After three months of work, a bare wall behind the Vienna Shopping Center has been turned into a sweeping mural depicting the Tysons skyline and other prominent locations throughout the region.

The project was led by artists Eleanor Doughty, a Vienna native who now lives in Seattle, and Emily Herr, who lives in Richmond. Students from the nearby James Madison High School also lent a hand over a weekend in November.

The project was funded by Rappaport, owners of the shopping center at 180 Maple Avenue. The mural can be viewed at the end of Cottage Street.

The mural is complete at Vienna Shopping Center, showcasing the DC Metro sites like the cityscapes of Arlington, DC, and Tysons.

Check it out on your lunch break when you are visiting your favorite dining spots, like @TacoBamba, @panerabread, or @cava. #murals #art pic.twitter.com/TOyRKXTSdr

— Rappaport (@RappaportCRE) January 14, 2019

It’s not as high profile as Clemente Development Company’s The View development planned for the Spring Hill Metro area, but the nearby Evolution development could be exciting for affordable housing advocates.

According to the application overview, the building would include 1,400 multi-family units in a high-rise building. All of the housing in the building would be workforce dwelling units — defined by Fairfax County as housing affordable to people making from 70 to 100 percent of the area median income.

The contact phone number listed for the project is inactive, but the housing is likely part of a requirement from Fairfax County that residential developments set aside 14 percent of units in a residential development as affordable, or 16 percent if the units are being constructed off-site.

According to Fairfax County Public School documents, the new building could add as many as 157 students to Spring Hill Elementary School.

Details on the project are still scarce. The application was submitted in late 2017, but staff at Fairfax County Planning and Zoning say little progress has been made since then, as the developer remains mostly focused on The View.

Photo via Fairfax County Planning and Zoning

A burst pipe has closed a handful of stores in Tysons Corner Center mall.

Around 11 a.m., water spilled into stores in the Nordstrom wing of the mall. The Aveda and White House Black Market both faced substantial water accumulation and were evacuated.

Frozen pipes, and subsequent bursts, are a common hazard of sudden temperature drops.

Janitorial staff are currently on scene cleaning the flooded areas, but an employee at Aveda said there store is likely to be closed for the remainder of the day. The damage to the stores has not yet been determined.

At one point, a delivery person came along with boxes of merchandise and asked whether or not to drop it off inside. The employee shrugged and pointed to the flooded store.

It’s extremely cold outside, and the Fairfax County Animal Shelter has some advice for pet owners over the news few days of the Polar Vortex.

One of the most urgent warnings is to keep animals away from all of the types of dangerous chemicals that might be around to try to deal with the snow.

According to the shelter:

– If it’s too cold outside for you, it’s probably too cold for your pets, too. Pets left outside in frigid temperatures can freeze or wander away due to disorientation. Please bring your pets indoors!
– For free-roaming community cats, you can provide straw-filled shelters to give them a protected place to get warm.
– After walks, make sure to towel dry your dog, and wipe their paws and in between their toes to remove ice, snow, and salt. Keep antifreeze away from all animals!

If a pet is found outside in frigid temperatures, Animal Protection Police can be contacted at 703-691-2131.

As cold weather sets in, Fairfax County Animal Control urged residents to be mindful of warm areas around their house that wild animals can seek shelter in. Sgt. Alena Swartz, Animal Control Officer for Fairfax County, said conflicts can happen when wild animals come too close to homes.

While the types of animals are unlikely to change, Swartz noted that residents are still likely to see foxes, raccoons or coyotes throughout the winter.

Courtesy photo

(Updated 2 p.m.) Police are still looking for two men who broke into a home in the Courthouse Station neighborhood in Tysons around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday (Jan. 29).

According to a crime report:

The victim was at home when he heard several loud noises followed by glass breaking. The victim remained in an upstairs bedroom and saw two males running from his home just prior to police arrival. One was described as wearing a black fleece, black pants and a grey cap.

According to the report, an investigation after the fact revealed that several items of jewelry had been stolen.

Photos via Google Maps

More than 5,000 Dominion customers are without power in the Falls Church area on the coldest morning of the season so far.

Dominion reports that some 4,000 customers are without power in Fairfax County and nearly 1,800 are without power in the City of Falls Church. The cause is listed as a “damaged power line” and restoration efforts may stretch into the afternoon.

Via Twitter, the city said it had deployed generators to key intersections where traffic signals were dark. It encouraged residents who did not have heat to take shelter at local libraries or community centers, while also encouraging residents to check on vulnerable neighbors.

POWER OUTAGES THURSDAY AT 8AM :: @DomEnergyVA reports a number of power outages in the City. We are deploying generators to a number of traffic signals; please pay attention and be cautious.

Report power outages to Dominion on their website or 866-366-4357. pic.twitter.com/iAAbPScjCV

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) January 31, 2019

FCPS on Two-Hour Delay — Fairfax County Public Schools are opening today on a two-hour delay due to dangerous cold and potentially hazardous travel on local roads. [Reston Now]

Metro Delays This Morning — Expect some delays if riding Metrorail this morning, in part due to fewer trains running amid the bitter cold. [Twitter]

Vienna Businesses Want More Economic Development — “Vienna’s business environment flourished in 2017 but weakened noticeably last year, highlighting the town’s need to hire a specialist to improve its commercial prospects, according to the 2018 annual report submitted by the Town/Business Liaison Committee (TBLC).” [InsideNova]

As Tysons grows, it’s going to need access to medical care.

The Reston Hospital Center has an application, initially filed in late 2017 and still listed as “under staff review,” to build a freestanding emergency department at 2000 Old Gallows Road in Tysons.

“As Tysons continues to develop with additional office buildings and homes, it is essential that convenient and accessible health care services are available to meet the increasing need,” Reston Hospital Center, LLC, wrote in the application.

The emergency department would be located southwest of the Leesburg Pike-Beltway interchange. The proposed site is a triangular lot that closely abuts a residential development, which presents a number of development challenges.

The site is currently overgrown with foliage but was approved in 2002 to be developed as a drive-through bank. The application indicates that while the hospital would have a larger floor area, it would generate less peak hour and daily vehicle traffic than the drive-through bank.

“It will provide hospital-level emergency care in a convenient and accessible location and will be operated 24 hours per day,” according to the application. “Despite its capabilities and accessibility, the [freestanding emergency department] will accommodate far less patients than a typical emergency department operating within a hospital, allowing patients to receive necessary treatment quickly and efficiently.”

Though the facility would operate for 24-hours per day, patients would not stay overnight. The application notes that patients admitted to the building would be treated and discharged within hours of their admission or would be transferred to a hospital for higher levels of care.

HCA, Inc., which owns the Reston Hospital Center, operates a number of freestanding emergency departments across the country.

The application says that most patients visit these types of freestanding emergency departments between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. and that an average of two patients are transported to the facilities via ambulance per day.

The growing need for emergency services in Tysons also prompted plans for a new fire station in Tysons East.

Image via Fairfax County Department of Planning and Zoning

One of the “guiding principals” of the Tysons Comprehensive Plan is a reduction of surface parking and moving vehicles through Tysons to drive pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

But at Bisnow’s Tysons State of the Market event last week, local developers said that utopian plan isn’t really shaping up the way it’s designed.

Brian Tucker, managing director for JLL, said changes in how space is filled in office developments has impacted local parking more than the comprehensive plan accounted for.

Despite ridership of the Metro increasing in Tysons, Tucker said parking supplied by new developments isn’t keeping pace with the demand for parking. According to Tucker:

“There was a time going back when we couldn’t give parking away. With the coming of the Metro, we all assumed things were going to continue on that trend. But it didn’t turn out that way. As buildings got developed, there were changes in terms of how people used their space. Floors became much more dense, and we had 30 percent more people on a floor than we had years ago.”

If you’ve found it difficult to find parking in Tysons, that’s by design. Where many localities have parking minimums for development, in Tysons, offices located near Metro stations have parking maximums. According to the plan:

“Office uses located between 1/8 and 1/4 mile of a station have a maximum parking ratio of 2.0 spaces per 1,000 square feet of office, while those located between 1/4 and 1/2 mile have a ratio of 2.2 per 1,000.”

The comprehensive plan lists a number of strategies to wean Tysonians off their cars — including adding transit infrastructure and encouraging teleworking — but the plan also calls for a reduction over time in the ratio of parking spaces to the commercial floor area.

A chart in the comprehensive plan shows a scale of vehicle trip reduction goals connected to the amount of gross square feet of development in Tysons.

According to the plan:

In the past, each development was required to provide parking for its own peak demand, an approach that often leads to excess parking supply and a wasted uses of resources. In 2015, the Tysons Parking Study estimated that Tysons had 110,000 parking spaces. This amount of parking far exceeds what is necessary.

The comprehensive plan calls for parking in Tysons not to be supplied for individual use but regarded as a common resource for multiple uses.

But Tucker says those maximums are concerning to real estate developers.

“Real estate people would say ‘we know Metro is here and all the millennials are supposed to take it, but we’re scared to death [of limited parking],'” said Tucker. “We need a mechanism to bridge us to the date when people actually will be taking the Metro by allowing people the opportunity to park and wean people off of their car.”

Donna Schafer, managing director for Cityline Partners, said the vision of a car-free Tysons is going to take time to implement and more flexibility should be offered to offer temporary parking options, like “throwaway parking decks.” According to the Tysons Annual Report, a 711-space interim commuter lot was built in 2014. A stury of this lot in 2018 found that 558 of the spaces were filled on an average weekday.

Mark Carrol, executive vice president of Skanska Commercial Development, said driving around Tysons is part of the area’s DNA.

“The accessibility by car was part of the initial appeal,” said Carrol. “Some of the planning that went into place to try to change that, but it feels like we’re at the stage in Tysons where the behavior hasn’t changed.”

(Updated at 4:50 p.m.) The westbound lanes of W. Broad Street in the City of Falls Church were closed Wednesday afternoon due to a crash.

Both westbound lanes and one eastbound lane of W. Broad Street were closed between Oak and Spring streets, according to the city. The lanes reopened prior to 3:30 p.m.

The crash involved two vehicles, one of which flipped on its side. One female vehicle occupant was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, we’re told.

UPDATE: Both westbound lanes are closed as well as one eastbound lane. https://t.co/PKmnbcmCGV

— City of Falls Church (@FallsChurchGov) January 30, 2019