Public invited to check out demonstration park in Annandale this Sunday

An illustration of how movable chairs, tables, and plants can be used to create an urban park in Annandale. [Adam Wynn/ Fairfax County Park Authority]

What do New York City, Los Angeles, and Annandale have in common? They are places where local governments are reclaiming underused urban spaces, such as parking lots, as parks.

Fairfax County will test the concept in Annandale on Sunday, June 3, noon-4 p.m., in the parking lot of the Annandale Volunteer Fire Department at 7128 Columbia Pike.

Greensboro Green at The Boro in Tysons.

The “demonstration park” will offer moveable chairs, tables, plants, and programming activities for children. County staff will be on site to provide translations in Korean and Spanish.

County officials are conducting the demonstration so residents can share their ideas on how to design and program a dedicated urban park in downtown Annandale.

“Communities all across the country have spaces where parks are not just grass and trees, and there’s a real value in trying out new types of park spaces,” says Laura Baker, program manager with the Fairfax County Office of Community Revitalization.

The demonstration park will be “an interactive experience for people to actually come see, touch, and feel what a flexible park or civic space can be like, rather than going to a meeting room to try to conceptualize it,” Baker says.

Ultimately, the county proposes to create a dedicated park or community gathering spot in the parking lot at 7200 Columbia Pike. Eight parking spaces would be repurposed at this county-owned property that is currently leased to the ACCA Child Development Center.

In the evenings and weekends when ACCA is closed, the space could be expanded further into the parking lot. The extra space could be used for events and activities, such as markets and outdoor fitness classes.

Sunset Triangle in Los Angeles.

After reviewing feedback from the demonstration park, the county plans to create a conceptual design for the future urban park later this summer. A second public demonstration park would take place during the Taste of Annandale Oct. 13 to collect more feedback from the public on the design concept.

The design is expected to be finalized by the end of the year, with the completed urban park or civic space anticipated to open in summer 2019.

Annandale was chosen as the location to pilot this new kind of urban park because it lacks public spaces and is dominated by auto-oriented shopping centers that don’t offer people a reason to linger.

“What we’re trying to do is help contribute to the local vibrancy of Annandale and help further revitalization,” Baker says. “We think having a space like this can really help bring about some near-term change which is tangible for people and can hopefully help propel future change.”

The future vision for Annandale’s central business district, centered around Little River Turnpike and Columbia Pike, calls for more walkable, mixed-use development with a network of public gathering spaces and smaller, urban parks. The plan envisions an urban destination park in the downtown area to support revitalization efforts.

The county believes the new park or civic space will be a small, immediate step toward this vision.

“It’s about thinking about places differently,” says Baker. “This is an opportunity to do something now that gets us closer to that long-term vision. We think there is an opportunity to creatively offer a community space now that otherwise wouldn’t be there.”