Two Injured in Fire at CIA HQ — Two CIA employees were transported to a hospital for possible smoke inhalation after a fire broke out at the agency’s headquarters in McLean on Saturday (Oct. 2). The “small building fire” was extinguished by sprinklers around 12:30 a.m., according to the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, and the cause hasn’t been determined. [WTOP]
Parents Protest Outside McAuliffe Campaign Office — Fairfax County police responded to a protest of about 20 people outside Terry McAuliffe’s campaign office on Jones Branch Drive in McLean on Friday (Oct. 1). A passerby told Tysons Reporter that the parents, who police said “were peacefully demonstrating,” were “incensed” by the Democratic gubernatorial nominee saying in a recent debate that he doesn’t think “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Founders Row Welcomes First Residents — “After a decade since the project was first proposed, the first 20 residents began moving in this Monday [Sept. 27] to the massive 4.3 acre Founders Row development project at the intersection of W. Broad and N. West Street in the City of Falls Church.” [Falls Church News-Press]
Tysons Corner Bloomingdale’s Burgled — “COMMERICAL BURGLARY: 8100 Tysons Corner Center (Bloomingdales), 9/27/21, 4:40 a.m. Someone forced entry into the business and took property.” [Fairfax County Police Department]
The weekend is almost here. Before you check out Capital One Center’s new performing arts venue or head to bed for some much-needed sleep, let’s revisit recent news from the Tysons area that you might’ve missed.
These were the most-read stories on Tysons Reporter this week:
- D.C. favorite Italian deli is planning an expansion to Tysons
- Pet of the Week: Petey, a shy terrier sweetie who lost his owner to COVID-19
- Pakistani family seeks to broaden menu and minds by expanding tea house to Tysons Corner Center
- Urban Plates takes permanent leave of Tysons Galleria
- Fairfax County seeks funding to forge one ring binding Seven Corners
Ideas for stories we should cover can be sent to [email protected] or submitted as an anonymous tip. Photos of scenes from around the community are welcome too, with credit always given to the photographer.
You can find previous rundowns of top stories on the site.
A junior tennis tournament series is coming to the nation’s capital this weekend, bearing the name of McLean tennis coach Matt Stevenson, who died at age 32 in 2017.
Launched in San Diego, California, in September, coinciding with National Suicide Awareness Month, the Matt Stevenson Junior Tennis Tournament Series takes place in D.C. this Saturday and Sunday (Oct. 2-3) at the Rock Creek Tennis Center, which hosted professional players for the Citi Open in August.
It’s the first and only junior tennis tournament event series to promote the importance of mental health for adolescents, according to the nonprofit U.S. Tennis Association’s Mid-Atlantic Section.
“The inspiration behind the MSJTT Series came from the late Matt Stevenson, a young tennis professional who lived and ran successful junior tennis programs in McLean and the DC region,” USTA Mid-Atlantic said. “Before tragically taking his own life in 2017 at the age of 32, he had written extensively about his own mental health issues and had asked that kids be made aware of the importance of staying mentally healthy and to seek help if they needed it.”
The tournament first started in 2019 in San Diego and expanded to D.C. and New York City last month as a collaboration between the nonprofit ProtoStar Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
It seeks to “address the national teen depression, anxiety, and suicide crisis by engaging adolescents through a sport they love and promoting dialogue and understanding of these issues,” according to the Sept. 8 press release.
Talking to Tysons Reporter, Judith Stevenson recalled how her son came up with tennis games to entertain kids and teach them the basics of the game.
One game, King of the Court, involved players trying to get the ball past the instructor. When they scored a point against him, they would run around and get on top of him while he did push-ups.
“The fun that they were having was great,” she said. “He loved teaching the sport.”
Stevenson attended high school in Alexandria and college at Marymount University, coached young players and adults at McLean Racquet and Health Club, and served as the tennis director at Langley Club. He chose coaching as his profession.
Matthew Stevenson’s struggles with depression started in his early teens, with bouts of depression beginning in high school, his mother said.
Judith noted that it can be difficult for parents and coaches to figure out how to support a player who is experiencing challenges without becoming intrusive. However, she said it’s important to be willing to listen and to show respect by supporting a young person when they take charge of their own treatment.
She hopes events like the junior tennis tournament can help make talking about mental challenges akin to physical problems, such as sports injuries.
ProtoStar president and founder Gary Poon remarked that Stevenson built tennis programs from the ground up and was well loved in the community.
USTA Mid-Atlantic shared more details on the event, saying:
Mental health awareness among adolescents is crucial today as the youth mental health crisis continues to grow in the U.S., exacerbated most recently by the pandemic. The USTA Mid-Atlantic Section is emphasizing the important of mental health wellness among youth tennis players and has deemed Oct. 2-3 a mental health weekend featuring this and only one other sanctioned tournament that players may participate in the region, or they can choose to have a quiet weekend to rest, reset and focus on mental health. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and National Institute of Mental Health will have practical information available for parents and players in the tournament.
Matt Stevenson also wrote nearly 2,000 articles for the Mad in America (MIA) Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to rethink and change how the psychiatric community uses medications, particularly over the long term.
Judith Stevenson said her son expressed concerns about the names of mental health disorders as well as the stigma attached to them, taking issue with language describing different conditions that he saw as pejorative.
Following Stevenson’s death by suicide in 2017, the MIA Foundation posted a tribute to his work interviewing experts and writing about mental health issues online, highlighting his efforts to read scientific literature on borderline personality disorder and books criticizing the validity of psychiatric disorders.
“The theme he sounded most often was about the spurious nature of psychiatric diagnoses and the harm such labels could cause,” the organization said.
After a year off, Oktoberfest will return to the Town of Vienna tomorrow (Saturday), bringing with it a beer and wine garden, live entertainment, and a slightly pared-down assortment of food, craft, and retail vendors.
Now in its 13th iteration, the festival will unfold from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in its customary site between Maple Avenue and Ayr Hill Road, with the biergarten and main tents set up in the parking lot next to the Red Caboose.
Vienna Oktoberfest is organized by the Vienna Business Association, serving as the chamber of commerce’s main annual fundraiser, but it also depends on the support of dozens of local community groups, VBA Executive Director Peggy James says.
“We are so grateful to huge amount of participation we have received from our local Vienna non-profit organizations for their volunteer support and sponsor support in the festival this year,” James said. “As always, our goal is to provide a safe and fabulous festival that is welcoming to people of all ages. The enormous amount of support we have had this year will ensure this happens.”
Many groups, such as the Rotary Club of Vienna, the local Shepherd’s Center, the Stroke Comeback Center, and even James Madison High School’s crew team, have members volunteering at the festival. Others are participating through sponsorships, which range in cost from $200 to $5,000 for the platinum title.
This year’s food court sponsor is One Neighborhood Foundation, the nonprofit that Vienna VA Foodies co-founder Lydia Russo started in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to help local restaurants by delivering meals to first responders and food-insecure residents.
Russo says the foundation “is very excited” to be part of Vienna Oktoberfest for the first time after providing “thousands and thousands” of meals over the past 18 months or so through its own efforts and by organizing fundraisers for other nonprofits.
The group raised $20,000 in just one day in June 2020 when it turned to the Vienna VA Foodies Facebook group to support Martha’s Table, a D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to increasing access to healthy food, education, and other resources for families.
Even after all that work, though, Oktoberfest will represent the first opportunity to meet in person for many of the community members who have gotten involved with One Neighborhood Foundation.
“We plan to enjoy the beautiful atmosphere, all while staffing our tent which will be fundraising for future food deliveries,” Russo said by email. Read More
Less than a third of Fairfax County sheriff’s deputies and less than half of Fairfax County Police Department officers have undergone Crisis Intervention Team training, which seeks to help first responders more safely and effectively help people with mental health issues.
Changing how law enforcement handles situations involving mental health issues is the goal of a program that Fairfax County resumed testing earlier this week, pairing CIT-trained officers with mental health specialists to respond to non-criminal 911 calls.
The pilot program is the county’s first step toward fulfilling a state requirement that it have mental health professionals involved in behavioral health crisis responses by July 2023, but it also stems from the ongoing Diversion First initiative aimed at preventing unnecessary arrests and hospitalizations.
FCPD says 46% of its approximately 1,500 officers are currently CIT-trained.
“It is important to acknowledge the county only adopted the current model of CIT in 2016 and is committed to the continual training of department personnel in crisis intervention training,” police said in a statement.
The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office says 132 of its 439 deputies have received CIT training.
Neighboring counties report more robust adoption rates.
The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office tells FFXnow that every deputy serving patrol, corrections, or courthouse duties takes the training within their first two years on the force. Since 2016, Arlington County has required that all new officers take the 40-hour course within six months of completing field training.
Differences in training can contribute to discrepancies in how individual officers treat people with mental health or substance use issues. That inconsistency is one challenge facing Diversion First, Fairfax County Chief Public Defender Dawn Butorac told FFXnow in September.
During a public safety committee meeting on Tuesday (Sept. 28), Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay said the county “is hoping to get many more officers in” CIT training, calling that a baseline qualification for selecting personnel for the co-responder pilot.
Fairfax County adopted the “Memphis Model” of CIT training in 2016 in response to the Ad Hoc Police Practices Commission that the Board of Supervisors formed in 2015 after facing public criticism and a lawsuit over how the county handled a police officer shooting and killing Springfield resident John Geer in 2013.
In a final report released on Oct. 8, 2015, the commission recommended that the FCPD create specially trained crisis intervention teams, provide base-level training for all officers, require CIT training for certain command positions, including in the patrol division, and offer incentives like flexible shift hours to encourage suitable officers to join a CIT.
According to a progress report on the commission’s 202 recommendations, those proposals have all been implemented, but the FCPD did not respond by publication time when asked for details on the incentives it has for officers to get the CIT training.
The FCPD’s CIT-related administrative records and protocols consist of slideshows used for the training and a general order about emotionally disturbed persons, according to a county administrator.
Other kinds of mental health training for county law enforcement include a Mental Health First Aid Day for the sheriff’s office. In addition, the police department’s general order on the use of force states that officers should take into consideration people’s “medical issues, mental health issues, disabilities, or language and/or cultural differences.”
Meanwhile, the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services and Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services have issued guidance for CIT programs that in fact discourages agencies from giving the training to all patrol personnel “except as necessary to achieve 24/7 coverage.”
“Experience suggests that a successful CIT program will, at a minimum, have 20-25% of the agency’s patrol division, which will likely result in 24/7 CIT officer coverage,” the state guidance says. “The ultimate goal is to have an adequate number of patrol officers trained in order to ensure that CIT-trained officers are available at all times.”
Per the state guidance:
Just as officers for other specialty areas in law enforcement are not equally suited to every job, so it is with CIT officers. CIT is a training that demands officers have certain skills and experience in order to be effective. For example, because CIT asks officers to take a very different approach in dealing with certain situations, it is beneficial to train officers who are extremely comfortable with their basic policing skills and procedures and have been on the road for a significant period of time. Additionally, CIT training is NOT effective as a means of ‘fixing’ an officer who may not have a well developed set of interpersonal skills.
The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has 24/7 CIT coverage on every squad and shift, whether deputies are assigned to the Adult Detention Center, courthouse, or civil enforcement, spokesperson Andi Ceisler said.
She noted that all deputies assigned to the Merrifield Crisis Response Center have CIT training.
Capital One Hall Opens — Tysons’ new performing arts venue, which also serves as a corporate event space for Capital One, officially opens its doors to the public today (Friday), with singer Josh Groban putting on the first show at 8 p.m. The theater and classroom facilities will be available to local arts, nonprofit, and charitable community groups at specially negotiated rates by Fairfax County. [Fairfax County Government]
I-495 Lane Closures Start in Tysons Tonight — “The right lane of the southbound I-495 (Capital Beltway Outer Loop) general purpose lanes will be closed along the three bridges over the Dulles Toll Road (Route 267), weather permitting, from 10 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1 to 5 a.m. Monday, Oct. 4 for bridge joint work…The two right lanes of the southbound I-495 general purpose lanes are scheduled to be closed overnight.” [VDOT]
Founders Row Part 2 Moves Forward — The Falls Church City Council voted 4-3 to let a second phase of Founders Row proceed, potentially bringing 2.07 acres of mixed-use development to the corner of S. West and West Broad streets. Supporters cited developer Mill Creek’s affordable housing commitment and other concessions, while opponents expressed concern about the project’s limited commercial component. [Falls Church News-Press]
Vienna Assisted Living Facility Cuts Ribbon — Silverstone Senior Living and Watermark Retirement Communities executives, public officials, and community members held a ribbon cutting ceremony and reception yesterday (Thursday) for The Providence, a 154-unit assisted living and memory care community that opened in MetroWest near the Vienna Metro station in March. [The Providence Fairfax]
McLean VFD Marks Anniversary With Coloring Contest — The McLean Volunteer Fire Department is holding a coloring contest for local elementary school students in honor of its 100th anniversary and to recognize October as Fire Prevention Month. Students can download an image of the fire station, color it, and mail it to the address on the webpage. Selected in a drawing at the end of the month, the winner will get a visit to their street by the department’s antique Pirsch fire truck. [McLean VFD]
Vienna and Herndon Compete in Caboose Challenge — “The Towns of Vienna and Herndon are facing off in a Caboose to Caboose challenge in October. Residents are encouraged to sign up and participate in the challenge: walk or ride along the Washington and Old Dominion Trail from the Vienna Caboose to the Herndon Caboose or vice versa.” [Patch]
A 3.5-acre lot near the McLean Metro station that’s currently little more than an expanse of dirt could be transformed into an outdoor gathering space before being taken over by up to two planned highrises.
Cityline Partners, the real estate firm behind the Scotts Run mixed-use development, envisions a “quasi-public” park with farmers markets, food trucks, a movie screen, outdoor trampolines, pop-up retail, or other outdoor amenities.
Dubbed The Block at Scotts Run, the vacant, leveled area at 1616 Anderson Road is bordered by Route 123 (Dolley Madison Boulevard), South Dartford Drive, and Chain Bridge Road.
The Washington Business Journal first reported the news that developers are seeking approval for the interim proposal from Fairfax County while waiting for the right market conditions to build one or both highrises.
The application from New York City-based DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners — operating as Cityline Partners LLC — requests a 20-year term for the interim use, but any retail or restaurant space would not be occupied by the same tenant for the full term, according to a statement of justification from land use attorney David Schneider with the Tysons-based firm Holland & Knight.
“Without this interim activation, this prominent corner at the eastern gateway of Tysons will remain vacant for an unknown amount until the market signals that it is time to move forward with one or both highrise buildings,” he said in the Sept. 16 letter to the Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning.
The property is owned by one or two New York City businesses that occupies the 24th floor of a building in the Big Apple: 11 Madison Ave. The businesses are listed as “Van Buren 1616 Anderson LLC” and “Westgate 1600 Anderson Road LLC.”
Per the WBJ, though, Cityline is overseeing the interim proposal as the managing agent and master developer of Scotts Run South, which recently advanced with the opening of Archer Hotel Tysons.
The interim proposal would have a height limitation of 90 feet and occupy 30,000 square feet in gross floor area. Developers say they aren’t looking to build a nine-story building there but instead have room for “trapeze equipment and tents.”
According to Schneider’s letter, The Block is intended to set the stage for a Van Buren Gateway Park that the developers have committed to providing in the property’s ultimate build-out.
Photo via Google Maps
All Fairfax County employees will be required to be fully vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests by Monday, Oct. 11, FFXnow has learned.
County government employees who do not get vaccinated or are not fully vaccinated by Oct. 11 will be required to undergo weekly COVID-19 testing to remain employed, including if they receive a medical or religious exemption.
While the county has started providing booster shots to eligible individuals, people are still considered “fully vaccinated” two weeks after they receive the second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen vaccine.
Fairfax County announced that it will implement a vaccine requirement back in August, but no specific date was given for when the mandate would take effect beyond “this fall.”
The county announced its requirement the same day that Fairfax County Public Schools shared its own vaccine mandate for employees, which it said will take effect “late October.”
An FCPS spokesperson confirmed that the end of October remains the school system’s goal for when all employees are expected to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.
Back in July, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to direct County Executive Bryan Hill to evaluate the possibility of a vaccine requirement for county employees.
“We know vaccinations save lives and that these vaccines are safe and effective,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay wrote in a statement back in August. “Throughout the pandemic we have focused on measures to keep our employees and our community safe, and this is another key piece of that effort. As one of the largest employers in Virginia, and one that has successfully and consistently stressed to our residents the importance of being vaccinated, we must practice what we preach.”
FFXnow has reached out to both the SEIU Virginia 512 and Fairfax Workers Coalition, unions that represent Fairfax County employees, for comment but has not heard back as of publication.
The county’s vaccine requirement falls in line with policies announced by other jurisdictions in the D.C. area, including Arlington County, which has had a mandate in place since the end of August, and Loudoun County, which has not set a timeline yet.
Alexandria City Mayor Justin Wilson said in August that the city anticipated implementing a vaccination requirement in the “September/October timeframe.”
D.C. announced on Sept. 20 that school and child-care workers in the city must get vaccinated with no option to produce a negative test instead. FCPS told FFXnow that it is not changing its plans to have a testing option for employees who don’t get vaccinated.
Virginia’s requirement for state government employees took effect on Sept. 1, and President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Sept. 9 requiring all federal government workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Photo via Machvee/Flickr
There are few more self-evident testaments in Fairfax County to the shortsighted follies of 20th century land-use planning than Seven Corners.
The groundwork for the confounding convergence of Route 7, Route 50, Sleepy Hollow Road, Wilson Boulevard, and Hillwood Avenue in the Falls Church area was laid before the Civil War. Arlington Boulevard and Leesburg Pike emerged from early county roads that intersected at Fort Buffalo, according to a 2015 article by the Washington Business Journal.
A literal crossroads between Fairfax and Arlington counties and the City of Falls Church, the intersection became more intricate post-World War II, as the area saw a population and development boom, epitomized by the introduction of the Seven Corners Shopping Center, once the largest mall in the D.C. region.
According to The Washington Post, traffic was already a “major headache” in the early 1950s, and “state and local governments spent millions to alleviate” congestion when the mall opened in 1956. But conditions have kept deterioriating despite a patchwork of fixes implemented since then, including the addition of the Route 50 overpass near Patrick Henry Drive in 2009.
“It’s too complex. If you drive through now, you get stuck, everybody blocks each other, it doesn’t work,” Mike Garcia, the Fairfax County Department of Transportation’s planning section chief, told Tysons Reporter last week. “They’ve gone through and adjusted the signals many times. They’ve got it about as good as they’re going to get it.”
The Project
Since inverting time to undo this knot isn’t an option, Fairfax County is now trying to at least loosen it, and this time, it is willing to take the time to hopefully do it right.
As part of a larger package of funding requests, the Board of Supervisors voted on Sept. 14 to authorize transportation staff to seek $94.8 million from the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority for the first phase of a “ring” road that will eventually connect the west side of Route 7 to Wilson Boulevard.
The Seven Corners Ring Road project dates back to 2014, when a visioning task force charged with identifying possible land use and development improvements for the neighborhood recommended including the concept in a comprehensive plan amendment that the county board adopted on July 28, 2015.
According to Garcia, the county and task force considered six different options for improving the interchange, but they ultimately determined that a circular road looping through each of the main streets to create more traditional four-way intersections would be most effective.
“[It] would help at least clear up the area and make it a little more understood from the driver’s perspective, but also understood from the walking and biking perspective as well, because that’s as much the issue that we wanted to solve,” Garcia said. Read More
As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, The Alden hopes to bring a drop of golden sun with the upcoming launch of its fall season, which will bring audiences back into the theater for the first time since the McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Avenue) closed in March 2020.
Kicking off on Oct. 16, the lineup features four musical acts and a performance by the dance company Pilobolus, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary starting in October.
In a statement, MCC Executive Director Daniel Singh says he and the center’s performing arts staff, led by director Sarah Schallern Treff, designed the season around themes of recovery, reimagining, and reconnecting — all of them linked by the prefix and musical note “re,” which he says suggests a transition as the last step in the solfege scale.
“‘Re’ embodies the tension of our times — the venturing out into the world away from home base, the uncertainty of the future and the pull between the two,” Singh said. “Keeping this framework in mind, this fall, we are offering several programs that are familiar and comforting, but we also have new directions for our patrons to explore with us. We hope you find both old and new communities at McLean Community Center.”
Face masks will be mandatory inside The Alden, as they are in the rest of the community center, and to enable proper social distancing, every other row in the auditorium will be blocked off, with at least two empty seats between each party, according to the theater’s website.
All employees, artists, and volunteers will be required to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test from within the past week, and theater workers will undergo regular health screenings.
The Alden is also relaxing its refund policy, allowing patrons to get their money back for a show until curtain time, so that people will feel free to stay home if they feel sick.
Here is the full lineup of performances for this fall from MCC’s news release, issued Tuesday (Sept. 28):
The Okee Dokee Brothers
Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 16-17, 1 p.m. & 4 p.m.
$20/$15 MCC district residents
As the GRAMMY-winning Okee Dokee Brothers, Justin Lansing and Joe Mailander, have built a plaid-shirted national following with their outdoor adventure-themed albums, “Through The Woods,” “Can You Canoe?” and “Winterland.” But whether it’s indoors or out, the Okee Dokee Brothers believe that as long as folks are singing together there’s a glimpse of hope for our world.The Borisevich Duo
Sunday, Oct. 24, 2 p.m.
$10/$5 MCC district residents
The Borisevich Duo, featuring pianist Margarita Loukachkina and violinist Nikita Borisevich, is an internationally acclaimed violin and piano duet, frequently performing across the United States and Europe.Native American Fusion Music with D’DAT (Virtual Workshop)
Wednesday, Nov. 3, 7 p.m.
Free Admission. Registration is required.
Learn more about the composition process and culture before D’DAT’s performance in The Alden this January. D’DAT’s music mixes three American art forms–jazz, native southwest and hip-hop styles–to create a sound that is uniquely theirs. This is a great opportunity for musicians of all ages to learn directly from the artists and ask questions.“Joy to the World: A Christmas Musical Journey” with Damien Sneed
Wednesday, Dec. 1, 7 p.m.
$30/$20 MCC district residents
Award-winning, multi-genre recording artist and instrumentalist Damien Sneed is a pianist, vocalist, organist, composer, conductor, arranger, producer and arts educator whose work spans multiple genres. “Joy to the World” takes the listener through Damien Sneed’s original arrangements of gospel, jazz and classical favorites.A Klezmer Hanukkah with Alexandria Kleztet
Saturday, Dec. 11, 7 p.m.
$20/$15 MCC district residents
Hanukkah comes early this year, but the Alexandria Kleztet keeps the party going with festive Klezmer tunes and a little jazz thrown in. Chag Sameach!Pilobolus “Come to Your Senses”
Sunday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m.
$40/$30 MCC district residents
Pilobolus invites you to “Come to Your Senses!” Engage with childlike wonder in the miracle of your senses through both classic and brand-new repertory that begins by examining our biology and ends by utilizing the senses in a refreshing immersion in the biosphere.
Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased online or by contacting Alden Patron Services Manager Evelyn Hill at [email protected] or 571-296-8385.
While the auditorium has been closed, The Alden hasn’t been entirely out of commission during the pandemic. The theater staged two “Drive-Thru Drama” productions last summer, where audiences watched actors perform from their vehicles like they would for a drive-in movie screening.
The Alden has also hosted some online and smaller in-person events, including yesterday’s “123 Andres” performance.
MCC says The Alden will continue its new season with additional performances “centered on recovery, re-imagining, reaffirming, and reconnecting with each other” in the coming winter and spring.
