A new spa salon concept will replace space vacated by Red Door, a spa that closed permanently due to the pandemic last year.

Privai, a luxury skin and body care company, will open at 11838 Spectrum Center in the DC area in early 2022, a company spokesperson tells Reston Now. The company will debut one of several locations that describes itself as one that focuses on “personalized wellness for the whole being.”

The business, known as Mynd Spa & Salon Inc. filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy in March just days after announcing a temporary closure of all locations on social media.

The first locations in the area will open at Westpoint and Bethesda. Locations in Tysons Corner, Gaithersburg and Fairfax Corner are expected to open early next year.

Here’s more from the company on their brand:

Founded upon the belief that everyone deserves “spa in a bottle” skincare products that provide accessible luxury and rejuvenation, Christina Stratton and Ilana Alberico developed the Privai line following the success of their spa and wellness management company, Innovative Spa Management (ISM SPA). This next evolution of the Privai brand brings their passion about self-care and personalized wellness to life in order to better serve individuals’ body, mind, and sense of self.

“We want to offer a place that truly realizes individual needs: from spa and body treatments to salon and beauty services. We understand that no two guests are alike, and it is this belief that inspires us to curate unique experiences, one’s antidote for respite and recharging,” Stratton said.

The spa will be managed by ISM SPA, a boutique spa management and wellness design firm.

Privay assumed the leases of Red Door locations across the DC area. The Reston location is roughly 4,000 square feet and will include spa services in addition to salon services like manicures, pedicures and hair treatments.

Image via Google Maps

Another tenant plans to shutter its doors by the end of the year at  The Spectrum, a master-planned retail complex at Reston Town Center.

Office Depot, which is located at 11816 Spectrum Center, will close on Nov. 13, a company representative told Reston Now.

The company has been closing stores throughout the country after first quarter sales in 2019 fell by two percent. The losses came from the company’s IT and consulting services arm, known as CompuCom. The retail division is composed of Office Depot and OfficeMax stores.

Earlier this year, Starbucks also announced plans to leave the retail center. In 2020, Best Buy also left a major vacancy in the area.

Lerner Enterprises, a Maryland-based company, plans to redevelop the plaza into a mixed-use project. But a timeline for the proposal has not yet been determined.

The Spectrum is Reston Town Center will have a major vacancy next month.

Best Buy, which is located at 1861 Fountain Drive, will close on Oct. 31, a company official told Reston Now.

A spokesperson said the company decided against renewing its lease.

“Our customers have shown us that they prefer to shop at other stores in the area, including the Tyson’s Corner store nearby, which is just seven miles away, as well as our Sterling and Fairlakes stores.”

The last day of business is Saturday, Oct. 31.

A store employee said increasing rent prices prompted the decision. Currently, the store is opened every day from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Image via Google Maps

Fairfax County police have arrested a Reston man following a suspicious package investigation at The Spectrum yesterday (Wednesday).

Police said in an update today (Thursday) that around 3:30 p.m. a man who was previously banned from the Verizon store (11830 Spectrum Center) “set a suspicious package on the counter and indicated to an employee that it was a bomb.”

Shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday, police tweeted that several businesses were evacuated as a result of the investigation, and then around 8 p.m. that the suspicious package was determined to not be hazardous.

“Officers from the Special Operations Divisions examined the device and determined it to be a hoax,” police said today.

Police arrested Timothy Stein, 54, today and charged him with felony bomb threat, felony hoax explosive device and trespassing.

Image via Google Maps 

Trustar Bank will open in Great falls on July 10, making it the first new bank to open in the Washington area in more than a decade.

The Washington Business Journal reports that it is the first bank to receive approval from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporate and open its doors since FVCBank opened in November 2007.

Here’s more from the report:

Trustar most recently received approval from Virginia, which also made it the first bank since 2008 to get state consent. Meanwhile, other banks in organization are also working on their own approvals, including Tysons-based VisionBank, which hopes to open its doors in the coming months, D.C.-based Founders Bank started by Bank of Georgetown alums, and District-based Moxy Bank, which recently received its conditional approval from the District.

Trustar recently closed on more than $50 million in new funding, above the high end of the $35 million to $50 million it had originally intended.

The bank has also fleshed out its advisory board, recently adding Ryan Kerrigan, a star outside linebacker for Washington’s NFL team, and former Republican congresswoman Barbara Comstock, who lost a 2018 bid for reelection in Virginia’s 10th District.

The bank is rapidly expanding in the area. It has signed a letter of intent at The Spectrum at Reston Town Center (11846 Spectrum Center) and plans to open a lending office in McLean.

Logo via Trustar

Ravel Dance Studio is leaving its home of 20 years in North Point Village Center to a new location in The Spectrum in January.

The move will allow the studio, which offers classes and performs recitals, to expand its programs and classes in the 5,000 square foot facility on 1763 Fountain Drive, said Janet Hall, the owner and artistic director.

“We’re really excited to be in the heart of Reston and offer more adult classes,” Hall said. “Right now, we are bursting at the seams with students. It’s exciting to be the only small business in that area.”

The new site has three state-of-the-art studios that were designed by the same company that worked on floor installations at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. The studio’s current location is roughly 3,600 square feet.

A more central location in Reston will also allow the studio to better display its classes, four classical ballets and professional work. The studio has invested roughly $400,000 to build out the new facility and roughly a year and three months of negotiating.

The studio also hopes to continue leveraging its partnership with Reston Community Center’s CenterStage for performance space, which is a major reason why the studio hopes to remain in Reston as it expands, Hall said.

Classes will begin to transition beginning Dec. 20th and the move should be complete by Jan. 3, the beginning of the second semester of classes.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Griffith

Several hundred people enjoyed lunch on the house Tuesday afternoon as Cava Mezze Grill celebrated the opening of its new Reston location at 1815 Fountain Drive.

“We’ve always known Reston is a place we’ve wanted to come,” said Meg Schiffman, Cava’s director of marketing, amid the crowd during the free community-lunch event, which lasted from noon to 2 p.m. “It has been the most-requested location in the history of Cava, and we’re just so thrilled to be part of the community now.”

As of about 1:15 p.m., Schiffman said about 250 people had already made their way through the line, which still extended all the way down The Spectrum shopping center’s sidewalk. Schiffman said it was one of the longest lines she had ever seen during such an opening event, which Cava hosts at each of its new locations.

“Sharing a meal is part of our culture — it’s really kind of where we came from,” Schiffman said. “It’s been something we really feel is important to introduce ourselves, but at the same time to open our doors and really have a shared experience with everybody in the community.”

The Greek and Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant is an offshoot of Rockville-based Cava Mezze restaurant, which has five locations in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The Reston location is the 34th Cava Mezze Grill nationwide, with plans to add several more by the end of 2017.

The restaurant will open for regular business hours, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., beginning Wednesday.

Finishing touches are being completed inside Cava Mezze Grill’s new Reston location, where an early August opening is planned.

The Greek and Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant (1815 Fountain Drive) will introduce itself to Reston with a free “community lunch” from noon to 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 1. Lunchgoers are invited to stop in to try out the restaurant’s grain bowls, salads, pitas and more.

Meg Schiffman, Cava’s director of marketing, says the restaurant will open for regular business hours — 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. — the next day.

Cava Mezze Grill is an offshoot of Rockville-based Cava Mezze restaurant, which has five locations in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. There are currently about two dozen Cava Mezze Grill locations nationwide, with the Reston location one of about a dozen more planning to open soon. There are several other locations elsewhere in Northern Virginia, including in Tysons, Vienna and Merrifield’s Mosaic District.

Cava Mezze Grill has plans to soon begin offering its Greek and Mediterranean menu at The Spectrum shopping plaza.

Signage is up in the windows at the future location of the restaurant, 1815 Fountain Drive. The storefront near Best Buy had been the home of a Lane Bryant clothing store before it closed last year. A permit to allow renovation by the new tenant was issued by Fairfax County last month.

Cava Mezze Grill is an offshoot of Rockville-based Cava Mezze restaurant, which has five locations in Maryland, Virginia and D.C. There are currently about two dozen Cava Mezze Grill locations nationwide, with the Reston location one of about a dozen more planning to open soon. There are already several locations elsewhere in Northern Virginia, including in Tysons, Vienna and Merrifield’s Mosaic District.

The eatery is described as “a fast-casual spin-off” that “serves fresh, healthful and savor-worthy meals.”

A request for information about an opening date for the restaurant has not been answered at this time.

The recent closure of Romano’s Macaroni Grill at Reston’s Spectrum Center took many residents by surprise

While the shutdown was sudden — the employees have said they received no notice — the plans for the future of the area stretching from the Macaroni Grill to Harris Teeter have been in the works for more than a decade.

When Reston Town Center was planned in the late 1980s, the plan was for a town center-like area to expand all the way down Reston Parkway to Baron Cameron Avenue. However, the development climate was not ripe for such a project in the early 1990s, so The Spectrum was developed in a strip-mall fashion and leased to big box stores such as Barnes & Noble and Best Buy.

“It was underdevelopment in respect to the property zoning,” Mark Looney, the land use lawyer representing Lerner, said at a public hearing on the project in 2013. “Reston Town Center was intended to be a grand downtown. This was developed in transition [due to the economy of the early 1990s]. In the interim, it became a big box-development.”

By 2008 — with the Metro’s Silver Line looking like a reality for Reston Parkway — Lerner Enterprises was focusing on securing a higher density future for the 24-acre site. In May of that year, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved a plan for nearly 800,000 square feet of non residential (retail, hotel and office) space and a maximum of 1,442 residential units.

The plan sought to connect The Spectrum to the Reston Town Center in a walkable urban core.

In 2010, Lerner sued the county to obtain additional density for the project.

In early 2013, the Board of Supervisors approved changes to the plans for the Spectrum. Some of the details:

• 774,879 square feet of non-residential use; 1,422 multifamily residential units (with 12 percent set aside for affordable housing) in seven new residential buildings
• 38 percent open space. At least 12 percent set aside for affordable and workforce housing.
• Underground and structure parking; LEED certifications
• Two new east-west streets and expanded bike trails and pedestrian access.

The development will be divided this way:

Land Bay A (where Best Buy and Barnes & Noble are located) is planned for 546 dwelling units, 255 hotel rooms, 172,000 square feet of office, and 62,500 square feet of retail uses.

Land Bay B (where PetSmart and On the Border are located) is planned for 643 dwelling units, 270 hotel rooms, and 48,650 square feet of retail uses. Read More