New Falls Church Development — “Founders Row, a future mixed-use development set to bring a major transformation to Falls Church, has broken ground. Mill Creek Residential’s 4.5-acre development will include luxury apartments and retail space at West Broad Street and North West Street. A formal groundbreaking ceremony will happen Monday, March 4.” [Patch]

Vienna Posting More Meetings Online — “The town of Vienna long has posted video recordings of Town Council and Planning Commission meetings, but those who wished to review less-formal work sessions of those bodies were out of luck. That has changed recently, as the town has begun posting on the Web audio recordings of meetings and work sessions of those bodies within 48 hours, said town spokesman Lynne Coan.” [InsideNova]

Vehicle Slams into Vienna ABC Store — “A driver pulled into a parking spot at the Virginia ABC store, 436 Maple Ave., E., on Feb. 12 at 5:30 p.m. and accidentally left his vehicle’s transmission in drive, Vienna police said.” [InsideNova]

A series of closures are planned on and around the Jones Branch Connector this weekend to facilitate more bridge deck work on the bridge.

According to a press release from the Virginia Department of Transportation, the following streets will be closed:

• The southbound 495 express lanes between the Jones Branch Connector off-ramp and the Jones Branch Connector on-ramp
• The eastbound Dulles Toll Road ramp to southbound 495 express lanes
• Eastbound and westbound lanes of the Jones Branch Connector between Jones Branch Drive and the 495 express lanes.

The closures will run from 5 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday) to 4 a.m. on Monday (March 4).

The northbound 495 express lanes ramp will remain an option, but only for drivers turning right towards Route 123 via eastbound Scotts Crossing Drive.

The bridge partially opened in December with final completion planned for fall 2019.

Dominion Energy is rebuilding its substation in Tysons, but will have to design the project around a long-planned ramp connecting downtown Tysons to the Dulles Toll Road.

At a Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 27, the Commission ultimately deferred a decision on the substation to March 13 to address technical details related to the site’s exterior. But while the substation itself is probably of little interest to most Tysonians, if they even spot it behind the dense tree-cover, the conversation at the meeting included plans on building around the station to construct a new connection from Tysons to the Dulles Toll Road.

The “Greensboro Drive Connection” is a proposed ramp that would bypass the substation and connect Tyco Road to the parallel Dulles Toll Road. The new route would include a direct extension to Greensboro Drive, ending west of The Rotunda and just north of The Boro development.

While the project is seen as less costly than other connectivity alternatives and would function as a fairly conventional exit/entrance ramp, county staff also noted that the ramp could potentially load large amounts of traffic onto Tyco Road and would not be bicycle or pedestrian friendly.

But Fairfax County Planning Commission members said the new road could help revitalize Tyco Road, currently a strip-mall type set of retail being outpaced by more Metro-adjacent developments to the west.

During the Planning Commission meeting, staff noted that the potential ramp could be located on either side of the station, though they would closely abut the station.

If the project does move forward, construction likely wouldn’t start until FY 2028.

According to Sheri Aiken, senior land use planner for McGuire Woods, LLC (which is representing Dominion) the existing substation has been in place since the early 1960s but requires an upgrade to handle increased demand from Tysons. Aiken said the rebuilt station will utilize GIS equipment and have an overall more efficient and less cluttered look. The chain link fence around the project is also planned to be replaced with a 12-foot wall.

“This station is critical to the future of Tysons and to the effort put forward by Dominion Energy to work with undergrounding of the line,” said Planning Commission member Phillip Niedzielski-Eichner, who represents the Providence district.

As Tysons office development launches to new heights, America’s “Next Great City” works to catch up with arts programs.

Here are some arts events — predominately concerts and theater showings — showcased by ARTSFAIRFAX around the Tysons area in March.

• Epic Grandeur — Tonight (March 1) at 7:30 in Saint Luke Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike) — The Tysons McLean Orchestra will be performing a mix of Georges Bizet and Johannes Brahms. General admission tickets are $40.
• Thunder Knocking on the Door — Feb. 14 – March 10 at Creative Cauldron (410 S. Maple Ave) — The Creative Cauldron theater group is currently performing the Tony Award-nominated musical about a mysterious Faustian bargain in a small Alabama town. The show runs every weekend with adult admission tickets at $32.
• Olenna — March 7-15 at the Italian Cafe (7161 Lee Highway) — The Providence Players will present the David Mamet 1992 play about two people engaged in a power struggle over a sexual harassment scandal. The play runs approximately 80 minutes and with general admission at $10.
• In Celebration of Life: Mozart and Faure — March 9 at The Falls Church Episcopal Church (115 E. Fairfax Street) — Choralis will present a broad selection of Mozart’s music, from a song written at 18 to one just five months before his death. General admission tickets are $40. Audience members are encouraged to bring unneeded prescription eyeglasses to the concert for donation to the Lions Eyeglass Recycling Center of Northern Virginia.
• Reflections — March 17 at Saint Luke Roman Catholic Church (7001 Georgetown Pike) — The Reston Chorale will present an afternoon of choral and organ arrangements with members of the Piedmont Symphony Orchestra. General admission tickets are currently $25 until March 16. Active duty military can attend for free.
• A Bohemian Life — March 18 at The Falls Church Episcopal (115 E. Fairfax Street) — The Tysons McLean Orchestra will present a collection of musical selections from Central Europe. General admission tickets are $40.
• columbinus — March 28 – April 20 at 1st Stage Theater (1524 Spring Hill Rd.) — Tyson’s 1st Stage theater will present a docudrama following the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. The production is comprised of excerpts from interviews with survivors, parents, and community members. General admission tickets are $39.
• Rachmaninoff: All Night Virgil — March 30 at Church of the Holy Cross (2455 Gallows Road) — VOCE will be presenting an acapella evening of the post-romantic music of Rachmaninoff. A second performance will be held on March 31 at the Church of Holy Comforter in Vienna. Tickets are $25.

In addition to the programming listed above, The Barns at Wolf Trap has extensive programming throughout March.

Photo via Facebook

Vienna police were called to a home on Carole Court SE last Friday after a resident found a dollar bill and then started feeling dizzy.

The incident happened shortly after 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 22.

“A resident advised that she heard a knock at her door,” Vienna PD said in a weekly crime report. “When she answered the door, no one was there, but she found a dollar bill on her driveway. After picking up the dollar bill, the resident felt dizzy. The resident refused medical treatment.”

“The dollar bill was turned over to the property section,” police added.

Photo via Facebook

The old AMT Building at 7901 Westpark Drive has been completely demolished, clearing the way for the new 10-story City View office tower.

City View was announced in 2013 as part of the broader Arbor Row development, which was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2012. The project is just east of Tysons Galleria.

The tower is planned to include 200,000 square feet of office space.

The project’s brochure boasts that the tower will be one block from the Tysons Corner Center Metro station with quick access to the Beltway.

Planned amenities include a rooftop terrace that can accommodate 100 people for events, a fitness center and cafe. The project plans include a garage and surface parking area.

Staff at American Real Estate Partners said they would not comment on the planned completion date for the project.

Vienna’s quarterly Recycling Day is tomorrow (Saturday), so if you’ve been Marie Kondo-ing your home, this is your chance to get rid of your troublesome surplus.

Materials can be taken to Northside Property Yard, located at 600 Mill Street NE, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The service is provided by the Department of Public Works (DPW) to help locals dispose of waste products in a convenient and environmentally friendly way, according to the Town of Vienna website.

Materials that can be collected include:

• Used motor oil
• Antifreeze
• Vehicle and other batteries
• Electronics except “large backside” computers or TVs
• Refrigerators

Hazardous waste products, like insecticides, paint or other chemical products are not accepted for recycling.

Photo via Facebook

There was a lot of heavy sighs and reluctant head shaking from Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) staff at their meeting last night to discuss the bicycle trail planned for I-66, the subject of a fair bit of controversy over the years.

There are 22.5 miles of multimodal improvements planned for I-66, from Gallows Road in Vienna to Centreville. Preliminary construction activity started in December 2017, but Susan Shaw, megaprojects director for VDOT, said construction was about to increase at a noticeable pace.

“We’re at the very beginning of four heavy construction seasons,” said Shaw. “This year, ramping up over what we’ve done in the past.”

Unlike other transportation projects, which start at one end and work towards the other, staff said construction will be occurring at several locations along I-66 simultaneously.

As part of the new improvements, a bicycle trail is planned to run along most of the length of the trail, though Shaw said there were no milestones laid out for the trail’s construction.

“When it’s being constructed, the staging and some of the details are yet to be worked out,” Shaw said. “In terms of the contract, there are no requirements except to have [the trail] in place by the end.”

The packed meeting was held in the Providence Community Center (3001 Vaden Drive) and was hosted by the Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling (FABB). The group of local bicycling advocates is small enough that nearly everyone in the room, from county staff to hardline cycling advocates, knew each other on a first-name basis. More than a few had been on both sides of the public/policy maker divide over the years.

The project attracted some controversy over whether the trail would be located inside or outside the highway’s noise walls, and some of the bicycling advocates grilled VDOT staff over the decision to put the bicycle trail inside the sound wall, separated from the street by a 50-inch high barrier. As someone in the audience brought the argument up again that the trail should be outside the sound barrier, there was a long pause and sigh before Shaw answered.

“People are very concerned, sound or not, that suddenly anybody can be in their back yard,” said Shaw. “It was a compromise to come up to this, but it was a way that we could get the bike trail accomplished. There were many options discussed, but we’re kind of past that now and moving on.”

Along most of the route, the trail will be at a separate elevation from the main street, though the length along the side of the highway between the Dunn Loring and Vienna Metro stations will be at-grade. For most of the trail, there is also an auxiliary lane and full shoulder separating the trail from the street, though it’s narrower in some parts.

“I know that’s not ideal for a pleasant bike-riding experience, but that’s the longest segment like that,” Shaw said. “But there, we’d be taking bits of backyards off of homes in that neighborhoods.”

While VDOT is handling construction for most of the trail, the Fairfax County Park Authority is handling construction where the trail goes through park land and the Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) is handling the stretches of trail where it diverges from I-66.

“There are places where it isn’t physically possible to keep the trail along I-66, so we’ve developed areas called off-corridor pieces,” said Chris Wells, bicycle and pedestrian program manager for FCDOT.

Construction on the off-corridor trails are, in part, funded by developer contributions from projects under construction in Tysons.

One of those areas will be near the Vienna Metro station, where a new shared-use path will take the place of the southernmost lane from the street north of the station. Wells said construction will begin on the off-corridor projects this year with the intent of delivering them around the same time as the other I-66 improvements.

At the western end of the improvements, the trail stops at the entrance to Bull Run Regional Park. Shaw said no funds were identified for the project past that, where the trail also faces complications surrounding environmental and park-related issues with continuing into the battlefield.

Among other concerns raised about the bicycle trail, the trail will not connect directly with the Washington and Old Dominion Trail. Cyclists were happy to hear, though, that new bridges at the Dunn Loring and Vienna Metro stations will help make the trail accessible from the Metro.

Amenities related to the trail were also rather sparse, with no additional lighting planned except where the trail goes through underpasses or culverts under roadways.

One of the biggest topics of consternation was Shaw’s response to inquiries about snow removal on the trail.

“That’s not in our plan,” Shaw said, and when pressed about what will happen to snow piling up on the trail, she shrugged and answered, “It will melt.”

Cindy Engelhart, Northern Virginia district bicycle and pedestrian coordinator for VDOT, said the organization’s policy since 2004 has been that it does not handle snow removal. While Arlington County removes snow from the Custis Trail, Fairfax County currently has no policy regarding its bicycle trails.

“Under a maintenance agreement, we could explore that possibility,” said Engelhart. “If Fairfax County wanted to do something like that, I’m sure we would be interested in talking.”

“It’s easy to notice the compromises and the things that aren’t perfect, like snow removal, but in the end we’re getting a cross-county bicycle facility,” said Wells. “That’s a really good thing. In the end, the intent of both the on-corridor and off-corridor pieces is a new bicycle facility that will serve as an east-west spine, much like the Washington and Old Dominion Trail today.”

Two more meetings are planned to take place in the spring, one near the Vienna Metro station and another at the western end of the project. Among other topics of discussion are whether or not the trail should have a new name.

“The concern was that I-66 has a negative connotation because everyone hates I-66,” said Wells, “but everyone knows where I-66 is and where it’s located. We’re going to be doing sample names and present those at a future meeting.”

Map via VDOT

At 6 p.m. last night, Fairfax County Public Schools announced that schools would open on a two hour delay today, due to expected snow.

Based on the winter weather advisory in effect overnight, all Fairfax County public schools will open two hours late tomorrow, March 1, 2019 (Cond 3B). School offices and central offices will open on time. SACC opens at 8:00 am

— Fairfax Schools 🌟 (@fcpsnews) February 28, 2019

As of this morning, however, roads and sidewalks around the county were mostly wet, with some slick spots, while grassy areas had a coating of snow. Yesterday’s forecasts called for anything from no snow to 2 inches.

Given what was known last night, do you think FCPS made the right call?

Tonight’s weather might be ugly, but anyone hoping for another snow day might be out of luck.

The National Weather Service is forecasting a possible one to two inches of snow in the Tysons area from 7 p.m. tonight (Thursday) through 1 p.m. tomorrow (Friday).

NWS has issued a Winter Weather Advisory for the area:

…WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM EST FRIDAY… * WHAT…SNOW AND SLEET EXPECTED. TOTAL SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS OF 1 TO 3 INCHES EXPECTED. * WHERE…THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN MARYLAND AND NORTHERN AND NORTHWEST VIRGINIA. * WHEN…FROM 10 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM EST FRIDAY. A BRIEF PERIOD OF MODERATE TO HEAVY SNOW MAY OCCUR BETWEEN 2 AM AND 6 AM. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS…PLAN ON SLIPPERY ROAD CONDITIONS. THE HAZARDOUS CONDITIONS COULD IMPACT THE MORNING COMMUTE. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS… A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW, SLEET OR FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. EXPECT SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES, AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING. WHEN VENTURING OUTSIDE, WATCH YOUR FIRST FEW STEPS TAKEN ON STEPS, SIDEWALKS, AND DRIVEWAYS, WHICH COULD BE ICY AND SLIPPERY, INCREASING YOUR RISK OF A FALL AND INJURY. &&

The Virginia Department of Transportation said on Twitter that it will be spot-brining hotspots — including bridges, ramps, and overpasses — and commuters should plan to adjust travel times or telework.

Citing an “abundance of caution,” tomorrow’s planned Vesper Trail ribbon-cutting event is cancelled and will be rescheduled.

Here are some additional details for the expected winter weather moving into our region tonight into Friday morning. pic.twitter.com/ecluXqXZv8

— NWS Baltimore-Washington (@NWS_BaltWash) February 28, 2019