Since 2013, Reston Now has been reporting news about the Reston and Herndon areas. Recently, we started providing additional coverage of Great Falls.

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Recently, Reston Town Center shed its iconic logo of the Mercury Fountain in favor of a more modern and simplistic design.

For weeks, Boston Properties and their public relations company TAA PR have been mum about the rebranding effort, as well as the latest on a planned renovation to RTC’s common areas.

In response to multiple requests from Reston Now, company representatives said they have some “exciting news to share” about the future of RTC in the coming weeks. In absence of hard details, Reston Now is turning to its readers to get their thoughts on what they think about the new logo and what message the new design seeks to convey.

RTC’s first logo features a line drawing of the 20-foot Mercury Fountain, which was designed by sculptor Saint Clair Cemin and anchors the pavilion. While the new logo retains the original blue palette, its circular form — with a ‘C’ rested in the center — lends itself to many interpretations.

A new crop of tenants are expected to open up in RTC by 2020, including Jinya Ramen Bar, The Candle Bar and Muse Paint Bar. The company also announced plans to renovate most of its gathering places in over the next several months. 

Until more details are made public, we’d love to know your thoughts about the new logo and the future of RTC in the comments below.

File photo

Before we head off into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the biggest stories on Reston Now in recent days.

1. The Candle Bar is Coming to Reston Town Center
2. Report: Microsoft Scouting for Office Space in Reston Area
3. New Grocery Store Comes to Downtown Herndon
4. JUST IN: Herndon Man Arrested for Alleged Attempted Murder of Cop
5. Cafe Rio to Open in Former McDonalds Space

If you have ideas on stories we should cover, email us at [email protected] or submit an anonymous tip.

Feel free to discuss these topics, your weekend plans or anything else that’s happening locally in the comments below.

Photo by vantagehill/Flickr

Have thoughts about Reston Now’s coverage of Reston, Herndon and Great Falls? Want to share your opinions about local issues?

Reston Now welcomes letters to the editors and op-eds of specific interest to the Reston, Herndon and Great Falls community.

The key difference is that an op-ed can be an opinion piece about a local issue, while a letter to the editor responds directly to a Reston Now story.

Please email it to [email protected]. You are also welcome to contact us with your idea for feedback before submitting it.

While there is no word limit, we suggest under 1,000 words. Contributions may be edited for length, content and style/grammar.

Reston Now does not publish op-eds relating to a specific candidate running for political office — either from the candidate’s team or opponents.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted op-eds and letters to the editor already.

Want to get in touch with the team bringing you news about Reston, Herndon and Great Falls?

Send us your news tips, press releases and feedback to [email protected] or use our anonymous message form. Our news team does not have a phone line for inbound calls.

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For advertising inquiries, please contact [email protected].

The Town of Herndon has a new food store now open in Junction Square.

Marigold International Foods opened at 710 Elden Street, Suite A back in June, a company spokesperson told Reston Now.

Shoppers can find African and Caribbean groceries at Marigold.

The store is open from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. on weekdays, 9 a.m. to around 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. on Saturdays and noon-6 p.m. on Sundays.

Marigold joins Lotte Plaza Market, Bestway Supermarket, Safeway and other grocers in downtown Herndon.

Image via Google Maps

Have thoughts about Reston Now’s coverage of Reston, Herndon and Great Falls? Want to share your opinions about local issues?

Reston Now welcomes letters to the editors and op-eds of specific interest to the Reston, Herndon and Great Falls community.

The key difference is that an op-ed can be an opinion piece about a local issue, while a letter to the editor responds directly to a Reston Now story.

Please email it to [email protected]. You are also welcome to contact us with your idea for feedback before submitting it.

While there is no word limit, we suggest under 1,000 words. Contributions may be edited for length, content and style/grammar.

Reston Now does not publish op-eds relating to a specific candidate running for political office — either from the candidate’s team or opponents.

Thank you to everyone who has submitted op-eds and letters to the editor already.

As we reported last week, two new Town of Herndon council members are exploring ways to beef up the town’s affordable housing policies for new development.

With several new major developments already approved by the town and more than 600 units in the pipeline, no units are set aside as affordable or workforce housing.

Town officials are beginning preliminary conversations to explore how and if the town should beef up its affordable housing policies.

Council members Cesar del Aguila and Pradip Dhakal say that one of the most lucrative options is for the town to seek state-enabling legislative that would gave it the statutory authority to administer an affordable housing program similar to the county’s process.

Others, however, caution that the administrative burden is far too hefty for the town to shoulder, especially since town officials already maintain the town’s existing affordable housing stock.

What policy instruments do you think the town should explore? Let us know in the poll below.

Photo via Town of Herndon

This op-ed was submitted by Connie Hartke, president of Rescue Reston. It does not reflect the opinions of Reston Now. We publish article and opinion contributions of specific interest to the Reston community. Contributions may be edited for length or content. 

You’ve probably seen this yourself:  communities that once were charming and lovely but are now car-clogged concrete canyons.  Rescue Reston and other like-minded yellow-shirted citizens associations in Reston are dedicated to preserving the charm of Reston and preventing over-development.  Rescue Reston focuses specifically on preserving Reston’s two planned open spaces, which are the two 160+ acre golf courses–Reston National and Hidden Creek.

Open space matters.  It’s good for us.  It not only enhances our physical health but our mood, creativity, and memory.  Scientific studies show this.  You cannot get these same health benefits from walking in busy, dense spots such as Reston Town Center or in the Village Centers.  Fairfax County says in its Economic Success Plan that it wants to encourage health benefits like these through a “Health in All Policies” approach.

Preserving Reston National and Hidden Creek is not all about promoting golf, though that is a worthwhile endeavor in keeping with Reston’s promotion of healthy living through sports.  It’s about preserving Reston’s deliberate plan for everyone to benefit from the Reston Association paths that were designed–from Reston’s founding in 1964–to go along and through the golf courses.

The vast majority of people who benefit from Reston National and Hidden Creek are not the golfers themselves but the hundreds of walkers, joggers, bicyclists, kids in strollers, and elderly and disabled people with canes or wheelchairs who enjoy these open spaces via the RA paths every single day.   Everyone in Reston–from the youngest to the oldest among us–has access to the benefits of this open space.

The out-of-state outfit that owns Hidden Creek, Wheelock Communities, is talking about redeveloping this land into housing and turning some of it into a park.  Don’t be deceived.  The so-called “grand park” that Wheelock is promoting would result in a loss of the majority of this beautiful and rare open space.  What Wheelock is offering as a so-called park is only that part of its property that is not suitable for housing.  The latest proposal says a large chunk would be marshland.

As density increases–as planned–at the Metro stations and the Transit Station Areas, the Restonians living or working in those high-density areas will need and want the vistas of the golf course open space that they have access to now.  It is short-sighted and, frankly, greedy for out-of-area developers to try to take these planned open spaces away from Restonians just when we need it most.

Yet we Restonians were promised that this open space would be preserved for the long term.  The latest Reston Master Plan(completed in 2015) that guides our community’s development for the next thirty to forty years commits to keeping this open space.  Violating that 30-to-40-year open-space pledge after only four or five years would truly be a violation of the plan for generations to come.

Unlike most of Fairfax County, Reston has always been a planned community.  Restonians know and abide by planned-community rules that affect things as small as whether we can change the color of our shutters or put in a bay window.  And yet, despite the respect that we residents have always shown to planned-community principles, real estate developers who are brand new to our community want to violate the plan and change the character of our community forever by robbing it of its planned, promised, and dwindling open space.

Remember:  once the open space is gone, it is gone forever.   Preserve the open space at Reston National and Hidden Creek.  All of it.

Photo by Paul Hartke

Dozens of protesters showed up last night to the Fairfax County School Board’s work session on a proposal that would change how local school boundaries are adjusted.

Before the school board began discussing the proposal, the meeting room was packed with protesters. Police blocked the door, telling a crowd of about 30 people outside that they could not go into the room, which had reportedly reached its capacity.

The discussion on the proposal was delayed by an hour and a half as staff worked to set up overflow seating with live streaming of the work session in the cafeteria.

Around 7:30 p.m., Jeffrey Platenberg, the assistant superintendent for the Department of Facilities and Transportation Services, kicked off the discussion on the proposal with a presentation.

The draft policy would look at a new set of criteria for prompting and then establishing school boundaries. Once a school boundary change has been identified, some of the new criteria to create the new boundary include:

• “socioeconomic and/or racial composition of students in affected schools”
• “the safety of walking and busing routes”
• “operational efficiency”

“When boundary changes are being considered by the School Board, the changes shall not be restricted by the boundaries of individual schools, administrative areas, zip codes, or magisterial district,” according to the draft. The proposal would also get rid of expedited boundary adjustments.

Throughout the meeting, protesters in the room waved signs saying “Communities Build Great Schools NOT Boundary Changes” and “Education Excellence NOT Social Engineering.” Several of the protesters said that they thought the process behind how the proposal was created was not transparent.

Some Great Falls residents have banded together to oppose the boundary changes — which could break up the Langley school pyramid. An online petition to keep the pyramid together has gained more than 2,000 signatories.

“We want our school board and administration to recognize that redistricting would pull apart our community, will significantly decrease property values of hard-working families who pushed the envelope to move into this community, and most importantly, leaves the underlying problems unsolved,” the petition states.

School board members had mixed reactions to the proposal.

School Board Chair Karen Corbett Sanders said that “significant growth” in the Dulles Corridor that will impact schools and questioned if an outside consultant could help the board and community, since it “seems to be a bit of a disconnect that people don’t feel like we have let people about what we’re doing.”

“I very much support opening the boundary,” Jane Strauss, the Dranesville District representative, said.

Meanwhile, others raised concerns about equitable access outlined in the proposal.

At-Large Member Ilryong Moon said that he’s not convinced that the proposal is an improvement after asking for an example of “equitable access to educational opportunities” and Platenberg told him that school boundaries could change to prevent program placement in different schools.

The school board is slated to approve the draft in September ahead of its incorporation in the Capital Improvement Program draft in December.

Catherine Douglas Moran and Fatimah Waseem reported on this story.

Reston and surrounding areas are currently under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning.

Strong winds have reportedly already caused at least one large branch to come down in a Reston parking lot.

Strong winds already causing damage in #Reston this is a crazy thunderstorm. Be careful out there y’all @capitalweather @RestonNow pic.twitter.com/MxQrC39csv

— Justin Edwards (@JustinGMU09) July 21, 2019

More from the National Weather Service:

Severe Thunderstorm Warning including Reston VA, Oakton VA, Fair Oaks VA until 8:15 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/OVpct9tGn7

— NWS Severe Tstorm (@NWSSevereTstorm) July 21, 2019

Calling all local photographers: Reston Now is looking for your photos of Reston, Herndon and Great Falls.

Whether you’re a photography pro or just love snapping pictures with your smartphone, we are always looking to include seasonal photos in our Morning Notes on weekdays or reshare pictures on our social media accounts.

To send us your photos, email us at [email protected], tag us in your photo on social media or join our Reston Now Flickr page.

You will always receive credit for the photo — either with your username or actual name.

Thank you to photographers who have already sent us photos.

File photo

A portion of Reston is now under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning as strong storms approach from the west.

Forecasters say wind up to 60 miles per hour, as well as penny-sized hail, is possible as a result of the storm.

More from the National Weather Service:

BULLETIN – IMMEDIATE BROADCAST REQUESTED
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
448 PM EDT WED JUL 17 2019

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN STERLING VIRGINIA HAS ISSUED A

* SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING FOR…
SOUTHEASTERN LOUDOUN COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
THE CITY OF FAIRFAX IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
NORTHWESTERN FAIRFAX COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
EAST CENTRAL FAUQUIER COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
THE CITY OF MANASSAS PARK IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
NORTHWESTERN PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…
THE CITY OF MANASSAS IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA…

* UNTIL 530 PM EDT.

* AT 448 PM EDT, A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WAS LOCATED NEAR HAYMARKET, OR 7 MILES SOUTHWEST OF SOUTH RIDING, MOVING NORTHEAST AT 35 MPH.

HAZARD…60 MPH WIND GUSTS.

SOURCE…RADAR INDICATED.

IMPACT…DAMAGING WINDS WILL CAUSE SOME TREES AND LARGE BRANCHES  TO FALL. THIS COULD INJURE THOSE OUTDOORS, AS WELL AS  DAMAGE HOMES AND VEHICLES. ROADWAYS MAY BECOME BLOCKED BY  DOWNED TREES. LOCALIZED POWER OUTAGES ARE POSSIBLE.  UNSECURED LIGHT OBJECTS MAY BECOME PROJECTILES.

* LOCATIONS IMPACTED INCLUDE… CENTREVILLE, RESTON, ANNANDALE, SOUTH RIDING, HERNDON, FAIRFAX, VIENNA, MANTUA, DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, LINTON HALL, OAKTON, CHANTILLY, TYSONS CORNER, WOLF TRAP, GREAT FALLS, MERRIFIELD, BULL RUN, HAYMARKET, ARCOLA AND I66 AND I495 INTERCHANGE.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…

FOR YOUR PROTECTION MOVE TO AN INTERIOR ROOM ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF A
BUILDING.

Severe Thunderstorm Warning including Centreville VA, Reston VA, Manassas VA until 5:30 PM EDT pic.twitter.com/1h60gDvfTo

— NWS Baltimore-Washington (@NWS_BaltWash) July 17, 2019