Almost three years after The Boro broke ground, the Rise and Bolden buildings in Meridian Group’s 1.7 million-square-foot development are now leasing.
The two luxury apartment buildings are set to open later this summer, according to a press release from Meridian Group.
The 32-stories-tall Rise has more than 400 apartments, while Bolden, which will sit atop the Whole Foods Market, offers 133 “boutique residences,” according to the press release.
Both Rise and Bolden include a fitness center, yoga studio, an entertainment kitchen and club and a pool with a lounging area. They share an elevated outdoor sky park with a theater and bar area, fire pits and lounges, according to the press release.
The apartments appear to start at $2,400 for ones with one bedroom and one bathroom.
Meridian teamed up with McLean-based management company KETTLER ahead of the pre-leasing announcement.
Images courtesy Meridian Group
(Updated at 3:20 p.m. on 6/7/19) Wetzel’s Pretzels is no longer serving up pretzels in the lower level of Tysons Corner Center.
The pretzel chain’s website no longer lists the Tysons location, and the mall directory is now missing Wetzel’s Pretzels.
Tysons Reporter has not heard back from mall operator Macerich on when the pretzel place closed.
The food court area has two other vacancies.
The local Korean eatery Mixing Bowl and the local branch of the organic salad chain Sweet Leaf Cafe both had closed up in early May. Falafel Inc., a D.C. based restaurant, will fill Mixing Bowl’s former spot.
No word yet on what will replace Wetzel’s Pretzels.
New plans are on the way to fix traffic on the Dolley Madison Corridor between Tysons and McLean.
The Fairfax County Department of Transportation (FCDOT) and Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust are planning a meeting next Thursday (June 13) at 7 p.m. in the McLean Community Center (1234 Ingleside Avenue) to discuss the new “Dolley Madison Corridor Study.” According to the meeting description:
The purpose of the study is to analyze Dolley Madison Boulevard between the Dulles Toll Road and Old Dominion Drive and recommend solutions to improve traffic conditions. The team will present a variety of options with traffic model analysis and is looking for feedback from the public on the short-term and long-term improvements presented.
A Fairfax County Transportation status report from February said that four local intersections are being evaluated to understand how changes to one impact the others.
- Dolley Madison Boulevard, Great Falls Street and Lewinsville Road intersection
- Dolley Madison Boulevard and Old Dominion Drive intersection
- Great Falls Street and Chain Bridge Road intersection
- Balls Hill Road and Lewinsville Road intersection
Robin Geiger, head of communications for FCDOT, also said the intersections of Dolley Madison Boulevard and Ingleside Avenue and the intersection of Old Dominion Drive and Ingleside Avenue are being considered. Geiger said staff evaluated short term solutions that could be implemented to benefit traffic over the next 10 years.
The status report noted that FCDOT staff presented scenarios to Foust’s office and they were asked to look at more long-term solutions as well. Geiger said FCDOT are considering longer-term solutions for the Great Falls Street/Lewinsville Road intersection with Dolley Madison Boulevard near Tysons and the intersection with Old Dominion Drive.
The specific solutions being proposed are not presently available, but Geiger said a website for the project is planned to be launched soon and community feedback will be gathered at the June 13 meeting.
Updated 4 p.m. — All Star Comic Con — a comic convention held at the Sheraton Tysons Hotel (8661 Leesburg Pike) — is coming back this weekend for its second year.
It’s not exactly Hall H of San Diego Comic-Con, but there are some big names coming to town, and like last year, plenty of other activities are scheduled.
The convention is set for June 8 and 9. Tickets are $35 for a two-day pass or $99 for a pass with “front of the line privileges” and admission to an evening gala.
While many conventions today have swung more toward general pop culture, co-founder Michael McNutt told Tysons Reporter All-Star very much goes back to the roots of comic conventions with a focus on comic books. Two of the biggest names at the convention this year are Tom King, a D.C. area local who won the Eisner Award last year for best writer, and Gail Simone, a writer with a long body of work at Marvel and DC comics.
“Last year, we tried to hit all points,” McNutt said. “You stretch yourself out and end up being a B-student because you spread out. We wanted to focus on comic books this year.”
While there was a smattering of gaming aspects at the convention last year, McNutt said he’s worked to double down on that this year and implement more gaming media into the convention.
If last year was any indication, cosplay will play a big part in this year’s convention, especially with Saturday night’s cosplay competition.
“We want people walking out of there embracing new fandoms,” McNutt said. “It’s all brand new to me… Cosplay was one thing in the last year I’ve gotten more and more into. I made my son an Iron Man helmet and arc reactor and made my other child a Kid Flash helmet.”
McNutt worked professionally in event directing for other companies and organizations but eventually wanted to host his own event. The event is smaller than some of the other comic conventions across the country, but McNutt said the hotel setting gives it a more intimate and personal touch.
“I put together different types of events, but I wanted to put one together for me,” McNutt said. “I love movies and comics, so I wanted to put one of these together. You don’t have to be Scrooge McDuck sitting in a tank full of money, it just takes a lot of dedication.”
For McNutt, his ultimate goal is for the convention to become more of a social group than just an annual event. The group also hosts a book club featuring local authors and meet-ups at breweries and other regional conventions.
“A lot of people are going to sit there and talk about the celebs and fun things, but our thing really is the community created through this,” McNutt said. “I’ve received emails about this and people have pulled us to the side — people who tell me they haven’t had the best of luck making friends… People who were like ‘I can’t find my place in this world’ now have a place.”
Photo via All Star Comic Con/Facebook
(Updated at 1:55 p.m.) Cosmetics chain Sephora will close its stores for training on Wednesday (June 5), after R&B singer SZA accused the store of racial profiling.
The stores will be closed for one hour, The New York Times reported. Sephora has a spot in Tysons Corner Center on the second level across from another cosmetics store — Morphe.
In April, SZA tweeted that a Sephora store in California “called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing.”
Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn’t stealing . We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy
— SZA (@sza) May 1, 2019
Sephora tweeted back on May 1: “You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores.”
In another tweet the same day, the company also said that they “take complaints like this very seriously and are actively working with our teams to address the situation immediately.”
Then on Thursday, May 23, Sephora posted on Facebook:
On the morning of 6/5, every Sephora store, distribution center, and corporate office in the US will close to host inclusion workshops for our employees. These values have always been at the heart of Sephora, and we’re excited to welcome everyone when we reopen.
The stores will reopen after the one-hour-long inclusion training, The New York Times reported.
The Paris-based chain offers more than 300 brands and its own private label.
Image via Sephora/Facebook
The Weekly Planner is a roundup of interesting events coming up over the next week in the Tysons area.
We’ve scoured the web for events of note in Tysons, Vienna, Merrifield, McLean and Falls Church. Know of any we’ve missed? Tell us!
Monday (June 3)
- Commonwealth’s Attorney Candidate Forum on Criminal Justice — 7-9 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Vienna (450 Orchard Street) — Four local justice-related organizations are hosting a debate incumbent Commonwealth’s Attorney Raymond Morrough and challenger Steve Descano, who have clashed throughout the race over the reach of the office into political issues.
Wednesday (June 5)
- Learning about the Opioid Crisis — 11 a.m.-12 p.m. at Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library (7584 Leesburg Pike) — A pharmacist will be on hand at the library to teach about opioid use, signs and symptoms of drug abuse, addiction, and drug overdose.
- Nutley/I-66 Interchange Update — 6:30-8:30 p.m. at James Madison High School (2500 James Madison Drive) — The Fairfax Alliance for Better Bicycling is hosting a meeting with the Virginia Department of Transportation to discuss how work on the Transform 66 project will impact the cycling and pedestrian trail.
- Jesse Ruben Album Release at Jammin Java — 7:30 p.m. at Jammin Java (227 Maple Ave E.) — Acoustic artist Jesse Ruben is planning an album release party at Jammin Java, performing a mix of songs from the new EP and older material.
Thursday (June 6)
- Board of Supervisors Chair Candidates on the Environment — 7-9 p.m. at Blueberry Hill Common House (9701 Farmside Place) — The candidates for Board of Supervisors Chair are planned to attend a debate focusing on environmental and energy issues. The debate will be moderated by George Mason University Professor Star Muir.
Friday (June 7)
- Vienna Idol 2019 Finale — 6:30 p.m. at the Vienna Town Green (144 Maple Ave) — Six finalists are competing in the Vienna Idol finale. The audience will vote with tickets on the winner. All proceeds from the event go to the Khristin Kyllo Memorial Fund.
Saturday (June 8)
- All Star Comic Con 2019 — 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Sheraton Tysons Hotel (8661 Leesburg Pike) — Tysons’ one and only comic convention returns for two days of comics, vendors, artists, cosplay and more. Guests at the con include writers Gail Simone and Tom King.
- “The Spies of Shilling Lane” Signing — 3-4 p.m. at Barnes & Noble (7851 Tysons Corner Center) — Author Jennifer Ryan is hosting a signing for her new novel about a mother trying to find a daughter who has gone missing in the espionage underworld of the London Blitz.
- The World’s Most Alluring Cars — 4-9 p.m. at Tysons Biergarten (8346 Leesburg Pike) — A James Bond-themed event is planned with classic cars, from a 1911 Stanley Steam Car to a 2019 Lamborghini. Food, beer, martinis and cigars will all be available at the event.
- Three Year Anniversary for Greenhouse Bistro — 5 p.m.-2 a.m. at Greenhouse Bistro (2070 Chain Bridge Road) — Greenhouse Bistro is celebrating three years in Tysons and is welcoming guests to an invitation-only party. An RSVP is available at the event page with guests asked to sign up no later than June 7. An “upscale attire” will be strictly enforced.
Photo via Vienna Idol/Facebook
The Fairfax County Police Department is looking to keep pace with Tysons’ rapid urbanization with completely different service from the rest of the county.
Chief Edwin Roessler Jr. talked to Tysons Reporter about the new, urban-style police station and service model he hopes to bring to Tysons in the future.
“It’s going to be different from all of the other stations,” he said. “In Fairfax right now it’s isolated. It’s got gates. It’s got cars.”
Roessler said that the station will be “very small” and that the officers will be trained for flexible policing styles that include: rail, retail, nightlife, vertical in high risers, bike and foot patrol.
“I envision it as that old school, early 1900s police station where it’s just part of the environment,” he said. “You see a small police station — it’s part of the fabric of the community.”
While the police department considered Segways for Tysons earlier this year, Roessler said that the pilot program showed they were “too clunky to work right now.”
Roessler started thinking about adding a Tysons station back in 2003 when he was a patrol major working with the county’s zoning staff on a strategic staffing plan.
He said that he helped to put together a team that traveled to Boston, Chicago, New York City and San Diego to find out how their police stations handled rapid urbanization in the 1890s-1920s. The takeaway: police departments need to plan ahead of time to make sure they have the personnel and equipment in order to avoid making quick changes to respond to a tragedy.
Working with the county’s zoning staff is a “really crucial piece” as the process for a Tysons station continues, he said.
For the last few years, Roessler said that he’s been working with different county agencies to get a land purchase or proffer for a Tysons police station — even if it’s just two floors in a mixed-use development.
“We’ve come close several times to getting a proffer in a mixed-use facility to have that urban station, but we continue to work on finding an area that would be conducive to a police station there,” he said.
Currently, nine full-time officers are assigned to the Tysons urban community — a number Roessler said he’d like to boost in the five-year staffing plan, which would also hopefully address the police department’s understaffing issue.
Tysons, Reston and Merrifield are the urban centers where Roessler plans to switch from “this 1940s-style of one person per patrol car” to a range of policing styles.
“We have to patrol like in Tysons, Reston in pairs because we have to go up 30 plus floors and it’s not fair for the community for one patrol officer ti come and wait for the other one,” he said. “It expands the response time.”
A new Lorton station within the next two years is part of larger redistricting effort that will shrink police district stations’ response areas countywide.
With tighter boundaries and the same amount of personnel, Roessler said that policing will become more efficient and engage in the community within smaller geographic areas, which will lead to detecting more crime. The police department will then need more support personnel for more cases, he said.
After the Lorton facility opens, Fairfax County Police Department will hold community meetings across the county about redistricting each district station to ensure a continuity of service, he said.
“I hope within five years we’re going to have a date inked in where we can have another station,” he said.
Grab a bag and stuff it full of books — the Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library’s quarterly sale is this weekend.
The book sale will take place today (Friday) from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at 7584 Leesburg Pike. The sale will also run tomorrow (Saturday) from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday (June 2) from 1-4 p.m.
Throughout most of the weekend sale, non-fiction hardcovers are $3 and paperbacks are $2. Fiction hardcovers are $2 and paperbacks are $1. For mass-market, people can buy five smaller paperbacks for $1.
On Sunday, it’s $10 for however many books you can fill a bag with or half off other products.
Janella Blanchard, the president of the Friends of Tysons-Pimmit Regional Library, previously told Tysons Reporter the book enthusiasts usually show up on the first day for the widest selection, while the sale hunters come on Sunday.
If you’re looking to get some books out of the house, donations are also accepted. Volunteers are also needed to help manage the sale.
Photo via Fairfax County
Co-working area Spaces is coming to The Boro development later this year, adding to its growing D.C.-area presence.
The Meridian Group, the developers behind The Boro, announced the newcomer today (May 30).
“Spaces specializes in building creative workspaces, and The Loft will be a perfect home for this dynamic company,” Tom Boylan, the senior vice president of The Meridian Group, said in a press release.
Spaces will occupy the fourth and fifth floors in The Loft (1640 Boro Place), an industrial-style, five-story-tall building with three floors of office space and two stories of retail. The co-working company is leasing about 50,000 square feet — 66 percent of the office space in The Loft, according to the press release.
Spaces is a coworking brand that provides flexible workspaces under the parent company IWG, which has more than 50 U.S. locations. Michael Beretta, the vice president on network development for IWG, said that Spaces plans to double its number of locations this year.
“The entire DC metro area has seen a meteoric rise in startups looking to call this area home base,” Beretta said in the press release. “As a result, we’ve seen an increase in demand from businesses of all sizes that are looking for flexible working solutions.”
Currently, Spaces has three spots in Virginia — Reston, Arlington and Alexandria — and an upcoming one totaling two in D.C.
“[Spaces’] new home in Tysons will be a perfect complement to our growing community,” Boylan said.
Photo via Facebook and rendering courtesy The Meridian Group
Best Buns Bakery and Cafe recently opened in Tysons during Memorial Day weekend.
Similar to Best Buns Bread Company in Arlington, the spacious bakery and cafe serves up burgers, cold and hot sandwiches, artisan breads, pastries and salads. Drinks on the menu include milkshakes, coffee and sodas.
Best Buns opened on Saturday (May 25) at 8051 Leesburg Pike.
The bakery is the first of three Great American Restaurants to open in the former Chili’s spot. An employee said Patsy’s American is set to open early Friday (May 31) evening. Meanwhile, Randy’s Prime Seafood and Steaks will debut in June, Eater reported.
Best Buns in Tysons is open from 6 a.m.-9 p.m. on weekdays and from 7 a.m.-9 p.m. on weekends. The spot features indoor and outdoor seating.
