Status of Proposed Fields at McLean HS and Lewinsville Park

McLean Youth Soccer, an influential athletic organization, has settled on winning one and losing one on the pitch. 

In May, McLean Youth Soccer proposed re-orienting the Lewinsville Park fields No. 2 and No. 3 and adding synthetic turf to one of the fields. Another proposal was made to add synthetic turf to the McLean High School stadium field. It has been decided that the proposal for the Lewinsville Park fields will not be pursued while the stadium field at Mclean will be turfed.

“There are currently three rectangular fields in Lewinsville Park, one synthetic turf field with lights, one grass field with lights, and one grass field without lights,” said Dranesville District Supervisor John Foust. “After much discussion and outreach, the decision was made not to add another turf field at the park.”

The decision to not add synthetic turf was based around a resounding negative response by the citizens living around Lewinsville Park.

“Needless to say, such a project would be very expensive and the County and Park Authority would find it extremely difficult to justify given that two currently existing fields are quite serviceable,” said Frank Crandall, chair of the Environment and Recreation committee of the McLean Citizens Association.

Yet, there has been permission granted by the Fairfax County School Board to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding for the addition of a synthetic turf to the stadium field.

“The proposal is that the high school stadium field will be turfed and paid for with financial contributions from the youth sport groups, the McLean High School Boosters and proffer money obtained by my office. This is a reasonable alternative that recognizes the neighbors’ concerns about traffic, noise, lights and intensity of use, and will accomplish the important goals of providing a synthetic turf field for the high school and additional synthetic turf field capacity for the youth sports groups,” Foust said.

“No terms have been agreed on yet,” said Dr. Deborah Jackson, Principal of McLean High School.

The McLean High School synthetic turf field will be the sixth synthetic turf field added since Supervisor John Foust has taken office. There will be one added at Spring Hill Recreation Center this fall and another will be added as part of the McLean Government Center renovation and expansion project which is scheduled to begin next spring.

From their website, "MYS is now the largest athletic organization in Fairfax County with more than 4,200 members on more than 260 teams and using more than 22 fields. More than 97 percent of the club membership resides in Fairfax County and more than 90 percent are from within the Langley and McLean High School pyramids." Their teams range from five- to nineteen-year-olds.