Tysons Biergarten is giving locals what may be their last opportunity to order beers from Michigan-based Bell’s Brewery, which recently stopped shipping to Virginia.
The Richard Times-Dispatch reported that the Michigan-based brewery’s departure from the Virginia market stems partly from an unresolved distribution dispute.
Bell’s Brewery, the 16th-largest brewery in the country and the seventh-largest craft brewery, announced on Feb. 1 that it would stop shipping its beer to the entire state after ceasing shipments to the Richmond-area market in December, according to the Times-Dispatch.
The final farewell to the brewery started at 11 a.m. today (Friday, March 15) at the Tysons Biergarten (8346 Leesburg Pike). The event goes until 2 a.m. Saturday.
Here’s what you can order:
- Bell’s Amber
- Flamingo Fruit Fight
- Hopslam
- Lager of Lakes
- Bell’s 2 Hearted Ale
- Expedition Stout
- Kalamazoo Stout
Locals are encouraged to register for the free event.
Photo via Facebook
The Fairfax County Planning Commission moved forward a plan for a new mixed-use residential and commercial development called Hanover Tysons in northern Tysons at its meeting last night (March 14).
The Hanover Company’s plan is to demolish the vacant seven-story office building that was built in 1983 and replace it with a new residential development.
The new residential building would be between five to seven stories with up to 420 dwelling units and include ground-level retail and nearby park space.
In keeping with Fairfax County’s efforts to promote more affordable housing around Tysons, workforce housing will make up 20 percent of the total units, according to the staff report.
Located just west of Jones Branch Park at 1500 Westbranch Drive, Hanover Tysons is a little under one mile from the Tysons Corner Station.
The county’s Board of Supervisors is set to take up the proposal with a public hearing next Tuesday (March 19).
Photo via The Hanover Company
Planning to wear the green and drink the beer on Sunday? If so, there are plenty of options for doing just that around the Tysons area.
Just about any bar you walk into on St. Patrick’s Day will have some craic and a ready bottle of Jameson. But to have a proper pint of Guinness poured you may have to fight the crowds at one the area’s Irish bars.
Here is what’s happening at Paddy Barry’s Irish Pub (8150 Leesburg Pike, Tysons), the Old Brogue Irish Pub (760-C Walker Rd, Great Falls) and Ireland’s Four Provinces (105 W Broad St, Falls Church).
https://www.facebook.com/paddybarrysva/photos/pcb.2065384833496659/2065383950163414
https://www.facebook.com/oldbrogue/photos/a.564417980244221/2409569632395704
https://www.facebook.com/IrelandsFourProvinces/photos/a.683014831724913/2638902702802773
Want to go further afield? There are a number of other nearby options in Arlington, Reston and Herndon. Also, Dulles Moms has a listing of more family-friendly activities around the area.
Sláinte!
Photo via Facebook
The Fairfax County Police Department wants to roll out a new, urban-style service model that police leaders believe will help scale back crime as Tysons continues to grow.
“We have a whole new idea for how to police Tysons,” Major Bob Blakely told the county’s Planning Commission at last night’s Capital Improvement Program presentations.
Blakely said that the police department is hoping to add a new police station close to Tysons’ “main arteries.” He said police expect to receive land for the facility and construction assistance from a local developer, in an arrangement commonly known as a “proffer,” exchanging approval of a development for a public facility.
Unlike a traditional police station, the one for Tysons would serve as a “walk-up type facility” with reduced hours of operation, Blakely said.
Police would also have unique options to get around Tysons. “We’re trying to remove the idea of these big cruisers trying to get through traffic,” he said.
Instead of police cars, police would rely on segways, scooters and smaller vehicles to move around without getting stuck in the congestion.
Planning Commissioner Phillip Niedzielski-Eichner called the new Tysons policing proposal a “relevant, urgent need.” In response to Niedzielski-Eichner’s question about timing, Blakely said he’d rather see it sooner rather than later.
“When we look at the statistics, it shows we need to get ahead of the curve instead of behind it,” Blakely said.
Ultimately, Blakely stressed that pairing new technologies and innovations with the urban environment will help police respond faster and provide better service to the community.
The crossing of Chain Bridge Road and Leesburg Pike — where Mr. Tyson’s fruit stand stood eighty years ago — could soon see some major changes.
Right now, that intersection is an elevated partial cloverleaf interchange, the way it’s been since at least 1980. But it could become a new kind of intersection and a new kind of public space.
A few years ago, Tad Borkowski of the Fairfax County Department of Transportation was assigned to study the possibility of widening Leesburg Pike (Route 7). He found that the existing interchange would prevent that from ever happening: the tunnel under Chain Bridge Road (Route 123) was too narrow to ever accommodate a wider passage, he told Tysons Reporter.
The interchange had another problem, too. It wasn’t in its natural environment. It had been constructed for a much more rural place — at the time, most of the area considered today to lie within Tysons’ eight districts was still forest.
Now, Tysons has urbanized. Routes 7 and 123, which were once freeways, have been bogged down in a series of traffic light intersections on all sides of the interchange. The traffic bottleneck is no longer that crossing; now, it’s the rest of Tysons.
That means that the traffic efficiency gained by a partial cloverleaf is pretty much lost anyway — it doesn’t do anyone any good to cruise through the interchange when they just hit a red light at International Drive right afterward.
Also, as Tysons urbanized, land became much more valuable. In the 1970s, that land was cheap to build ramps on. Now it has higher and better uses.
Burkowski’s office has started to look into improved set-ups for the intersection. Specifically, they’ve focused on two possibilities — a “two-quadrant” option and a “continuous flow intersection” (CFI) option. There are some technical differences between the two, but they both amount to the same basic idea. They both give drivers a way to take left turns without blocking oncoming traffic, which dramatically increases throughput. This YouTube video gives a quick, intuitive explanation.
Burkowski examined both possibilities for the intersection under simulated conditions for the year 2050, assuming a denser grid of surrounding streets (this dense, urban grid is a critical element of the Tysons Comprehensive Plan) and increased numbers of vehicles — but not considering the possible effects of autonomous vehicles.
Both options provided very similar traffic throughput results. Both options also provide opportunities for constructing a bus rapid transit line along Route 7 through the intersection, in keeping with ongoing plans.
The two-quadrant approach takes up a wider space — though still smaller than the existing interchange — but offers some advantages in pedestrian safety by allowing people to cross the intersection step-by-step.
As Tysons becomes more and more dense, pedestrian mobility is increasingly valuable. Burkowski, though, is confident: “We don’t want to mix pedestrians and cars at all.”
First, at speeds like those on these major arteries, the road simply is never a safe place for a human body. Second, including a pedestrian phase in the traffic signals would slow car throughput to unacceptable levels. Finally, third — there is an alternative.
The Fairfax DOT is considering the concept of building pedestrian space over the new intersection. Because there won’t be any vehicle ramps, cars will stay at ground level – letting pedestrians take the air above them.
This pedestrian space could be a lot more than just a bridge. Prioritizing connectivity, it could be a cap, reaching all across the intersection and converting it into park space – even into a kind of “central park” for Tysons. It could also be a series of bridges with an elevated central plaza, connecting not only to the four corners of the intersection but also directly to the Greensboro Metro station only 800 feet away.
The goals are ambitious. The Fairfax DOT’s first stated goal is to “create Tysons’ focal point,” bringing a sense of civic centrality to a place that has never quite had one.
The Tysons Urban Design Guidelines, though, have a different vision for these thoroughfares, which it envisions as boulevards, saying “above-grade skybridges or below-grade pedestrian tunnels are strongly discouraged as they detract from the vibrancy of the streetscape.” Even with the elevated plaza concept, though, Fairfax DOT would prioritize “connect[ing] ground floor spaces with programmed open spaces.”
Borkowski ended a conversation with Tysons Reporter with the reminder: “This is all very high-level, and nothing has been designed yet.”
Many, many details have not yet been considered, and the possibilities in this article are still nothing more than that: possibilities. Still, the Fairfax DOT does intend to narrow down its options and to move forward in meetings with the Tysons Partnership and other stakeholders within a year.
Tysons Corner Center plans to welcome two newcomers — a 7-Eleven on the first level and an Italian legwear store one flight up.
Calzedonia Italian Legwear & Beachwear, an Italian fashion brand that sells socks, leggings and beachwear, will sit directly across from Lord & Taylor. The sign covering the storefront also says that Intimissimi, which is also a part of the Calzedonia family, will bring Italian lingerie.
On the first level, 7-Eleven is coming to a spot next to GNC Live Well, a health product store, across from the Gap and H&M. While this reporter did not see any signs, the mall’s website says that the convenience store chain is “coming soon.” The space was once home to a Starbucks.
The two stores join a growing list of newcomers, including Arabian Oud, a luxury perfume store, and Morphe Cosmetics.
Tysons Reporter previously noted that two stores on the second level — Aldo and Francesca’s — will have new locations on the first level.
There’s no word yet on specific opening dates for either of the two stores.
Fairfax County fire investigators are trying to identify a woman seen lighting a trash can on fire in Tysons early Monday morning.
Authorities say the woman tried several times to start a fire in the garbage can before finally succeeding at starting a small trash fire. It happened around 3:40 a.m. outside of an office building at 8065 Leesburg Pike, near the Chef Geoff’s restaurant in Tysons.
More from the Fairfax County Fire Department:
Fire investigators are asking for the public’s help identifying a person of interest in a recent fire.
On March 11, at approximately 3:40 a.m., a woman ignited the contents of a trash can in front of 8065 Leesburg Pike in the Tysons area of Fairfax County. It took her several attempts to start the fire.
The person of interest is a female who was last seen wearing black pants, grey hooded pullover, black sneakers, carrying a large black shoulder bag, shoulder length hair and dark framed glasses.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Investigator John Sherwood at (703) 246-4801 or [email protected].
(Updated at 12:05 p.m.) Firefighters are on the scene of an extinguished penthouse fire that has some smoke wafting into Tysons Corner Center.
Fairfax County Fire and Rescue tweeted at 11:11 a.m. today (March 14) that the fire broke out on the roof area of a penthouse at 7950 Tysons Corner Center.
“Some minor smoke in mall that was picked up by air handler,” according to the tweet.
Units are on scene of 7950 Tysons Corner Center. There was a fire in penthouse area of roof. Fire is out. No extension. Some minor smoke in mall that was picked up by air handler. Crews working to remove. #FCFRD #FairfaxCounty pic.twitter.com/CZnCwggjQk
— Fairfax County Fire/Rescue (@ffxfirerescue) March 14, 2019
Image via Google Maps
Starbucks is joining Barnes & Noble at the bookstore giant’s upcoming Mosaic District spot.
The Barnes and Noble will soon have an 8,630-square-f00t-corner spot at 2921 District Ave — a substantially smaller space than a typical store.
Signs in the storefront windows say that the store is “coming soon.” It appears from the signs that Starbucks will have a home inside the scaled-down book store.
At last check, shoppers were told to expect a June opening.
The MacMillan Whisky Room is set to bring a high-end neighborhood bar offering international whiskies to the Mosaic District at the beginning of May.
Derek Anderson, who co-owns the bar along with his wife Emma Hand, told Tysons Reporter that they have seen construction move along quickly since they received their permits on Jan. 30.
Construction updates on the restaurant and bar’s Facebook page celebrated the recently built bar and drywall. Anderson said the contractor expects the work finalized by mid-April.
“If our schedule holds, we anticipate a week or two soft opening and then a big weekend grand opening between Friday, May 3, and Cinco de Mayo,” Anderson said.
Along with a variety of whiskies, scotches, vodkas and other liquors, the MacMillan Whisky Room (2920 District Ave) plans to serve burgers along with classic British bar fare like scotch eggs, fish and chips and other dishes.
After opening, Anderson said that the Kentucky Derby on May 4 is the next big event to look forward to with the “big hats and bigger mint juleps.”
A sign in the storefront window says that the MacMillan Whisky Room is hiring bartenders, servers, kitchen staff and supervisors.
Last two photos via Facebook
