Annandale Today - What is Happening
January 1, 2007
Annandale has a beautiful history as part of the larger history of Fairfax County and the Commonwealth of Virginia. But what is Annandale? Clearly it is a “place name” in Fairfax County, which has over the decades been described by geographical boundaries. Today it is not as clear. The one clear definition of what is Annandale is regretfully described by the US Postal Service as an area served by a Zip Code. But people who live here don’t accept that. It is a community. It has a name. It has a history. And it has a challenge. And that is the purpose of this article, a discussion for those who live in what we call Annandale today. For some of us it has become a challenge, how can you take an unincorporated urban/suburban area and give it a sense of place …install pride … make it look good … feel good … and give people who live here a feeling that they have a community they can identify with? Or to put it another way, can we make this place called Annandale something special for our families and our children?
Most of the over one million inhabitants of Fairfax County, Virginia were not born here and came from someplace else. Usually that someplace else was a hometown, a community they could identify with when asked “Where is your hometown?” In our county we have a few real towns, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Herndon, for example. But most of our communities like McLean, Springfield, Merrifield, Reston, Bailey’s Crossroads, Annandale, etc. are just place names pulled together by a zip code. Zip codes are hardly ‘hometowns’. Few people are proud of their zip code. Zip codes don’t have parades or high school football or any of the so many little things that make us proud of where we live or make us care what our hometown looks like. There is little community identity in a zip code. That is the challenge facing Annandale. How can you turn a zip code into a hometown?
And that was what many people are trying to do.
Working with Fairfax County, it’s Supervisors and its staff, along with VDOT and a lot of local people who care, Annandale is moving. It is all about creating a “sense of place”, local pride and local bragging rights. Our hometown is here somewhere; we can discover it, we can create it. In our business center, our neighborhoods, and in our minds. It is a search that is still ongoing.
Several years ago, as part of the county’s commercial revitalization program, the Annandale Central Business District Planning Committee defined a target. That was the commercial center at the intersection of two historic turnpikes first laid down 200 years ago, Little River Turnpike and Columbia Pike. We called it Annandale Village Centre…a nice colonial era word. The committee next installed Gateway Gardens, not the gateway signs so often seen when you drive into a town. Our entrance signs are surrounded by a garden maintained by community groups. Then we created a logo for our signs, a stylized dogwood tree with a cardinal perched in its branches, our Commonwealths’ tree and bird. This Annandale logo centered over small gardens on VDOT right-a-ways greets all who enter our “urban village”.
Then we developed a downtown focus area for events. Again on VDOT right-a-way and working with Fairfax County and its Park Authority, we created “Tollhouse Park” at the intersection of our two historic roads. The park’s center area with its Annandale Town Clock, benches, and seasonal flowers, all surrounded by trees, has become a community gathering place where annually Annandale has a December holiday tree lighting ceremony, carol singing, and a follow-on banquet. The parks name came from the historic Little River Turnpike toll house that used to be on site in the early l9th century. Occasionally, as Northern Virginia’s traffic worsens, we stave off efforts to reopen the toll house to help pay for new roads. (Smile) Then with the help of the Small Business Administration and the county we bought and planted trees along our main roads. Over 200 sparkling Golden Rain trees today ease the souls of drivers cursing traffic as they cross our county through Annandale and beyond.
We developed a “streetscape design” for Annandale with a consultants help. The design guidelines were put to work, again with county VDOT support, to improve the look in downtown Annandale. We have brick sidewalks and cross walks, acorn lights, and standard park benches and trash receptacles. We use these same guidelines when working with local businesses who want to improve their property. Most businesses will cooperate, like planting shrubs to hide the blinding chrome reflection of parked cars, doing innovative landscaping, etc. State right-of-ways have shrubbery and trees and seasonal flowers. We were able to underground utilities along a special two block area to show the community and businesses what we could become. All of this work helps define Annandale and lets people know where they are. Because Virginia road signs are so dull we have adopted and installed an attractive sign design to identify roadways, turns and intersections … all with our logo and all intended to again serve to identify our “town centre”.
Pretty is not enough. You have to organize the people and keep going. So we have Annandale community events to support and highlight the scenic improvements. In addition to the annual Christmas program at Tollhouse Park, there is the Annandale Fall Parade … a large event sponsored by the Annandale Chamber and the Annandale Rotary that always attracts attention and features the Annandale High School Band. Who doesn’t love a parade with music and excitement? In 2006 we added a Festival in cooperation with Special Olympics and the Phillips Programs for Children and Families. There was a Halloween haunted house, bands, a chili cook off, flea market, games and more. In 2005 we began a Bed Race and Carnival, again teaming with Special Olympics to bring fun along with the flowers of spring. The money raised permitted the purchase and installation of holiday decorations during the month of December on the newly installed acorn lights. The flowers may be gone then, but scenic festivities abound.
And we keep it clean. Membership in Virginia’s Adopt-A-Highway permits legal removal of unsightly road signs. Annandale Clean Ups throughout the year are known for their organization and participation. School and community groups and other volunteers meet in the parking lot of our downtown public library and fan out to pick up litter. An innovative computerized matrix of the street grid was created so litter pickup assignments could be equitably allocated and controlled. We don’t want to miss a cigarette butt. Pizza is served and people see us … all in the hope that pride in community today will mean less litter to pick up tomorrow. And when we are not out there on the roads, a relationship with the friendly sheriff ensures a pool of willing workers is picking up Annandale litter.
Excitement is still rolling along. (1) We received a grant to study how we could make our urban village more pedestrian friendly and accessible by foot power to the residential communities that actually surround our small downtown. We want people to walk to where they shop. If this study is successful, we will make its results available to any community in the Commonwealth. (2) We badly need a community center given our demographic and have received a grant to define its makeup and find a location. (3) With county help, an Annandale Façade Improvement Program will award grants to businesses that fix up store fronts of old properties. (4) The Annandale Central Business Planning Committee awards its Annandale logo sticker that can be displayed in windows of businesses that do a special job of landscaping and keeping up appearances. (5) We understand well Northern Virginia’s and the Commonwealth’s transportation problem and want to get ready for whatever the future has in store. We were a transportation hub two hundred years ago, are now, and will someday be part of mass transit. So we are seeking a grant to identify a location and funding for a transit center that would link to a future intra-county system. Our initiative is to control the appearance of where we live today in preparation for whatever new comes along tomorrow. And in 2007 we will bring in the highly respected national Urban Land Institute and its professionals to help us chart a course for the future.
Annandale is more than a Zip Code. Its flag is not a symbol of government; it is a symbol of pride. Pride in our community. We understand that,
“The more we identify with where we live, the more we know that we are home.”
Dan McKinnon
