May 24 – 30, 2018
FA LLS CHUR C H, V I R G I NI A • WW W. FC NP. C OM • FR EE
FOU N D E D 1991 • VOL. XXVIII NO. 14
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The official Falls Church Memorial Day Parade & Festival program including parade lineup, festival map, vendor list, festival schedule, ceremony information and much more is inside this week’s special edition of the News-Press.
8-Screen Dine-In Movie Complex, 9,500-SF Diner-Brewery on Board for Founder’s Row
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After Long Delay, Developers of 4.3
Acre Site Are Back
BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
restricted to the specially-appointed evaluation group (that includes Council and School Board members)? How much will the public be allowed to weigh in, given that all six preliminary bids are posted on the City’s website for everyone to see? These issues apply not only to the down-select process, but also to the City’s work developing a new, follow-on request for detailed proposal (RFDP) that it will hand to the group of three development finalists by mid-June.
After a long, two-and-a-half year silence since winning an unanimous approval by the Falls Church City Council to move ahead, the Mill Creek Residential developers of the 4.3-acre Founder’s Row project on the northeast side of the W. Broad and N. West intersection of Falls Church are back with some big news. The firm announced to a joint session of the F.C. City Council and Planning Commission Monday night that a unique theater-dining operation, Studio Movie Grill, has signed a lease to bring eight screens and 815 seats to the site. It also announced a signed lease for a 9,500 square foot restaurant and brewery, City Works, and an arrangement for the departure of the 7-Eleven on the site. It is back with all this in hopes the City Council will OK its one major revision, which is to replace the promise of a hotel with over 70 age-restricted (ages 55 and up) apartments. The Studio Movie Grill (SMG), which has 30 locations across the U.S., will operate a fullservice kitchen and 90 seat restaurant on the ground floor of the movie complex, which will show a range of first-run and independent films, Sean Caldwell of Mill Creek announced Monday night. Last Friday, breaking its long public silence with a letter to the City, Mill Creek announced that a lease for City Works was signed, along with other aspects of its plan. It delayed the announcement of the movie component to the meeting this Monday night. The project had been held up pending signed leases for the the-
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SEE PULL OUT, PAGES S-1 — S-16
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One of the nation’s largest developers of residences in the U.S. has notified the City of Falls Church that it will seek special zoning exceptions to permit the construction of a five-story, 70 unit residential condominium building at the corner of Park Avenue and N. Lee Street. SEE NEWS BRIEFS, PAGE 9
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If you had to identify a place and time where the humanitarian dream — the vision of a society offering decent lives to all its members — came closest to realization, that place and time would surely be Western Europe in the six decades after World War II. SEE PAGE 30
INDEX Editorial.................6 Letters...................6 News & Notes10–11 Comment ..12, 29-30 Business News ...31 Sports .................32
Calendar .......34–35 Classified Ads .....36 Comics, Sudoku & Crossword ..........37 Critter Corner......38
GEORGE MASON HIGH SCHOOL freshman Declan Quill hasn’t wasted anytime contributing to the Mustangs’ resurgent offense this season as he completed a hat trick in the �irst half against Strasburg High School in the Bull Run Tournament semi�inals Tuesday night. The boys are in playoff action again tonight at home. See sports, page 32. (P����: C���� S��)
City Team Busy Deciding on Paring 6 West End Project Bidders Down to 3 BY NICHOLAS F. BENTON
FALLS CHURCH NEWS-PRESS
The six heavyweight bids for the economic development of the 10-acre West Falls Church site submitted at the beginning of the month are being carefully scrutinized by a powerhouse team of City of Falls Church leaders as we speak. Using detailed and challenging criteria developed by the City’s consultants, Alvarez and Marsal, the team is tasked with pouring through over 400 pages of bid submissions with the goal of reducing
that list of six to three by June 11. The brisk schedule is required by the need of the City to press ahead on two interrelated tracks to get a new high school built by 2021 and the economic development component ready to go as soon as that is achieved. Challenges include the ability of all the right people to have input on this process, which the City has determined will be as transparent to the public as possible. Will the City Council, for example, have input on the downselection process, or will it be