Home Care In Annandale, VA

Work has begun on a new urban, three-quarter-acre park in downtown Annandale that’s expected to be completed later this year.

The long-planned Annandale Civic Space project is converting an underused parking lot at the former Annandale Elementary School into a “unique hybrid park.”

The site at 7200 Columbia Pike will include a civic plaza with seating, an educational garden, a playground, a lawn, and an open space that can be used as a flexible “pop-up” space for performances, community activities, and special events.

There will also be fully ADA-accessible paths that connect the park to Daniels Avenue and Columbia Pike.

“The project will transform an underutilized portion of the open space at the former Annandale Elementary School into a versatile, Americans with Disabilities Act accessible civic space for the Annandale community,” the Fairfax County Park Authority said in a press release last month. “The revitalized open space will serve as a community hub and will contribute toward the long-term vision for the Annandale Community Business Center (CBC). ”

Site preparation work began last week, FCPA spokesperson Ben Boxer told FFXnow, with the removal of invasive plants and several existing, “unhealthy” trees along Daniels Avenue to accommodate grading considerations. The plants will be replaced by native trees and plantings.

Most of the construction and work will occur throughout the late spring and into the summer. That will include paving, landscaping, and utility work.

The park is expected to be completed in the fall and open late this year, per Boxer.

The project is estimated to cost about $700,000 with funding coming from a mix of sources, including grants and county funds. Construction is being overseen by the park authority.

The nonprofit Annandale Christian Community for Action (ACCA) Child Development Center located inside the old school building will remain open. The paved open space will be used as a parking lot during weekdays for the center.

The park plan was first introduced to the public five years ago, in June 2018, when a test concept at the nearby Annandale Volunteer Fire Department showed how parking lots can be transformed into public spaces. In July 2022, design plans were locked in for the county-owned site.

A number of current features are being replaced, including an old, deteriorating basketball court that’s being turned into the 1,800-square-foot lawn space.

The park will fill an important gap in the Mason District, since it’s coming to an “underserved area with very little space available to facilitate outdoor community gatherings, programs and activities,” Boxer said.

Firefighters are still investigating the cause of the blaze.

ANNANDALE, Va. — Firefighters in Fairfax County were working to bring a house fire under control in Annandale early Monday morning. It's still unclear what sparked the fire. Crews spent much of the morning searching the home to see if anyone was inside, but no one was found.

According to a spokesperson with the department, crews were called to the 4200 block of Ann Fitz Hugh Drive in Annandale around 3:45 a.m. Initial calls reported a house on fire and hearing an explosion, but the fire department spokesperson told WUSA9 it is too early to determine how the fire started.

Crews brought the fire under control around 6 a.m. A second alarm was called to get more crews to the scene. A total of about 65 firefighters were called to the scene to help.

Deputy Fire Chief Greg Hunter told WUSA9 that while some initial calls reported an explosion, there does not appear to have been an explosion in this case. Hunter said the recent explosion at a Loudoun County home that left one firefighter dead were still fresh on the minds of first responders.

"Certainly the unfortunate events of Loudoun County weigh heavy on the minds of all of our first responders in the community. In this particular case, it does not appear to have similar circumstances to that in regards to the explosion," Hunter said.

Additional details have not yet been made public. We are working to confirm additional details. Stay with WUSA9 for updates as they come in to the newsroom.

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ANNANDALE, Va. (7News) — A local high school music teacher is back in the classroom after flying to Los Angeles to receive a Grammy Award over the weekend.

Annandale High School Orchestra Director Annie Ray won the Grammy Music Educator Award. She accepted the honor at the Special Merit Awards Ceremony on Saturday and attended the main event Sunday evening, getting a shoutout during the ceremony and crossing paths with several of her music idols.

I went from one moment teaching on the podium, to next being on the plane, next hugging Taylor Swift, and then now I'm back here,” she said.

In her acceptance speech, Ray thanked her students for being bold: “I am humbled to accept this award for you all,” she told the crowd Saturday.

“This award has my name on it, but it's truly the program's,” Ray told 7News. “Our school is so unique and beautiful, and it truly belongs to them.”

Ray said 66 countries are represented in the student body. “A lot of them might have conflicts outside of our school building, but here in the music classroom, it's not music that is a universal language, but musicking - making music together.”

Ray teaches around 130 students of all abilities and calls her special education class, “Crescendo.”

It is a meaningful, dedicated curriculum specific to their needs,” she explained. “They're not there just for a social aspect. They’re there to truly learn music and learn their own instrumentation.

As part of her award, Ray is receiving a $10,000 honorarium and a matching grant for the music program. Ray said the funding will be used to buy more instruments as well as to support field trips and scholarships.

“Arts funding should be there not just as a social-emotional outlet, but some of the best teaching is happening in these classrooms. And we deserve to have the funding to continue doing that work.”

Ray said she is humbled to have received this award.

“So many music teachers are deserving of this award because we teach so much more than the notes and rhythms on the page every day,” she said. “It’s teaching them how to sit with the discomfort of not being good at something right away and what process feels like. About what trial and error feels like, about what teamwork is like.”

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Plans are underway for an indoor pickleball facility in the long-vacant Kid’s Choice building on Ravensworth Road in Annandale.

The Down the Line Sports Center will have 18 pickleball courts, golf simulators, and a sports bar with a balcony for spectators, says owner Jenni Bae.

Bae hopes to open the facility in the second half of 2024.

“It’s not just going to be an indoor gym,” she says. Bae plans to create a premiere facility to serve the entire area, hosting tournaments, teams, leagues, and youth programs, as well as a gathering place for pickleball players at all levels – beginners, advanced, and professional. Group and private instruction will be offered, too.

“Our center will be a hub serving neighboring communities,” Bae says, and tournaments could attract players from out-of-state, which would also boost Annandale’s economy.

Down the Line will be membership based but people can also come to the center as guests. Members will have priority access, members-only locker rooms, and other benefits not yet finalized.

Bae’s family owns the Han Gang restaurant next door and two Japanese steakhouses in Maryland and one in Sterling. Their original plan for the Kid’s Choice building was to replace it with a senior center and banquet hall. That proposal was approved by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 2018, but the project never proceeded.

Instead, “once we saw how popular pickleball is, our family decided to pivot,” Bae said. “The building was designed as a sports facility, so that made more sense.”

An avid tennis player, Bae picked up pickleball during the pandemic. “The great thing about pickleball is it welcomes all ages and all levels of play. It’s a fun atmosphere and very social.”

Related story: Supervisors approve daycare facility for seniors/banquet hall in central Annandale

Bae enjoys playing with her father, who is nearly 30 years older, noting, “We are able to play a sport together competitively.”

“Skill is not directly related to age,” she says, as there are 10-year-olds playing in tournaments. Bae hopes to get more youths involved in the sport by hosting youth programs and camps for kids.

Bae is also opening a temporary Down the Line pickleball center in a vacant CVS at Courthouse Plaza in Fairfax in January. It will have three full courts and two practice courts. The City of Fairfax approved the project Dec. 12.

When the City of Fairfax’s economic development office learned about the future pickleball center in Annandale, Bae says, they decided to adopt a similar project on a smaller scale as a way to repurpose a vacant building before it can be redeveloped.