"You won't feel like you have to tiptoe between the café zones and the street edge," says Mike Ennes, senior vice president of asset management at Federal Realty, describing what the sidewalks along Campbell Avenue will feel like once the current construction wraps. He's talking about the Village at Shirlington, the walkable retail strip most Fairlington residents treat as an extension of their own neighborhood. Right now, though, tiptoeing is exactly what the walk requires. The fountain that has anchored the Campbell Avenue median for decades is gone, temporarily, on its way to a new home. Sidewalks are torn up in sections. Signage points you around instead of through.
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you only check one end of the neighborhood: Fairlington's two main walking destinations are not on the same clock this fall. One finished its turnover months ago. The other is still mid-project, with a reward that might land right as the work wraps, or might not.
Why the Fountain Isn't Where You Left It
Federal Realty, which has owned the Village at Shirlington since 1995, started construction in January on a phased renovation aimed at improving connectivity and public space while preserving what the property's vice president of creative planning, Geoff Sharpe, calls its authenticity. The scope is bigger than a paint job. Expanded sidewalks and outdoor dining patios are going in along Campbell Avenue. New wayfinding, decorative lighting, upgraded furnishings, and unified landscaping are planned throughout the property. The 1986 Beaux Arts fountain that has always sat in the Campbell Avenue median is relocating to a redesigned North Courtyard, which will also get new seating and curated art. The Library Plaza and the breezeway near Jenni's Ice Cream are getting similar treatment.
None of this is small. The Village draws roughly 3.7 million visits a year, according to Federal Realty, and this is its first real facelift in about 17 years. Construction is expected to continue through November, with temporary disruptions including partial closures along Campbell Avenue as work moves through different sections of the property.
What hasn't changed is who's still open. Federal Realty has been explicit that every existing tenant remains in business during construction, including the locally owned names that give Shirlington its identity:
- Palette 22
- Copperwood Tavern
- Busboys & Poets
- Astro Beer Hall
- Dudley's Sport & Ale
- Corso Italian
So the walk isn't closed. It's just incomplete, and it will stay that way for nearly three more months.
The Café Aimed at the Same Finish Line
Into that incomplete walk comes The Roasted Vine, a new coffee and wine house from Jody Hessler and Mackenzie Ryan, two hospitality veterans with deep ties to Shirlington who also co-own a pub in Clarendon. The 2,234-square-foot café will open at 4150 Campbell Avenue, next to Bearded Goat Barber, with house-roasted organic coffee, breakfast sandwiches, paninis, seasonal small plates, charcuterie, and a beer and wine list built around Virginia labels. There's a dog-friendly patio planned for Campbell Avenue itself, which puts the café directly in the middle of the section getting the sidewalk work.
Federal Realty announced the concept in mid-July with a target of late 2026. That's the same window construction is supposed to wrap. Which means Fairlington residents walking down the hill this fall are watching two timelines converge on the same few weeks, one measured in torn-up concrete and one measured in a still-unopened storefront. Neither has a firm date more specific than "later this year." The most honest thing to say right now is that nobody, including the people building it, can tell you yet whether the café or the finished sidewalk will show up first.
Bradlee Already Has Its After Photo
Walk the other direction from Fairlington, toward King Street, and you find a very different stage of the same kind of story. Bradlee Shopping Center went through its own turnover earlier this year, and it's already finished.
Chord Bread and Bottle opened by the end of April at 3690-J King Street, in the space that spent the previous 20 years as Unwined before that wine shop closed at the end of 2024. Owner Scott Shirley, who also runs Union Sandwich Co. in Old Town and connected with Slater's Market during the pandemic, built the new spot around a sandwich and wine menu, twelve cold sandwiches and six hot, plus catering and a wine club. It sits a short walk from Spice Life Indian Fare, which arrived at Bradlee in 2024 next to the Crumbl location, and from longer-standing tenants like Kyoto Sushi and BonChon.
As of this month, Chord has been open for a little over four months. It's past the "coming soon" phase and into the part of a business's life where regulars have already picked their order. That's the contrast worth noticing: the King Street side of Fairlington's typical loop has already absorbed its change and moved on. The Shirlington side is still living inside its change, with roughly three more months of construction fencing before anyone can say the same thing about it.
The Building With No Finish Line at All
Not everything in Fairlington moves on a construction schedule, and one local landmark is proof of the opposite extreme. Fire Station 7, the small firehouse at 3116 S. Abingdon Street that closed to fire operations years ago, is slated for formal decommissioning in Arlington County's fiscal year 2027 under the county's Capital Improvement Plan. The Fairlington Citizens Association says it's working with county staff on a community engagement process to help decide what happens to the building next, but as of this fall, there's no decision and no announced timeline for one.
Compare that to Shirlington's few-month countdown or Bradlee's already-finished turnover, and the gap is the point. Some change in this neighborhood arrives with a demolition permit and a press release. Some of it sits unresolved for years while a citizens' association keeps asking the county what's next. Fairlington residents who assume "under discussion" eventually means "decided soon" haven't been watching this particular building.
What Finished Quietly, Without Any Construction Fencing
One more thing completed this year in Fairlington had nothing to do with contractors. The Fairlington Historical Society spent the spring collecting oral histories from residents who were living in the community on September 11, 2001, ahead of this year's 25th anniversary of the attacks. Volunteers recorded interviews and written accounts in March and April, and the Society is preserving them on its website for future residents who weren't here for any of it.
There's no ribbon cutting for that kind of project, no fountain to relocate, no sidewalk to reopen. It finished on its own schedule, tied to a date on the calendar rather than a construction timeline, and it will be complete right around the same week this piece publishes. Fairlington's fall isn't only about what's visibly under construction. Some of what matters most here doesn't come with fencing at all.
The Order Matters More Than the List
None of this is really a roundup of unrelated updates. It's a picture of how a small, walkable neighborhood actually changes: unevenly, on timelines nobody coordinated, with the finished parts and the unfinished parts sitting a few blocks apart from each other at the same time. Bradlee's turnover is behind you. Shirlington's is still ahead, with a café that might beat the sidewalk or might not. Fire Station 7 isn't on anyone's calendar yet. And the Historical Society just finished a project that was never going to show up as construction dust in the first place.
If you've lived in Fairlington long enough to remember the last time Shirlington got this kind of attention, or if you're weighing whether this is the season to make a move of your own, Jessica Richardson has been walking this same loop between Bradlee and Shirlington for nearly three decades and is always glad to talk through what's actually changing here, not just what a listing photo makes it look like.
