Freddie Mac Expanding Tysons Footprint — “The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. has signed a full-building lease at 1550 Westbranch Drive, a six-story building Rubenstein Partners and Griffith Properties bought for $27.75 million in 2015, according to sources familiar with the deal.” [Washington Business Journal]
Hunter Mill Democrats Focus on Vienna — “Five candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Hunter Mill District supervisor tried to differentiate themselves May 15 at a debate in Vienna… Several candidates said public officials should listen to residents’ concerns, a topic fresh on the minds of Vienna voters who on May 7 ousted a Town Council incumbent and voted in two development critics.” [Inside NoVa]
Vienna Crafter Makes Wigs for Cancer-Fighting Kids — Janet O’Grady, a crafter from Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna, helps knit Disney-inspired wigs for The Magic Yarn Project, which is based in Alaska. Kids fighting cancer receive the wigs for free. [The Arlington Catholic Herald]
Firefighters Mow Man’s Lawn in Vienna — Firefighters and medics responded to a report of a man feeling ill while mowing the lawn. After the medics took him to a nearby hospital, the firefighters “saw mowing not done so they finished up so he would not have to worry about it upon return home.” [Fairfax Fire and Rescue/Twitter]
Langley Student’s STEM Project Lauded — “Hana Abouelenein, a sophomore at Langley High School, has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the AAUW McLean area branch’s STEM Excellence Award, presented to a female student or team from a high school in the McLean area with an outstanding project in the field of Engineering presented at the Fairfax County Regional Science Fair.” [Inside NoVa]
Pool Party Season Almost Here — With Memorial Day weekend coming up, Patch has a list of when pools in the McLean area are open during the day. [McLean Patch]
A mom told Vienna police that a man recorded her young son in the bathroom at Whole Foods (143 E. Maple Avenue).
The incident was reported last Thursday, May 9, around 4:55 p.m.
“A citizen reported that her 9-year-old son was in a stall in the men’s restroom when a man reached over the stall with his cell phone and began to record him,” the police report said.
The boy then left the bathroom and immediately told his mom what happened, according to the report.
Photo via Facebook
Hot off the launch of a new Vienna location, Fairfax-based Virginia Tire and Auto recently announced a new location in Tysons.
The car repair shop is set to open in the former Merchant’s Tire and Auto Centers at 2055 Chain Bridge Road, across the street from Tysons’ Toilet Bowl building.
Noelle Malley, a spokesperson for the chain, said the Tysons location is expected to open in fall 2019 and will provide 20 new jobs.
The franchise first opened in 1976 and expanded outside of Northern Virginia for the first time with a new Richmond location.
Virginia Tire and Auto also announced that a new location in Herndon will open this fall.
Photo via Google Maps
Poki DC will soon add another veg-friendly eatery option in Tysons Corner Center.
Inspired by Hawaiian cuisine, Poki DC offers build-your-own bowls and mochi at three locations in both D.C. and Maryland.
The website for the D.C.-based eatery says that it is “coming soon in 2019” to Tysons Corner Center. A recent building permit indicates that work is getting done on the new location.
The mall has another poke place — Pokéworks — on the first level next to the now-vacant Sweet Leaf spot.
In addition to Poki DC, the mall plans to welcome a new Falafel Inc. — a D.C. based restaurant that donates a percentage of its profits to support refugees — into Mixing Bowl’s former spot.
Photo via Facebook
Students from a high school in the Town of Vienna plan to walk 50 miles to Baltimore as part of a humanitarian fundraising effort.
Students from the James Madison High School will walk to help Team World Vision, a fundraising program for the humanitarian organization World Vision, provide clean water to communities in Africa.
The students and their supporters are set to start the trek tomorrow (Saturday) at 4 a.m. Google Maps estimates that the walk could take between 17-19 hours.
The group already hit its initial fundraising goal of $5,000 and now wants to see how much more money it can raise. Donations can be made to the team or to an individual.
Map via Google Maps
After 32,000 student trips, the free Metrobus pilot program at Justice High School in Falls Church could be expanding to Marshall High School in Tysons.
Students across the county can use the Fairfax Connector and City of Fairfax CUE bus for free, and students account for 1.4 million trips on those buses in less than 4 years, but the passes have not been usable on the Metro system.
Over the last eight months, 35 percent of students at Justice High School have gotten a Metrobus-enabled student bus pass. Students at the school account for 3,500-4,000 trips per month.
Nearly half of the ridership among Justice High School students was on Metrobus Route 28A, which runs along Route 7 from King Street in Alexandria to Tysons.
Of students surveyed as part of the pilot, 70 percent had never ridden a Metrobus to or from school and 52 percent said they would not ride unless it was free. The majority of students said they also wanted to see more routes, extended hours and Metrorail service added.
The top three uses for the pass were traveling home or to activity centers — Tysons specifically — or to an after-school job.
At a Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Transportation Committee meeting on Tuesday (May 14), faculty and students from Justice High School told the committee about their experiences with the program as the committee considered an expansion of the pilot.
A similar pilot program is planned for either Marshall High School, Falls Church High School or Annandale High School in the 2020-2021 school year.
“Students take the bus to the mall and the movies, but they also go to work with it,” Justice High School Principal Maria Eck said. “I met with a student on a totally different topic, but he told me he got a better job because of the bus pass. Now he can find a job he can get transportation to, and he’s going up to Tysons to help his family.”
Staff recommended renewing the agreement with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to continue the pilot at Justice High School next year.
“When I first heard about it, I couldn’t believe it,” Carlos Pineda-Lopez, a student at Justice High School, said. “Now, I’m not paying $40 a week for Metro. It’s been amazing. For a family that makes $30,000 with both parents combined, that adds up. Sometimes I couldn’t go to practice or work and that would hurt my family. This bus pass increased my mobility and range of jobs. Now, I can go anywhere in Virginia. That’s how the pass has helped me. It’s helped as a next step towards adulthood.”
Neighbors opposed to a controversial for-profit therapy program got a win from a Fairfax County zoning official’s letter.
A piece of the Newport Academy’s plans to open a facility treating teenagers with mental health or addiction problems in a McLean neighborhood hinged on that facility being a by-right use — a use that won’t require approval by the Board of Supervisors. But local officials are now saying that isn’t the case.
Fairfax County Zoning Administrator Leslie Johnson said in a letter to local residents that the facility is a congregate living facility, which is not permitted as a by-right use at the location.
According to Johnson’s letter, in August 2018 the Newport Academy sent a letter to the Department of Planning and Zoning stating its intent to open two homes — one at 1624 Davidson Road and one at 1318 Kurtz Road — and asked if it could purchase a neighboring house and operate it as a licensed home.
In response, the zoning staff agreed that the buildings would be considered group residential facilities, which are limited to eight residents. The response did not directly answer whether a neighboring home could be used as a licensed home, and the Newport Academy did not contact Fairfax County after it purchased the properties at 1620 and 1622 Davidson Road.
But Johnson said the Newport Academy’s assertion that the homes were separate operations — crucial for qualifying for the eight resident limit — were contradicted by other applications listing the operations as a single program with residents above the limit for the group residential facility classification.
The appearance of the Newport Academy program being a single facility didn’t stop there. Johnson’s letter to the community notes that in April, county staff learned that a 6-foot fence had been built around the facility, “creating the appearance of a completely enclosed facility.”
Johnson’s letter said the supposedly separate facilities were listed as having shared staff, like a security guard and night staff, in both public meetings and other permit applications.”
Event technology company Cvent announced today (Thursday) plans to hire nearly 1,000 employees this year as the company continues to grow.
Based in Tysons by the Greensboro Metro station, Cvent offers software to event planners to help with online event registration, venue selection, event management and attendee engagement.
Many of the new jobs will be in the Tysons headquarters, according to the press release. Other locations around the U.S. and in Canada, England, Australia, Germany, Singapore and India also plan on adding new employees.
In addition to the hiring, Cvent also announced that it will open new office space in Austin, Texas and New Delhi, India and expand in Fredericton, Canada.
The expansion follows a busy year for the company. In 2018, Cvent added 1,000 net employees and more than 5,000 new customers, according to a press release. A few months ago, Cvent added 72,000 square feet of office space to its Tysons headquarters (1765 Greensboro Station Place).
“We hired almost 1,000 people last year and we’re doubling down on our recruiting efforts to ensure we can continue supporting our expanding customer base and delivering the innovations that will drive the industry forward,” Sophia MacDonald, the vice president of human resources for Cvent, said in a press release.
Image via Google Maps
(Updated 10 a.m.) There’s no shortage of luxury housing coming into Tysons, but what about affordable housing?
According to Brian Worthy, a spokesman for Fairfax County, the limited number of affordable units in Tysons are near max occupancy. But with new mid- and high-rise developments required to devote a portion of the new units to affordable housing, Worthy said there are more units on the way:
As of May 15, 2019, there are approximately 536 rental Affordable and Workforce Dwelling Units (ADUs and WDUs) that have been constructed in Tysons. The average occupancy rate is 94 percent.
Currently, there are approximately 3,919 rental ADUs and WDUs that have been committed by developers through Board of Supervisors approved rezoning actions. We don’t currently track the total number of these units that have been proposed as part of unapproved developments in Tysons, but to date, the major, approved rezonings have all committed to provide affordable or workforce dwelling units.
Worthy noted that ADUs serve households with incomes of 50-70 percent of Area Median Income (AMI). Fairfax County documents show that range as $38,600-$54,050 for single-family households, increasing proportionally to the size of the household.
Tysons’ WDUs serve incomes ranging from 60-120 percent of AMI, reflecting the higher cost of living in Tysons as compared to the rest of Fairfax. The WDU program is designed to help working households find housing close to employment centers and transportation options.
Creating housing affordable to locals at all ranges of the income spectrum has been a countywide problem. According to the FY 2020 Fairfax County budget, a total of 3,016 affordable units — privately-owned homes that are not bound by rent restrictions — have been preserved in Fairfax County between 2004 and 2018, but the county fell 82 units short of its affordable housing goals for last year.
The county projects a growth of 62,184 households over the next 15 years, of which 18,622 are expected to earn 80 percent of AMI and below.
Chart via Fairfax County Government
Seven out of the 10 Fairfax County-based companies on this year’s Fortune 500 list are located in or near Tysons.
Fortune released its annual list of the largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. earlier today (May 16). The rankings are based on 2018 revenue.
The Tysons-area companies represent one-third of the 21 companies from Virginia on the list, according to a Fairfax County Economic Development Authority (FCEDA) press release.
“Only a handful of communities can say they are home to 10 Fortune 500 companies,” Catherine Riley, the interim president of FCEDA, said in a press release. “It is an important milestone, a significant recognition of the county as a prime location for corporations from a wide variety of industries looking for the assets and talent they need to grow and succeed.”
The new list includes:
- #40 Freddie Mac (Tysons)
- #92 General Dynamics (Falls Church area)
- #98 Capital One Financial (Tysons)
- #108 Northrop Grumman (Falls Church area)
- #122 DXC Technology (Tysons)
- #345 Hilton Worldwide Holdings (Tysons)
- #475 Booz Allen Hamilton (Tysons)
Leidos Holdings, an information technology company, and home construction company NVR — both based in Reston — made the list, along with Herndon-based Beacon Roofing.
Last year, Fairfax County had nine companies on the list, according to FCEDA. The company that made the biggest leap from last year’s list was DXC Technology, which jumped up 252 spots.
“The wide diversity of the industry sectors represented here — everything from our traditional strengths in IT and aerospace to financial services, hospitality and, now, construction materials — shows the value of a Fairfax County headquarters to corporations of all kinds,” Riley said.
