Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Springfield, VA

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - The Veterans Healthcare System of the Ozarks is hosting a PACT Act event at the VA Clinic in Springfield Saturday.

The event goes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the clinic on West Republic Street. It’s open to veterans and their families with no appointment necessary.

The point of the event is to educate and screen veterans to make sure they’re aware of their benefits under the PACT Act as the August 10 deadline quickly approaches according to Veterans Healthcare System of the Ozarks Public Affair Officer, April Eilers.

“We are asking everyone to come to learn about the PACT Act to sign up for the PACT Act and also to get exposure screening for the PACT Act,” said Eilers.

The PACT Act expands VA benefits for veterans who fought in Vietnam, the Gulf War, or post-9/11 conflicts, and covers disabilities that stemmed from toxic chemicals such as burn pits or Agent Orange.

For veterans that apply before August 10, they can get retroactive benefits as well for the past year.

“Up from now until August 10, they will get retroactive benefits and pay for for their services,” said Eilers. “Then after August 10, they obviously still need to get the care, the care that they deserve, but they won’t get the retroactive benefits.

Anyone is welcome at the event without an appointment. Eilers says an event like this is so important to get the word out about benefits veterans can get.

“We have to get the word out. So people, so veterans are aware of the benefits that they have earned. And we’re really pushing and doing outreach events now,” said Eilers.

If you can’t make this event, the Veterans Healthcare System of the Ozarks hosts more events around the area. You can find a list of those here.

Those who can’t make an event can still get those benefits as well. You can call 1-800-698-2411 or the local VHSO team at 479-443-4301- ext. 63603.

To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com

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www.bigblueswimschool.com

One of the fastest growing kids swim school franchises, Big Blue Swim School today announced the opening date of its fifth Northern Virginia location and will celebrate with a Family Fun Day filled with lots of events and activities for families and little ones to enjoy.

The new Springfield location (located at 7202 Old Keene Mill Rd, Springfield, VA) will be hosting a free fun-filled family day on Saturday, August 5, 2023, giving attendees a first look at the new facility before opening to the public for weekly swim lessons for kids, on Monday, August 7.

Big Blue Family Fun Day will kick off with a ribbon cutting ceremony to officially welcome the swim school to its new home. Families are invited to stop by between 11:00 am – 3:00 pm to take a tour of the facility and enjoy activities for kids such as arts & crafts, face painting, a dunk tank and balloon animal art. There will also be a BBQ food truck so guests can take a break to enjoy a meal before joining in on more opening celebration fun. The celebration will take place both inside of the facility as well as outside in the parking lot, to allow more room for the day’s festivities. Families can register here for the celebration.

The location will offer weekly swim lessons year-round for children ages three months to 12 years of age. Staying true to Big Blue’s vision of creating a stress-free learn-to-swim experience, every aspect of the Springfield location is thoughtfully designed, from the pool layout to the scheduling technology, making it easy for families to schedule multiple kids of various levels and ages to swim during the same 30–45-minute timeframe. This is just one of the ways Big Blue sets itself apart from other swim school brands.

This is the 29th location for Big Blue across 14 states. Other Northern Virginia locations include Chantilly, Falls Church, and Dulles. The Northern Virginia locations are led by Tom Dolan, CEO of L5 Swim a franchisee of Big Blue Swim School. Dolan, an Arlington native, who won back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the 400-meter individual medley, opened his first swim school (Tom Dolan Swim School) in 2012 following his impressive Olympic career. In 2021, he joined the Big Blue team and maintains an integral role in the expansion and management of Big Blue Swim School brand in Northern Virginia.

Through August 6th, Big Blue is currently offering the first 4 lessons for $25 ($6.25 per lesson).

Families can contact Big Blue Swim School Springfield location with questions about Big Blue Family Fun Day or the Pre-Opening Special offerings.

Info

Updated at 1:55 p.m. on 7/24/2023 — Sadly for local taco lovers, a public relations representative for District Taco says the openings for its Springfield and McLean locations will be delayed. No new dates have been provided, beyond that the restaurants are “coming soon.”

Earlier: Fairfax County’s newest District Taco restaurants are almost ready to serve customers.

The regional chain will open a franchise at Old Keene Mill Shopping Center (8432 Old Keene Mill Road) in Springfield on Aug. 3, followed on Aug. 23 by a McLean franchise next to Lidl at 1330 Chain Bridge Road.

The openings will bring District Taco’s Virginia footprint up to eight stores. After starting as a food cart in Arlington, the company is in the midst of an expansion push “to keep up with the increasing demand for its concept,” it said in a press release.

Existing Fairfax County locations include Baileys Crossroads, Tysons, and near the Dunn Loring Metro station.

“We are thrilled that we can continue to expand our footprint in Northern Virginia and serve more communities surrounding the D.C. area,” District Taco Vice President of Franchise Development Tina Gantz said. “Now, with the two new locations, we can keep up with the high demand and enter two vibrant and growing communities. With our unique concept of serving fresh, healthy, and authentic ingredients, we are sure guests will love the new District Taco locations and the overall experience.”

The Springfield and McLean franchises are both owned by Hicham El Abbassi and Isalmou Boussaa, who entered the food service business “by investing in a single hamburger chain store” and now run 11 different franchises, according to the press release.

The pair are District Taco’s first franchisees. They partnered with the fast-casual Mexican restaurant in an effort “diversify their restaurant portfolio” and hope to add more locations in the future, the company said.

“I was truly inspired by the entrepreneurial story of District Taco’s founder, Osiris Hoil, and his pursuit of the American dream,” Boussaa said in a statement. “Hicham and I are living out our own American dreams by opening our two new District Taco locations and we are so excited to begin serving high-quality meals to the local Springfield and McLean communities.”

Based on Hoil’s family recipes, the menu features customizable tacos, burritos, rice and bean bowls, salads and quesadillas, including a couple of breakfast options.

With the Springfield and McLean openings, District Taco will have 16 total locations across Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and Pennsylvania. Co-founder Marc Wallace told FFXnow’s sister site, ARLnow, last year that the company hopes to expand in the mid-Atlantic region and potentially into the Midwest.

Growth in Fairfax County is focused in Tysons, the Dulles Suburban Center and other mixed-use areas.

In addition, growth in multifamily housing units outpaced growth in single-family housing between 2010 and 2023, and office space continues to lead the way in non-residential development potential, county staff said in a presentation at the Fairfax County Planning Commission’s policy plan committee meeting on July 13.

Development in mixed-use “activity centers” like Tysons, the Dulles Suburban Center, the Reston Transit Station Areas and the Richmond Highway Corridor lines up with the concept for future development outlined in the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan.

“The plan has a lot of flexibility built in now and plenty of options for new residential development to occur,” Andrea Dorlester, the county’s principal planner, said in the presentation.

The presentation served as a preview of a “State of the Plan” report that will provide a progress update on the county’s planning efforts between January 2011 and December 2022. Building off a similar evaluation from 2012, the report is slated for release at the end of the summer.

The county can support residential growth through at least 2045, according to the comprehensive plan and a forecast from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Overall, the comprehensive plan notes potential for 182,000 additional dwelling units, with 91% of those units being multifamily housing. The MWCOG forecast projects an 80,000-unit increase by 2045, per the presentation.

At the meeting, Braddock District Commissioner Mary Cortina noted that addressing affordability in housing is challenging.

“We know we have a housing problem, we say we have growth, but what is being built is not necessarily addressing affordability,” Cortina said.

Between January 2011 and December 2022, the majority of amendments to the comprehensive plan added to planned new housing.

“Several site-specific plan amendments serve to provide for affordable housing, affordable housing for seniors [and] assisted living,” Dorlester said. “And there were some notable conversions from commercial to planned residential with new planned townhouse neighborhoods replacing portions of old strip shopping centers.”

Dranesville District Commissioner John Ulfelder asked whether permitting a “missing middle” approach like the one adopted by neighboring Arlington — where the county would allow some smaller multifamily units in areas that now only allow single-family housing — could provide an opportunity for additional residential growth.

That would require a policy change, but in the context of the State of the Plan, Fairfax County planner Clara Johnson said that with plan amendments, the county is seeing redevelopment of shopping centers and along major transportation corridors.

Adopted changes to the plan also reflect a transit-oriented approach, according to the presentation.

“In areas where transit is not available or planned, such as the downtown McLean Community Business Center, plan changes focused on improving walkability, creating new public spaces, implementing good urban design and creating bonus height or density incentives to promote revitalization and placemaking measures, such as provision of urban park spaces,” Dorlester said.

Construction on the new Inova hospital adjacent to the Franconia-Springfield HealthPlex is expected to start in 2024.

Falls Church-based Inova Health Service received the go-ahead from the Virginia Department of Health to build a new hospital in the Franconia-Springfield area.

The new hospital will be constructed next to Inova’s existing Franconia-Springfield HealthPlex. It’ll be walking distance to the Franconia-Springfield Metro station and Virginia Railway Express.

Inova said the new hospital will have 110 beds spread across two patient towers, as well as private rooms, an expanded emergency room, diagnostic imaging, and multiple procedural rooms.

Another building on the campus will have outpatient services such as ambulatory surgery, physician offices, and procedural rooms.

It will all be connected to Inova’s HealthPlex with a new internal road and walkway.

In a news release, Inova President and CEO J. Stephen Jones said the health system is “excited” to build a new hospital.

“We extend our appreciation to the commonwealth, Fairfax County, and our many community partners for helping Inova to continue to serve our neighbors with a broader array of Inova care close to home,” he said.

Rodney Lusk, who represents Franconia on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, said he’s “delighted.”

“Inova has been our community’s trusted health partner at this location for many years, and this expansion of that collaboration will improve the health and economic vitality of our community for generations to come.”

Planning and design of the new hospital is happening right now. Construction is expected to start next year and be finished in 2028.

Meanwhile, Inova’s plans for a replacement hospital in Alexandria received approval from the city council there, according to the Washington Business Journal.

The hospital system plans to build a 1-million-square-foot medical center campus on the site of the former Landmark Mall, in a development now known as West End. The new hospital on Duke Street will replace the one on Seminary Road.

Council approval means Inova can now submit its site plans to the city.

Featured photo courtesy Inova

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I’d gone to the website to refresh my memory about where Verizon came from. It was from the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. And Bell Atlantic was a descendant of American Telephone and Telegraph, known as AT&T.

I took this meandering journey down a figurative Memory Lane so we could arrive at an actual physical lane: Atteentee Road in Springfield, Va. When David Crowe first moved to the D.C. area in the late 1970s, he lived on that street, which was pronounced just like that telecom company: “A-T-N-T.”

The street names of suburban Washington have many stories to tell

Wrote David, who lives in Afton, Va., now: “The story I was told was that a major phone line runs down the road but an abbreviation was not an allowable name. Interestingly, I still got mail using the abbreviation along with several variations of the spelled-out version.”

Could the street really be named after AT&T? Apparently so. Chris Barbuschak from the City of Fairfax Regional Library’s Virginia Room pulled a deed from July 12, 1918, in which Joseph R. Hayden, a Nebraska department store magnate, granted the American Telephone and Telegraph Company of Virginia the rights to construct and operate telephone and telegraph lines through his property, or, as the deed put it: “the right, privilege and authority to construct, operate and maintain its lines of telephone and telegraph, including the necessary poles, wires, cables and fixtures upon, over and across the property which I own.”

It also gave AT&T the right to trim trees along the lines.

Hayden’s property was among hundreds of acres sold in 1946 to Carr Inc., the company owned by Edward R. Carr that developed much of Springfield. In 1951, Carr sold the section that includes Atteentee Road to Crestwood Construction. Crestwood built the homes along Atteentee Road.

Even today, when so much in our lives is wireless, utility poles still run along Atteentee Road.

Meanwhile, over in Reston, we find the oddly — and frankly, misleadingly — named Temporary Road. It runs between Reston Parkway and North Shore Drive.

Tom Boltz and his wife, Jean, live in the Greenspring retirement community in Springfield, but they used to live in Reston. A few years ago they were on vacation when they met a woman who said her boyfriend had worked as a young man for Robert E. Simon when the developer was planning Reston.

“I commented that I wondered if he might know the origin of the Temporary Road name,” Tom wrote. “She said she didn’t know, but then said, ‘Let’s call him up and find out.’”

A phone was produced, and Tom had a chance to consult a primary source.

“He told me that Fairfax County always required that developers furnish a name for any roads shown on a development map when it was submitted to the government,” Tom wrote. “Just before submission of the plans for that section of Reston, someone noticed that this very short road was unnamed. So he suggested calling it ‘Temporary Road’ with the idea of renaming it later and his boss accepted his idea to avoid any submission delay. However, no one ever got around to submitting new paperwork to give the road a better name and so it has remained Temporary Road to this day.”

This particular Temporary Road was an earlier Temporary Road that actually was temporary. It connected North Shore Drive and Old Reston Avenue, running in front of the Temporary Road Picnic Pavilion.

In 1984, the Reston Land Corp. started work to realign that road to the north to better serve new apartment buildings.

“Part of the original road still exists and is now a trail,” wrote Chris from the Virginia Room. “Temporary Road relocated to its present site and became permanent in 1985.”

In 2000, Jackie Friedlander recounted the road’s history in the Reston Times. She noted that the intention had always been to come up with something else. “When the county government started searching for a permanent name, however, the residents insisted on keeping the old familiar ‘Temporary’ title,” she wrote.

But when you think about it, isn’t everything temporary?