October 3 - 9, 2024
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. XXXIV No. 34
The City of Falls Church’s Independent, Locally-Owned Newspaper of Record, Serving N. Virginia
Downs, Murphy WHO TO VOTE FOR? Debate Slow To Define Differences Special F.C. Council Race Sees 1st Direct Face Off by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
The two candidates on the ballot seeking election to fill an unexpired term on the Falls Church City Council held their first public forum together last Thursday, a well-attended Q-and-A event held at the F.C. Community Center. Laura Downs and John Murphy sparred in the well-coordinated and civil undertaking co-hosted by the Falls Church chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWV) and the Village Preservation and Improvement Society (VPSI). The candidates were tasked with responding to questions which seemed to many to consistently harbor dissatisfaction with the current direction of the Little City. Murphy, a former chair of the F.C. Board of Zoning Appeals, is a board member of the co-hosting VPIS group, while Downs served four years on the Falls Church City Public Schools’ elected board. Downs led the School Board during a critical
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AT LAST WEEK’S candidates forum in the F.C. Community Center, a larger-than-expected turnout watched Special City Council Election candidates Laura Downs (second from right) and John Murphy (far right) prepare to face off, while, at the podium, the F.C. League of Women’s Voters Edie Snyder and Village Preservation’s Mark Gross, the co-hosts, made introductory remarks and Lorraine O’Rourke (far left) and Barbara Lipsky (second from left) prepared to curate written questions from the audience. (News-Press Photo)
Urban Land OKs Request for Another F.C. Study
by Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press
It won’t happen until next spring, but the esteemed D.C.based Urban Land Institute. will be bringing a cache of experts they call a “Technical Assistance Panel” back to the City of Falls Church for the third time in recent years, and it augurs more good things for the Little City.
Twice before ULI “Technical Assistance Panels” have set up shop in Falls Church to take deep dives into the potentials for the economic development of key commercially-zoned areas here, once for the far west end, and a second time for the far east end (which awaits progress on redevelopment plans from Fairfax County on its intentions at the Seven Corners intersec-
tion). This time, the ULI has agreed to come over to apply their considerable expertise to the area of the City known as the “Gordons Road Triangle” that encompasses 2.5 acres of City-owned land now used as a property yard and including the building that the City’s winter emergency homeless shelter occupies, as well as, potentially at least, about four
acres that has been assembled by the Beyer family. It could represent the most lucrative potential of all because of its proximity to the West Falls Church Metro station and the current dense development that constitutes the Hoffman group’s 10-acre West End complex going up catty-corner to
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