GAINSWave Therapy in Merrifield, VA

Redevelopment proposals in the Merrifield area will likely get high-priority consideration by Fairfax County planners, as the county nears the finish line of its reconfigured site-specific plan amendment (SSPA) process.

After a nearly four-hour-long workshop on Thursday (March 23), the Fairfax County Planning Commission gave its support to staff’s recommendation that the pitches for Merrifield and an AT&T office site in Oakton be designated as “Tier 1” in the SSPA work program.

That means they would get top priority in terms of resources and scheduling. County staff are reviewing 68 Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan amendment nominations and have recommended about 50 for inclusion in the work program, which will be finalized by the Board of Supervisors on April 11.

The Merrifield proposals all replace older, mostly commercial properties with mixed-use housing, leading a couple of commissioners to warn against leaning too heavily on current market trends when determining what development to pursue.

“Things go in cycles, and we have to be attuned to how those cycles change, when they change and why they’re changing,” Dranesville District Commissioner John Ulfelder said. “Sometimes, we’re not very good at that.”

Community members who testified last week generally supported the Merrifield nominations, describing the area around the Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station as ideal for housing that supports modes of travel other than private cars.

Prosperity Business Campus

The response to a proposed transformation of the 41-acre Prosperity Business Campus into seven blocks of mid-rise, multifamily residential buildings and townhouses was particularly enthusiastic.

Representatives of the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) and YIMBYs of Northern Virginia said their groups ranked this nomination at the top when reviewing the SSPA submissions.

“The increase in parks actually reduces the impervious surfaces that are in this area as well, so it’s good for the environment,” YIMBYs member Aaron Wilkowitz said. “It’s good from the transit perspective, it’s good from the housing perspective. Across all the things that the county cares about, this proposal is critical to meeting those needs.”

The proposal adds an estimated 1,273 units of housing and 183,000 square feet of nonresidential uses, including some ground-floor retail. It also provides over 12 acres of publicly accessible park space, preserves the adjacent Long Branch stream valley and updates a pedestrian crossing over the stream.

Two residents of Dunn Loring Village, a townhouse complex west of the stream, said they’re “excited” about the potential project, though one advocated for better stormwater management in light of the recent I-66 widening.

The resident noted that Long Branch flows into Accotink Creek and, eventually, Lake Accotink, which is at risk of disappearing due to sediment build-up.

“Please consider…anything that can be done to reduce the impervious footprint, experimental ways to reduce that footprint,” he said.

Dunn Loring at Merrifield Station

Malkin Properties has proposed replacing the 35-acre garden apartment community at 8130 Prescott Drive with eight blocks of mixed-use development, including 2,300 residential units and up to 700,000 square feet of nonresidential uses.

Wilkowitz and some other supporters of the Prosperity redevelopment backed this one as well — with the caveat that it must deliver enough housing to compensate for the loss of the 706 existing apartments.

“This is an opportunity, since we are still very early in the process, to truly address concerns by working to ensure no net loss of affordable housing and providing current residents the right to return and relocation assistance,” CSG Northern Virginia Advocacy Manager Sonya Breehey said, encouraging the county to consider seeking more workforce dwelling units.

That push for as much housing as possible may clash with the desires of some existing area residents. A resident of Manhattan Place to the north said her neighborhood feels “the scale and density of what is being proposed is too large for the land that’s available.”

Vienna Crossing is “happy” the 1960s-era Dunn Loring at Merrifield apartments will get an upgrade, but the 54-townhome community is also worried about a planned two-lane “ring road” connecting Pleasantdale/Hartland Road and Park Tower Drive, the president of its homeowners’ association said.

“We’re the part on Gallows that it would ring through,” Ryan Watkins said. “…We have currently about seven to eight buses that stop there each morning, picking up kids for different schools, so traffic along that road cuts right through our community. We have concerns about that.”

Watkins also said the Providence Park Homeowners’ Association, which represents townhomes to the south, was wondering if the developer would consider acquiring an apartment building on the southeast corner of the property.

“It would be hard for them to ever redevelop because of their location, so they wanted to encourage the redevelopers to try to acquire that property or get them on board so they don’t get boxed in and that property goes downhill going forward,” Watkins said.

Antonio Calabrese, an attorney representing Malkin, said the developer has tried to contact the apartment building owner, but “they’ve been evasive.”

After three weeks of workshops on land use changes across the county, including at the Innovation Center Metro station and in McLean, the planning commission will take vote on its SSPA recommendations for the Board of Supervisors tomorrow night (Wednesday).

Before the Mosaic District in Merrifield, Va., was redeveloped about 10 years ago, it was an expanse of parking lots, fast-food joints and industrial warehouses.

Other than the old multiplex theater, which stood next to United Rentals, a construction supply chain, there wasn’t much to see or do here.

“The joke used to be, in Merrifield, you can go to the movies and rent a Bobcat on the way home,” said former Fairfax County supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence), who oversaw the redevelopment of Mosaic.

But now, the Mosaic District is a bustling town center, complete with restaurants and retailers, luxury apartment buildings, townhouses and a hip new place to catch a flick, the Angelika Film Center. It is bounded by Lee Highway to the north, Merrifield Cinema Drive to the south, Gallows Road to the east and Eskridge Road to the west. This modern mixed-use neighborhood has sprung up in the middle of Asian grocers and aging strip malls but offers something unexpected: a sense of community.

Martin’s Additions offers village life in an urban area

“The really great thing about Merrifield and Mosaic as the town center is that it really did start off with the community discussion,” said Smyth. “That’s one of the things that has made it what it is today. It was a community plan. It was a good plan. And we stuck to it.”

Merrifield has always been a place to gather. In the 1950s, Merrifield’s multiplex was a drive-in theater that drew people from across Fairfax County.

“I have people all the time who tell me, ‘Oh, I remember when I came here, I came here on my first date,’ ” said Jodie McLean, chief executive of Edens, the firm that redeveloped the district.

Now, there’s a reason for many to return.

Whether it’s to shop, eat or live, the Mosaic District combines 2 million square feet of retail, office, hotel and residential space with restaurants such as True Food Kitchen, Sisters Thai and a newcomer, Parc de Ville, which opened in November.

National retailers such as Anthropologie, Madewell and Target share the sidewalk with small clothing boutiques like Scout & Molly’s and Undeniable Boutique, and a wine shop, Sip and Swirl. There’s an artisanal juice bar, a barbershop, and even a place to drink beer and throw axes.

“In just two decades, it went from being this industrial place that people drove by, to this kind of town center that’s thriving and walkable — really a destination. But it’s also a neighborhood,” said Douglas Loescher, a program manager overseeing the Merrifield Revitalization Area.

Change is coming to quiet, residential Fort Totten in Northeast D.C.

According to Loescher, the entire neighborhood is LEED-certified — one of the first in the country to earn the designation for its environmentally friendly features.

Strawberry Park, named after a famous Beatles song, “Strawberry Fields Forever,” is the epicenter of Mosaic. It’s what connects the commercial to the community.

“If you’re a Beatles aficionado, you’ll notice there’s a very subtle Beatles theme throughout,” said McLean.

The centerpiece of the one-acre park is a 22-by 38-foot LED screen named “Lucy,” which is mounted on the front of the Angelika theater. This Lucy in the sky offers seasonal programming, including family movie night.

Kaitlin McLendon, a real estate agent with Buck & Associates, said that on weekends, Strawberry Park is the place to be. Farmers markets and craft fairs such as URBN Market take over the streets. McLendon’s tip: On weekends, don’t drive. Take Metro.

McLendon, who lives in Mosaic, said the district’s mix of urban and suburban appeals mostly to young professionals, but she sees residents of all ages here.

“We love the millennials,” said McLean. “But we love to design places where the millennials want to bring their parents and where their parents want to bring their friends.”

Mosaic is a place where McLean hopes people feel permission to slow down. “What we want is people that think, wow, this feels great — like if I bumped into you, we could sit down . . . and share a cup of coffee and it would feel okay to take that five or 10 minutes to catch up.”

Living there: Upscale apartment buildings managed by AvalonBay and Mill Creek line the streets, while townhouses managed by EYA hem the district’s perimeter. When EYA first listed townhouses in 2012, homes started in the $600,000s. Now, a four-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse is listed for $899,900. The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,900.

According to McLendon, home sale prices last year ranged from $770,000 for a three-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse to $1,051,580 for a four-bedroom, five-bathroom house.

There are five active listings on the market, including a three-bedroom, four-bathroom townhouse for $795,000 and a three-bedroom, five-bathroom townhouse for just above $1 million.

Sekas Homes is building 40 townhouses on Eskridge Road starting at $957,000. These four and five-bedroom, five-bathroom homes have rooftop access, elevator capability and a two-car garage. Some homes are available now, and Sekas expects to finish the project by November 2020. Next door, a five-story, 127-unit condo building with a day-care center is being planned for the end of 2020.

Schools: Fairhill Elementary, Jackson Middle, Falls Church High.

Transit: The Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station is less than one mile from the town center. A free shuttle from the station to the Mosaic District runs from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. The shuttle makes three stops in Mosaic: at Penny Lane, at Strawberry Lane, and at the Town Center. Several Fairfax Connector and Metrobus routes serve the neighborhood. Route 66, Route 29, Route 50 and the Beltway are the closest major thoroughfares.

Merrifield has always been anchored by its movie theater. While Fairfax County’s aerial photography shows the site’s growth from fields to an urban center, the theater has been there since some of the earliest photos.

In photography from before 1960, Merrifield is mostly fields and farmland. But in 1954, the Washington area’s largest drive-in theater, the Lee Highway Drive-In, opened at the site. That’s the cone-shaped development in the middle of the aerial photography.

The theater featured a 50×120′ CinemaScope screen and a rotunda-style dining area. At its capacity in 1983, the drive-in could fit 1,353 cars.

The drive-in is still visible in the 1976 photography, with other development sprouting up nearby. In 1984, however, the drive-in was closed and replaced with a multiplex theater nearby. Like the drive-in at its heyday, the new theaters that opened were state-of-the-art.

But by the mid-2000s, the once modern multiplex was showing its age, like the drive-in had before it. The site gained some notoriety in 2005 after a man leaving the theater was attacked by several assailants, one of whom wielded a machete and cut three fingers off the man’s hand.

In 2009 the site’s owner, National Amusements, sold the site and plans began to emerge for a more pedestrian-friendly urban center today known as the Mosaic District. Photography from 2011 shows the area mid-development; in 2012 the Mosaic District opened with a mix of handpicked local boutiques and national retailers.

Prior to that, Rep. Gerry Connolly described Merrifield as a “waste” in a New York Times article on the emerging development.

Mr. Connolly… is familiar with Merrifield’s past and present. He remembers thinking to himself, “What a waste of land,” after being elected in 1995 to the Fairfax County board of supervisors. “We have this aging movie theater that’s surrounded by acres of surface parking,” Mr. Connolly said.

In fall 2012, the Angelika Film Center opened an 8-screen theater in Mosaic District, continuing Merrifield’s movie legacy established more than half a century earlier.

Past and Present is a Tysons Reporter series looking at locations in our area as they’ve changed over the last century. Check out our articles for Tysons Corner Mall, Tysons Galleria/Leesburg Pike, Tysons East, and Maple Avenue.

There will be kebabs galore at the Mosaic District in Merrifield this afternoon.

Kirby Club, a new restaurant concept from the owners of Compass Rose and Maydān in D.C., will open its doors at 4 p.m. today, as first reported by Washingtonian.

Serving up eastern Mediterranean food, with a particular focus on kebabs, the restaurant is at 2911 District Avenue in the spot formerly occupied by Jinya Ramen Bar, which moved to a larger space a couple of doors down this summer.

“Kirby is the gathering, a celebration,” co-owner Rose Previte said. “It’s the joy of community and family and a sense of belonging. It’s our healing after Covid. We lost it for a long time and now that we have it back we crave and cherish the joy that coming together brings us.”

Kirby Club is the first Virginia location for Previte and fellow owner Mike Schuster, who developed the concept with co-founder and partner Mayu Horie. The team also includes Chef Omar Hegazi, whose previous work includes a tenure as sous chef at Bourbon Steak in D.C.’s Four Seasons hotel.

Initially called Tawle after the Arabic word for “table,” the concept was renamed to avoid confusion with Maydān’s “tawle” menu and pay tribute to a Lebanese American social club that Previte’s grandparents started in Akron, Ohio, in 1933.

According to a press release, Previte’s grandparents wanted to name the club after their home village of Kherbet Khanafar in Lebanon, but they figured it might be a handful to pronounce, leading to “Kirby Club” as a nickname.

“The club was created to preserve culture while fully embracing life in America,” the press release said. “Wherever the gathering, food was at the center, bonding old and new, heritage and new generations to foods made anew with American twists and local ingredients.”

Here’s more from the press release on Kirby Club’s food and drink offerings:

The menu revolves around kebabs, a universal love language shared across multiple countries in the Eastern Mediterranean. At the heart of the menu are Chef Hegazi’s Kebabs including Dukka Shrimp marinated in sesame, hibiscus, coriander and Chicken Shish Taouk with garlic, cumin and fenugreek. Guests can opt for a Kebab Shindig, a full-blown kebab party with one of each kebab plus dips and spreads like Havuc, a seasonal carrot dip with garlic and lemon, or Bessara made of fava beans, tahina and cilantro. To share or split, there are Picnic Platters such as the Beef Rib with cumin, allspice, Aleppo pepper, pomegranate, pickles, sweet & spicy harissa, as well as a wide range of shareable starters like Falafel, fava beans, parsley, coriander, sumac onions, bread, pink tahina.

To complement the food, house-crafted cocktails include the Wanderer of WANA made with tequila, orange blossom, mango, lime, sumac-Aleppo salt; and large-format cocktails including Camellia Kirby made with gin, apricot tea, campari +vermouth.

The restaurant will be open from 4-10 p.m. on Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Other recent arrivals at the Mosaic District include Neuhaus Belgian Chocolate and Junction Bistro and Bar, which both opened this past fall.

Some of the D.C. region’s hottest new restaurants can be found right in Fairfax County, according to the Washington Post’s recently released spring dining guide.

Restaurants in the county claimed four spots on longtime food critic Tom Sietsema’s round-up of his favorite newcomers to the regional dining scene — more than any locality other than the District itself.

Leading the pack is Kirby Club, the eastern Mediterranean restaurant that launched in the Mosaic District late last year. The new concept from the restauranteurs behind D.C.’s Compass Rose and Maydān ranked no. 3 on Sietsema’s list, which highlights 25 eateries where he would “be happy to go on my own dollar.”

ICYMI: @tomsietsema has named Kirby Club as Number 3 in the @washingtonpost Spring Dining Guide!

Read what sets Kirby Club apart: https://t.co/pWuE9RQtlh

Tag a friend who needs to try their signature kebabs and dips this summer.

: @mariahmirandaphoto pic.twitter.com/5qzBC5UDiy

— Mosaic (@mosaicdistrict) May 19, 2023

Opened on Dec. 20, 2022, Kirby Club drew praise for its “always sunny” atmosphere and menu of kebabs and dips, which Sietsema says remain “luscious” even though original chef Omar Hegazi has returned to his home base in New York.

He also highlighted the restaurant’s offerings of both share-able platters and plates fit for one:

Non-sharers will rejoice over the plates for one, featuring a variety of kebabs — chicken, lamb, oyster (mushroom) — that feel like a feast given the fluffy yellow rice, sumac-spiked onions and bright salad that accompany them. “Picnic platters” are a throwback to Previte’s childhood memories of Labor Day spreads with the Kirby Club, a Lebanese social group her maternal grandparents helped found in 1933 in Akron, Ohio. My ongoing fascination is the whole roast chicken, massaged with garlic, turmeric and oil and presented on a raft of flatbread with the aforementioned rice and salad, but also crinkle-cut fries sprinkled with za’atar and a rainbow of sauces.

After initially opening with evening hours only, Kirby Club has expanded its operations to include lunch and to-go options. A second location is in the works in Clarendon.

“We love being a part of the vibrant Fairfax County community and welcoming in so many local friends and family to Kirby Club in the Mosaic District every day,” Kirby Club owner Rose Previte said. “It’s wonderful to have the Washington Post celebrating so many restaurants we know and love.”

Unranked after the top five, the guide also gives some love to Ingle Korean Steakhouse and Jiwa Singapura, signaling that Tysons may at last be breaking free of its reputation as purely an American-steak-and-business kind of town.

Ingle Korean Steakhouse at Pike 7 Plaza instantly won the Post’s food critic over with elegant decor, attentive servers, “distinctive cocktails” and “delicious dips” for its array of grilled meats and seafood.

For Jiwa Singapura, which opened on Feb. 15 in Tysons Galleria, Sietsema emphasizes the luxuriousness of the food and the setting, which he says suggests “a fine-dining lair.” He points to the salted egg shrimp, chicken rice and chili crab as menu highlights, though the “beef rendang isn’t worth the 30-minute wait.”

Moving outside the Tysons area — and price range — Sari Filipino Kusina rounds out the Fairfax County entries in the guide. Sietsema says the fast-casual Filipino restaurant in Annandale stands out for the “haunting” flavors of dishes like kare kare stew and smoked chicken wings glazed with adobo, which draw on co-owner and chef Paolo Dungca’s childhood in Manila.