With Tesla’s announcement that it will be closing most of its retail locations, two Tysons locations remain in jeopardy.

One store is located on Tyco Road near Leesburg Pike. This location was the first Tesla dealership in Virginia, opening in 2015 in a former warehouse.

Tesla also has a showroom inside the Tysons Corner Center mall. The store in the mall includes interactive features to help customers configure their own Tesla in the design studios.

Brick-and-mortar locations are expected to be closed over the next few months, but a list of stores to be closed has not been released. Staff at the Tysons Corner Center showroom said they could not comment on whether or not that location will close.

D.C.-based nonprofit FRESHFARM will be taking over the Mosaic Farmers Market and is planning a market season kick off for April 6 and 7.

According to a press release from FRESHFARM, the market will operate every Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will feature over 50 regional farmers and vendors selling fresh produce, bread, meat and other farmers market staples. The market is scheduled to run through December.

Current market vendors offer selections from crepes to candles and one vendor, Chase Your Tail Bakery, that makes handcrafted dog biscuits.

“The Mosaic Farmers Market is a vibrant part of this thriving community, and we were honored that EDENS invited us to join them in bringing delicious, locally grown and produced food to Mosaic District,” Julia Feder, executive director of FRESHFARM, said in the press release. “We look forward to getting to know the residents, visitors, and local businesses in the Mosaic neighborhood this season.”

FRESHFARM operates 16 farmers markets throughout the region, with an emphasis on locally sourced food.

That same weekend, the Mosaic District is also scheduled to host the “Art Blooms at Mosaic” festival, a cherry blossom event in partnership with the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Photo via @claire_brunette/Instagram

While McLean residents are mostly satisfied with what’s in this year’s county budget proposal, the McLean Citizens Association (MCA) takes issue with one item that isn’t: body worn cameras.

A pilot program for body-worn cameras was implemented through 2018 and a report on the findings of the program are expected sometime this spring, but funding for the program is not included in the police budget for FY 2020.

At tonight’s MCA meeting, the board will vote on a resolution to recommend body worn cameras be included in the budget.

Equipping police officers with body worn cameras is beneficial to both police and the community. [Body-worn cameras] can accurately record law enforcement actions and thereby capture evidence pursuant to investigations, reduce the number of complaints filed against officers, and provide additional safety for our officers as they patrol the streets.  The cameras also increase transparency, accountability, and trust between the police and community, which has been an issue nationwide over the last several years and is particularly relevant to our community with the recent killing of Bijan Ghaisar by U.S. Park Police.

The killing of Bijan Ghaisar was controversial partly because videos from dashboard cameras released by Fairfax County Police that seemed to show no threat to U.S. Park Police when they shot Ghaisar.

Last year, on the anniversary of the shooting, the MCA approved a resolution pushing for more transparency in the investigation and praising the Fairfax County Police for releasing the video.

This isn’t the first time body-worn cameras have come up in budget discussions. At an earlier Board of Supervisors meeting on the budget, several board members expressed concern there was no funding identified for the program. Staff said at the meeting that they were waiting for the results of the pilot evaluation to add funding.

“The program has broad support, but actual implementation continues to drift to the right,” the MCA said in the resolution. “It is time to implement the program and, following completion of the [evaluation], we urge a cost-conscious [body-worn camera] implementation.”

Photo via Fairfax County Police

Tweaks to The View project proposed in Tysons include plans for a new performing arts center, according to the Washington Business Journal.

The development, which would include the region’s tallest building, is part of a sweeping series of new developments planned to transform Tysons east of the Spring Hill Metro station.

According to the Business Journal, the new proposal includes ground-floor retail beneath a 199-seat black box theater. Above the theater would be an outdoor amphitheater, and three floors of office space above that.

A previously proposed 500-seat theater is not part of the project.

Image via Gensler

In a panel discussion on the role of arts in a rapidly gentrifying D.C. region, 1st Stage Theatre’s artistic director Alex Levy spoke on WAMU’s Kojo Nnamdi Show yesterday about the theater’s role in Tysons’ ongoing evolution.

Levy said on the show that before he came to Tysons, he’d heard it called a cultural wasteland — comparing it to the spots on old maritime maps where it’s just mermaids and openness.

“As I got here, that’s the conversation I heard forever, that this thing doesn’t belong out here,” said Levy. “But as soon as the company started, there was a great love for it because people want the arts in their community. They need it in their community.”

The theater is located above a garage and a salsa/bachata nightclub and Levy said many visitors don’t realize the theater is there until they walk inside.

“Anybody who has driven around Tysons, the thing you see most is a crane,” Levy said in the interview. “Most of what they’re building are large residential buildings. One of the reasons I moved my family to this community was to be a part of that conversation… You can’t build a community — the thing Tysons wants to be — without a cultural life.”

The 1st Stage Theater recently wrapped up performances of “The Brothers Size” and the next show, “columbinus,” is scheduled to start March 28.

The father and son-operated Rango’s Fine Tex-Mex restaurant at 1934 Old Gallows Road is finally open.

The 200-seat restaurant had originally planned to open in November, but opened in early February.

“So far, so good,” said Robert Rosa, one of the two owners along with his dad, Ishmael Rosa. “People have been really nice and the word of mouth [around town] has helped.”

Robert said his goal for the restaurant is to stand out for quality, portions, and a family-friendly atmosphere.

“It’s a great location,” Robert said. “This [kind of restaurant] was in high demand, but there was a low supply in the area.”

The restaurant offers a variety of the usual taco and burrito platters in lunch and dinner varieties. A margarita menu features regular and frozen margaritas, sangria, Mexican beers and mojitos.

Robert also said one of the best parts of the job has been running it with his father.

“It’s been great working with my dad,” Robert said. “I’ve been working with him my whole life.”

For years, the shared sidewalk on the south side of Lee Highway has ended abruptly with a ditch.

But a planned bike/pedestrian path on the highway just south of the Vienna Metro station could finally bridge that divide and make the sidewalks more walkable.

At a meeting tonight (Tuesday), Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is scheduled to discuss plans to complete missing segments of a shared-use path on the southern side of Lee Highway between Vaden Drive and Nutley Street. The path aims to improve safety and accessibility for bicyclists and pedestrians near the Fairlee neighborhood.

The $1.3 million project is being funded through the Transform I-66 Outside the Beltway project.

Design approval for the project is scheduled for this fall, with construction beginning summer 2021.

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 at Fairhill Elementary School (3001 Chichester Lane) with a presentation starting at 7 p.m.

A bullet was fired into a home one block from the Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station, but so far, that’s about all police are saying about the incident.

Police say the incident occurred 2600 block of Avenir Place on Saturday (March 2) around 2 a.m.

“A woman was lying in bed with her mother when a bullet shot through their bedroom window,” police said in a crime report. “No injuries were reported.”

Police said they were still investigating the incident and working to determine the source of the bullet.

Photo via Google Maps

Fairfax County officials are hoping a new lane restriping on Pimmit Hills streets can trick speeders into slowing down.

At a meeting at Westgate Elementary last night (Monday), Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) staff said that Lisle Avenue — a main traffic route through Pimmit Hills — and Pimmit Drive are not wide enough to add bike lanes while maintaining street parking.

But staff said adding clear designators of the parking spots could give the street a “narrowing effect” that has been shown to reduce excessive speeding.

The actual size of the lanes doesn’t change, but the narrowing can have a psychological impact on drivers and reduce the feeling of wide-open roads that lulls drivers into the idea that it’s safe to speed.

“We see reductions in outlying speeds of 10-20 miles above the speed limit on traditionally wide roads,” said Chris Wells, bicycle and pedestrian program manager for FCDOT. “These narrower streets benefit in eliminating the fastest speeders.”

Normally, Wells said he would like to see bicycle lanes added, which would also have the narrowing effect, but that the only way to introduce bike lanes would have been to take away street parking.

The lane changes are being planned as part of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s planned repaving of the entire Pimmit Hills Neighborhood.

Allison Richter, liaison for Fairfax and Arlington counties for VDOT, said that Pimmit Hills had been on the schedule for a while, but water line work in the area meant VDOT held off because they didn’t want to put down asphalt only for it to be torn up again.

The timeline of when the repaving and restriping will take place is vague, occurring sometime between April and November. Richter said VDOT lets contractors select their own schedule as a cost-saving measure, but more exact dates will be known closer to when work starts.

At the meeting, a half dozen local residents also urged officials to look at the intersection of Pimmit Drive and Route 7, which they said is terrible for pedestrians and faces frequent backups into the Trader Joe’s parking lot. Wells said staff would look into what could be done to improve the location, but they’re restrained at the moment to the project’s scope.

Photo via Google Maps

GO Bus, a bus line that operates throughout the northeast, has added an additional stop in Tysons.

According to a press release, the new stop will be at the Tysons Corner Metro station.

From the press release:

For the D.C. and Virginia service to/from New York City, this new stop joins five other stops in the D.C./Virginia metro area, and is the 13th stop overall in the GO Buses network.  Other existing stops in the region include L’Enfant Plaza (C Street SW in D.C.), Eastern Market (Pennsylvania Avenue SE in D.C.), the Eisenhower Avenue Metro Station in Alexandria, the Fairfax/GMU Metro station in Vienna, and the Manassas commuter lot on Cushing Road in Manassas. The New York City stop is in Midtown Manhattan (30th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues).

While the press release boasts fares as low as $18, the lowest Tysons to New York City tickets available over the next month are $22.

This isn’t the first new affordable Tysons-New York line to open up. Last November, OurBus opened a new line to New York for around the same price.

Photo courtesy Go Bus