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SunGazette
VOLUME 36 NO. 30
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G R E AT FA L L S • M c L E A N • O A K T O N • T Y S O N S • V I E N N A
MARCH 19, 2015
Vienna Community Center Project Still in Flux
Vienna and Fairfax Officials Working Through the Details
MODERN TAKES ON A CLASSIC TALE
BRIAN TROMPETER Staff Writer
“Totally Red!” a retelling of the classic “Little Red Riding Hood” tale, opened over the weekend at the Alden Theatre of the McLean Community Center, featuring McLean students. The show continues March 21 and 22 at 3 p.m. each day. Participating students include Duncan Andrews, Tara Atkison, Madi Hunt, Dasha Makarishcheva, Laney Moy, Connor Mulhall and Katherine Walker of Longfellow Middle School; Luke Flaxman, Cole Sitilides and Francisco Yang of Spring Hill Elementary School; and Clare A’Hearn and Alyssa Gorbaneva of Chesterbrook Elementary School.
In case Vienna officials and the Fairfax County School Board cannot reach a land-swap agreement, the Vienna Community Center’s future gymnasium might have to be turned on its axis, have its storage space reduced or eliminated, or literally have its corners cut to avoid encroaching on land owned by the school system. Delays stemming from the proposed property exchange caused Vienna Town Council members at a March 9 work session to consider those unappealing options. Vienna officials have spent the past few years drawing up plans for a revamped and expanded community center. That process has reached a critical point, as officials hope to put the project out to bid this spring and start construction in the summer. A key element of the plan is construction of a regulation-sized gymnasium, which would be appended to the community center’s northern side. Trouble is, a corner of the gym would extend onto the adjacent Caffi athletic fields, which the school system owns. Town Attorney Steven Briglia has been negotiating with school officials about swapping that 10,400square-foot section of land on Caffi Fields for an 11,500-square-foot town-owned parcel now used for parking at Vienna Elementary School. “From a zoning perspective, it really should be cleaner,” he said of the process. “It’s all the people’s property at the end of the day, but there are procedures that have to be followed.” School officials could declare the Caffi parcel surplus property, but this would trigger another county review, Briglia said. The town could avoid much of the encroachment by reorienting the gym, but this would place it too close to a maintenance building operated by Vienna
PHOTO BY LISA HELFERT
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