Last Saturday night in downtown Falls Church, there was a remarkable abundance of quality live entertainment within roughly a block either way of the central Broad (Rt. 7) and Washington (Rt. 29) intersection. To begin with, there was a beautiful concert in the formidable meeting space of the Falls Church Episcopal Church featuring the Washington Sinfonietta orchestra performing Mozart and Haydn. Then, right across the street, was another classy performance of “Steel Magnolias” at the new Creative Cauldron space in the massive mixed use structure that is home to the new regional flagship Whole Foods store. Then there was a lively 70’s Disco show a half block up the street at the venerable State Theatre. And then there was live music at the popular Ireland’s Four Provinces restaurant and Dogwood Tavern and probably more.

The physical area may be small, but in terms of density, we can bet there were few places that offered more for entertainment-seekers anywhere in the region that night. On top of that, there was, and is, an abundance of very good food. We strongly urge City officials to put more outside lighting in and around that intersection to encourage the attendees at all these offerings to move around and make the most of their visits here. It needn’t look like 42nd Street in Manhattan, but more lighting would make it even more attracting. 

The City of Falls Church has evolved into a new era, one in which new people are arriving in droves to live in the apartments that have opened up in downtown, the Founders Row intersection and the massive new West End destination, and still more coming in to dine and attend events (the biggest single crowd this week constituted the near capacity that filled the Meridian High School court for the regional boys basketball playoff game this Tuesday. Our Mustangs remain undefeated with a shot at winning our town’s first ever state title in that sport. Near sell-out crowds have become common for high school and middle school drama productions at the new auditorium there, too.)

Add all our fabulous new restaurants, now a half-dozen or more regularly showing up on the “Best Of” lists in regional publications, and this town is truly a-hoppin’!

So here is the challenge: to make all of this work, the City really needs to attract more people from elsewhere in the region to fill these great new venues.

And yes, it is already happening. A City official noted recently that already most of the people shopping downtown are not from the City. But that is our point: this is what we are relying on, and there needs to be a lot more of it.

With the way things are developing now, the regional economy is going to get very tight. But in the four zip codes right around the City there has been an estimated $4 billion in annual disposable