lakes High School, spring break was a chance to travel to an exotic place — and also to help make the world a better place.
The students traveled to Ecuador during this month’s break to participate in a Fairfax County Public Schools service learning trip. Working with nonprofit organization Me to We, the students helped build classrooms in an indigenous community.
The SLHS students made up nearly half of the 48 total FCPS students on the trip. They were accompanied by SLHS Spanish teachers Sandra Rebello, Ana Viamonte and Kirsten Hope.
The students spent two days doing construction work at a school in the remote Amazon Basin village of Kanambu.
“Students who attend this school come from many communities and many have to walk over 6 hours to get to school,” Rebello said. “Students who live far away will stay at the school for the week and return home every Friday.”
Local students who traveled there were able to see the boarding accommodations of the school, which Rebello said were “extremely poor,” with no beds. About 400 students attend the school.
In addition to their work on the service project, local students spent a few days in Baños de Agua Santa, a town with 60 waterfalls. They were able to swim in thermal baths, Rebello said. Students also visited the equator and Yunguilla, a sustainable development community in the cloud forest.
“Our Seahawks were amazing and represented our school well,” Rebello said of the trip.
Local Students Excel at State Science Fair — Among the honorees at the 2017 Virginia State Science and Engineering Fair was Michael Gamarnik of South Lakes High School, who took third place in electrical and mechanical engineering for his project, “The Effect of Vortex Generator Angle on the Downforce of an Airfoil.” Rini Gupta and Shalini Shah of Herndon High School took third place in behavioral and social sciences for their project, “Effect of Binaural Beats with Isochronic Tones on PTSD & GAD Patients.” [Fairfax County Public Schools]
Baby Deer Should Be Left Alone — The Fairfax County Police Department’s Animal Protection Police is reminding residents that in almost all cases, white-tailed deer fawns found alone are not orphaned or abandoned. They should be left where they are, as their mothers will return for them. [Fairfax County Police Department]
Learning Facility Coming to Fox Mill Center — Ashish Gandhi and Sapna Chordia are opening a branch of Sylvan Learning later this year, offering tutoring programs and camps to kindergarten through 12th-grade students. They plan to open in June, in time for summer programming. [Fairfax Times]
Reading wasn’t something Gladimi Petit Carnogursky, a seventh-grader at Herndon Middle School, considered fun.
But when his school joined the Learning Ally Great Reading Games this year, he latched on.
“My parents don’t really let me play video games, but I have an iPad,” he said. “So I read a lot on it.”
A lot indeed. Gladimi read over 12,000 pages during the seven-week competition. That wasn’t just the most in his school — it was the most in the entire state of Virginia.
“I like the competition,” he said when asked about his motivation.
So did many other students at HMS, as the school won first place in the Metro DC region in the contest and came in seventh place nationally. Participating students read more than 72,000 pages, totaling about 14.5 million words.
The Great Reading Games is geared toward students who struggle with reading traditional text, because of dyslexia or other reasons. Learning Ally provides audiobook technology that offers more than 82,000 human-narrated books to students, who can download them directly to computers, smartphones and tablets so they can read wherever they are.
Gladimi’s friend Trent Norris, who read the third-most pages at HMS, said he liked being able to have a book anywhere he went. He said his mother encouraged him to keep reading through the seven weeks of the Games.
“I liked to read when I was going somewhere with my mom,” he said. “My sister and my mom would be talking, and I’d decide to listen to music, but then I thought I should read instead.”
At a ceremony at the school Friday morning, the more than 100 participating students were honored for the reading they did, and each received certificates of accomplishment. The students who read the most received prizes as well, with Gladimi taking home the top prize: a set of Beats headphones.
“Think about how much this means to me as a principal,” HMS Principal Justine Klena told students. “You all are reading so much, and that is the foundation of education — this is the reason we’re all here. You are engaging in reading and that means you’re getting smarter every day.”
Margot Axenson-Mumford, who read the fifth-most pages among participating students, said she enjoyed reading the first four Harry Potter books for the first time, and she plans to complete the series as she continues to be an avid reader. Her mother, Theresa, said she is impressed by her daughter’s accomplishment.
“I’m really proud of Margot,” she said. “She’s worked really hard.”
Pictured at top: The top 9 students, from left, were Gladimi Petit Carnogursky, Emma Baker, Trent Norris, Christina Roque, Margot Axenson-Mumford, Fabrizio Abarca, Seleni Aguirre-Echeverria, Charles Marotta and Nathan Emmatty. Pictured at bottom: Trent Norris accepts his accolades from Herndon Middle School teachers.
Giving Back to Emergency Responders — Firefighters from Station 25 presented a certificate to a Reston woman who adopted a fire hydrant in her neighborhood. The woman was involved in a serious motorcycle crash in 1994 and credits emergency crews including fire units with saving her life, and she has loved and supported them ever since. [Fairfax County Fire and Rescue]
Guinea Pigs on Twitter Thanks to Local Students — At Ideaventions Academy, a specialized STEM school in Reston, students have built a computer and are using censors to get classroom pets to tweet out randomized messages. You can follow along @PepperNCaramel. [WUSA]
County Map Shows Youth Crash Locations — A map released Thursday by Fairfax County plots the locations of all 1,840 vehicle crashes involving youth drivers (ages 15-20) in 2016. In Reston, locations including Sunrise Valley Drive, the intersection of Wiehle Avenue and Sunset Hills Road, and the intersection of Reston Parkway and Route 7 had the most incidents. [Fairfax County]
Another Capital BikeShare Station Opens — An 11-dock Capital BikeShare location has opened on Town Center Parkway near Sunset Hills Road, at the RTC West complex. [Capital BikeShare/Twitter]
Map courtesy Fairfax County
Developer Bozzuto is deferring “indefinitely” its application to redevelop St. Johns Wood, according to information sent out by Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins’ office Thursday afternoon.
Hudgins’ office says the community meeting on the project that had been scheduled for Tuesday is being canceled, and a representative for the supervisor said it is her understanding that “all meetings” regarding the proposal are off the table.
The plan was scheduled to go before the Fairfax County Planning Commission on May 25, following additional meetings with Reston’s Planning & Zoning Committee and Design Review Board on May 15 and 16. Meetings with the P&Z Committee and DRB this week featured many comments against the project from North Point residents, and the DRB in particular was critical of many elements of the project.
Brian Winterhalter of Cooley LLP, the commercial real-estate attorney representing Bozzuto, said at Tuesday’s DRB meeting that his team would follow up about scheduling a work session with the Design Review Board. However, he expressed disappointment with how the process was progressing.
The proposal has been in the works since 2014 and has seen numerous changes in that time. The current plan calls for 481 multifamily units within two buildings on the 14.3-acre property.
Winterhalter has not responded to requests for comment.
Bakery-restaurant chain Le Pain Quotidien is planning to move into Reston Town Center.
According to a permit filed recently with Fairfax County, the Belgium-based restaurant is looking to take over the site at 11909 Democracy Drive, between Potomac River Running and Banana Republic. That is the former home of Cosi, which closed in September when the company filed for bankruptcy.
The menu at Le Pain Quotidien (French for “The Daily Bread”) includes not just bread, but soups and salads, cheeses, sandwiches, desserts and more. The chain has more than 200 locations on five continents, including two in Fairfax County: at Tysons Corner Center and in Merrifield’s Mosaic District.
A treadmill is being pinpointed as the cause of a blaze in a single-family residence in South Reston that caused nearly a quarter-million dollars in damages.
Units from Fairfax County Fire and Rescue responded to the scene of the blaze in the 2200 block of Marginella Drive, off Glade Drive, around 8:38 a.m. Wednesday.
From a Fairfax County Fire and Rescue press release:
“Units arrived on scene to find fire showing from the rear of a two-story, single family house. Firefighters went to work extinguishing a large volume of fire in the back of the home. They were able to bring the fire under control approximately ten minutes after arrival.”
One of the home’s occupants discovered the fire and called 911, fire officials report, after which smoke alarms in the home did activate. Both occupants of the home were able to get out safely.
Fire investigators say a treadmill in the home’s sunroom was the source of the blaze.
Damages as a result of the fire are estimated at $237,466, fire officials say. At the scene Thursday morning, most of the home’s windows are boarded up, as are doors and the garage. Insurance assessors were at the scene surveying the damage.
Photo at top courtesy Fairfax County Fire and Rescue
More Info Released on Herndon Tornado — After detailed analysis, the National Weather Service says a tornado that touched down in Herndon on April 6 was one of seven in the area during that storm. It is now estimated the tornado first came to ground near the Dulles Greene and Capstone apartment complexes in Herndon and lasted about five minutes. It downed numerous trees, including one that was thrown into the window of an apartment building. [National Weather Service]
Reston Islamic School Spotlighted by NPR — Al Fatih Academy (12300 Pinecrest Road) was the subject of a segment on today’s Morning Edition on NPR. The academy’s goal is “to cultivate and nurture a thriving American Muslim identity that balances religious, academic and cultural knowledge and imparts the importance of civic involvement and charitable work.” [NPR]
Local College Student Fighting Pollution — Reston’s Elizabeth Merin, a junior biosystems engineering major at Virginia Tech, is part of a group of students working to scrutinize emissions at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Blacksburg, as well as pollution in the New River Valley. The students have started a chapter of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, calling their group Citizens for Arsenal Accountability. [Roanoke Times]
Herndon Farmers Market Now Open, Rain and All — The opening day of the Herndon Farmers Market, which goes through 12:30 p.m. today, is on despite this morning’s rainy weather. It will take place each Thursday into November, in front of the caboose on Lynn Street. [Reston Now/Twitter]
Speaking to representatives for developer Bozzuto during an informational session Tuesday night, the vice chair of Reston’s Design Review Board expressed deep concern about the future of the community.
“It’s imperative as we get new developments that they respect the Reston quality, and not allow us to become simply another suburban development,” Richard Newlon said. “Internal overdevelopment will destroy Reston.”
Newlon, who has served on the DRB for 18 years, said roughly 10 percent of the 134 clusters in Reston are owned by developers such as Bozzuto, JBG and Lerner. He said the St. Johns Wood project is a “precedent-producing application.”
“One of my concerns is if all of those 13 or so clusters do the same thing, Reston as Reston exists today is gone,” he said. “Reston as we know it would cease to exist.”
Bozzuto’s redevelopment proposal features 481 multifamily units within two buildings on the 14.3-acre North Point property, where there are currently 250 multifamily units in nine buildings.
Members of Reclaim Reston also spoke during the session, presenting similar information to what they did at a Monday night session with the Planning & Zoning Committee. Members of the DRB agreed with much of what the affected parties shared, including about the apparent lack of context-sensitive design within the proposal.
“Contextualism is a term that suggests an architecture that responds to its surroundings by respecting what’s already there, and I think we have a problem here because I don’t think that’s happening,” Newlon said. “I think you guys [Bozzuto] are going to really have to look at the design and do what you can, both from a massing standpoint and, as we get to it, an architectural standpoint.”
DRB member Neal Roseberry said the potential of having such an imposing development go up in a residential neighborhood is frightening.
“How do you insert this relatively high-density anomaly into an existing setting, an existing neighborhood that doesn’t have anything like this at all, and [the development] obviously scares people?” he said. “It’s literally scary to think of this thing landing in that neighborhood up there.”
Brian Winterhalter of Cooley LLP, the commercial real-estate attorney representing Bozzuto, said his team would follow up about scheduling a work session with the Design Review Board. However, he expressed disappointment with how the process is progressing.
“You have approved a plan [in July], we came back with a revised plan. You had very specific comments about the revised plan, which we feel we have addressed very well based on what you gave us, and now we’re back two steps backward,” Winterhalter said. “And so I don’t know what we make of that going forward in terms of the comments we just received.”
Newlon said the plan that was approved in July was a different plan that the board felt was “going in the right direction.”
“This is a whole new project, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “It’s doing, in my mind, all the things we were hoping wouldn’t happen.”
Fairfax County Supervisor Cathy Hudgins has a community meeting on the proposal slated for next Tuesday at Langston Hughes Middle School. The proposal is set to go before the Planning & Zoning Committee and the Design Review Board again next month, on May 15 and 16. A Fairfax County Planning Commission hearing on the project remains scheduled for May 25.
Screencap via Reston Association YouTube channel; rendering via Bozzuto/KTGY
Toll Brothers plans to purchase a Sunrise Valley Drive office property slated for luxury townhouse development, the Washington Business Journal reports.
The company will finalize a deal to purchase the land from Rooney Properties “later this year,” the WBJ says. As we previously reported, Rooney purchased the property in 2013 and Fairfax County approved a rezoning request in October. In February, a permit application to tear down the six-story office building currently on the 3.5 acres was filed.
The purchase price of the reported sale was not disclosed.
The WBJ reports Toll Brothers plans to follow through on the plan to tear down the office building, with an aim to complete site-plan approval by fall. Sales would begin next summer, according to the report, with prices in the $800,000 range.
The property is located across Roland Clarke Place from the former location of the API building, which was razed last year to make room for the future Sunrise Square cluster. Also owned by Rooney Properties, that will consist of 34 townhouses and 10 condos.
Both properties are part of a large number of developments planned for the stretch between the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station and the future Reston Town Center station, as progression of the Silver Line’s Phase 2 continues.
Rendering courtesy Rooney Properties
Reston Network Analysis Community Meeting Planned — Following the creation of the Reston Transportation Service District, a community meeting on the project status, the results of the mid-buildout analysis, and roadway classifications for the grid of streets has been scheduled for Monday at the North County Governmental Center. [Fairfax County DOT]
Legendary DJ to Meet Fans, Sign Book — Cerphe Colwell will be at Vinafera Wine Bar and Bistro (11750 Sunrise Valley Drive) on Saturday from 3-5 p.m. to promote his new book, “Cerphe’s Up: A Musical Life with Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, and Many More.” [Press Release]
Herndon to Celebrate Most Beautiful Yards — In June and July, the Town of Herndon will honor residents who contribute to community beauty through creatively landscaped and well-maintained yards. The program is part of the town’s Cultivating Community Initiative. Nominations are now open. [Town of Herndon]
The last time North Point residents addressed Bozzuto about the developer’s proposed St. Johns Wood redevelopment, the catchphrase was “size matters.”
At Monday night’s meeting of the Reston Planning & Zoning Committee meeting, the message was tweaked — with a nod to Johnnie Cochran.
“In order for the developer to pack in the desired density, to squeeze in nearly double the current number of units and who knows how many residents, the developer again proposes a design that simply does not fit,” said Linda Platt, one of several members of Reclaim Reston who spoke in succession in a coordinated effort to fight the latest proposal. “And if it does not fit, they must quit.”
That rhyming phrase was repeated throughout Platt’s statement and was invoked by other speakers as well as community members had the chance to speak in response to Bozzuto during the latest informational meeting on the proposal. Bozzuto was presenting to the Planning & Zoning Committee for the sixth time since the project was first proposed in 2014; tonight, the proposal goes before Reston’s Design Review Board for the sixth time as well.
Brian Winterhalter of Cooley LLP, the commercial real-estate attorney presenting the plan on behalf of Bozzuto, told the committee Monday that the proposal to put 481 mid-rise multifamily units within two buildings is suitable for a property that was originally marked in the Reston Master Plan for high-density development.
There are currently 250 multifamily units on the 14.3-acre property.
The redevelopment proposal features 33.6 units per acre, which classifies it as medium-density. Winterhalter said the proposal is for about 60 percent one-bedroom units, with a third of the units having two-bedrooms and only about 5 percent with three bedrooms.
