Moving to Springfield VA

Springfield, Virginia is a gem of a place in the DC Area and the lifestyle provides awesome opportunities for food, fun and families. We’re going to cover the Springfield lifestyle in this video. If you want to know more about real estate, check out our other video on Springfield as well!

Springfield  comprises three different parts. West Springfield is west of I-95, and south of the beltway. The north end extends a bit north of Braddock Road and the south end goes just past the Fairfax County Parkway. Springfield straddles 95 and is both inside and outside the beltway. And then North Springfield fits right in between the two. There is no East or South Springfield.

The closest metro stop is Franconia-Springfield Metro.

Food

Springfield does not lack in the food department and has some of the best restaurants and bakeries. Swiss Bakery & Pastry shop off of Braddock Rd has great deli sandwiches and fresh homemade bread. The bakery sweets are sinful, and the grocery area offers so many hard to get Swiss and German treats. Also we highly recommend Yindee Thai off of Old Keene Mill Rd. They have been open for a long time and their food is some of the best in the area.

Bob & Edith’s Diner is an institution – the best diner in the area.  It is always busy but it’s worth the wait.  It is a true diner down to the Mid-Century decor and you know the food is going to be great when they bring out a white coffee mug with the blue ring. They know how to cook eggs perfectly.

Springfield Town Center has a lot of great chain restaurants. Yardhouse has great beers and the food is great.

The grocery store options are fantastic as well.  You are close to an H Mart, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s but you also have the option of going to the more traditional stores like Giant, Safeway, etc. Springfield has a lot of international grocery stores that include Afghani stores, African stores, mercados, and Indian, just to name a few. These markets are awesome for locating ingredients for recipes.

Orkney Springs Distillery is awesome and worth a visit. If you are wine drinker, you are not a far drive from Paradise Springs Winery in Clifton.  It’s a really beautiful drive down Burke Lake Rd or the Parkway.

Fun

Summer is coming, let’s talk summer fun first. Some communities have their own pools in Springfield which are part of their Homeowner’s Association. Daventry, Danbury Forest, Shannon Station Pool at Keene Mill Village, and the Timbers are some of those communities.

If your community doesn’t have a pool, then there are membership based pools and they are all over Springfield. I mean, all over – there are about a dozen pools in such a relatively small geographic area.

Places like Springboard Pool is not only a pool, but they have movie nights, volleyball, ping pong, shuffleboard and social events. Family membership is $595 and there is currently a waitlist, but no indication of timing.

Springfield Swim and Raquet Club is $535 for a family membership.

North Springfield Swim Club is for those living in, North Springfield. They do check your address. It’s $550 for a family membership.

Village West Pool has a variety of membership options but for families the cost is $545 for up to 4 family members or $610 if you have 5 or more.

Canterbury Woods Swim Club is just north of Braddock Road. Their membership fee is $625, but requires you to buy a pool bond for $300. You can try the pool for one year without purchasing the bond, but then you must purchase if you plan to remain a member.

Rolling Forest Recreation Association is a non-profit serving residents of West Springfield. Residents of the Winter Forest HOA and Rolling Forest subdivisions are called Charter Members and automatically allowed to join. Winter Forest is required to join, Rolling Forest is optional but you would lose your right to membership. You can regain the right but you wouldn’t ever be able to vote. The cost for those communities is $520. Other residents in the area may join but the cost is $600 and there are no voting rights.

Parliament Pool Association doesn’t have restrictions on where you live. Memberships are $300 initiation and run from $250 for an individual membership to $500 for a family.

Walden Glen Swim & Racquet also requires membership. The cost is $495 for an individual membership, $730 for a family membership and $200 for tennis only.

There are several others including Orange Hunt Swim & Tennis Club, Rolling Valley Swim and Tennis, Fox Hunt Swim and Tennis, and Saratoga Recreation Group.

For more year round type of fun, there’s Lake Accotink Park. There’s a 3.8 mile trail that goes around the lake, and the park hosts a variety of outdoor, nature-themed programs in the form of classes and camps. Birdwatching, Kayaking, Mountain Biking, mini-golf, hiking, and there’s a carousel here making this a place of fun for kids and adults too.

We’ll talk about the St James here and in the next section for kiddos, because it’s so great we need to cover it twice. Walking into the St James is like walking onto a college campus in heaven. There are tons of sports fields inside for everything you can think of, there are pools and a water park, football, lacrosse and soccer are in the field house. Baseball and softball are in the Hitting House. There’s a Court house for basketball and Volleyball, an ice house for skating and hockey, and then there’s cheer, dance, gymnastics, climbing, and golf.

Another place for family fun is the Go Ape Zipline and Adventure Park. It’s located at the South Run Recreation Center. There are several different options for various levels and abilities. And speaking of South Run Recreation Center, there’s a lot there as well. Group fitness classes, swimming, plus a field house with synthetic turf for most sports. Then outside there are trails, basketball courts, baseball/softball diamonds, soccer fields, tennis and trails.

The Sydenstricker Schoolhouse was built in 1928 and what’s amazing about this schoolhouse is that it is still a bustling community center. It stands as a piece of history that remains nearly unchanged over the past 90 years. It was among the last operating one-room schoolhouses in Fairfax County.

Kids

People move here because it’s an affordable suburb in DC with really great schools. Some areas have better rankings than others, but in general the scores are 7 & 8’s on Great Schools, and a few with mid level scores peppered throughout.

West Springfield, Saratoga, Cardinal Forest, Ravensworth, Crestwood, Forestdale, Garfield, Springfield Estates and Lynbrook Elementary Schools serve preschool through 6th grade.

Rolling Valley, Keene Mill, Hunt Valley, Orange Hunt, Sangster Elementary serve Kindergarten through 6th grade.

Then there’s Kings Park which is Kindergarten through 3rd grade, and Kings Glen which is 4th to 6th.

North Springfield Elementary School is Pre-K through 5th and actually in a different region and feeds to Annandale schools.

The middle schools are either Irving Middle or Key Middle which serve only grades 7 & 8. and for high school it’s either Lewis, West Springfield or Annandale High School. That’s because of the five regions in which Fairfax County divides the areas, three of them meet in a juncture in Springfield. There used to be eight regions, but they reorganized it into five to spread out the socioeconomic disparities.

You will find lots of excellent school scores here. The Great Schools Scores are in the 7-10 range, and the other reviews you find online on places like Google are all really good. Families like these schools, with one exception. On the east side of Springfield, the high school there, Lewis, doesn’t score as well.

There are other great things for kids in Springfield. So many of the parks have playgrounds. Kings Park Community has 4 playgrounds alone to serve the 1100 homes in the community and the Timbers has Brookfield Park, which has a great playground.

Sky Zone Trampoline Park is here. The St. James is unbelievable. They have a kids playground inside called Super Awesome and Amazing. The kids can test their skills at indoor rock climbing, traversing the overhead obstacle course, visit the Virtual Reality Games or go to the indoor waterpark. They offer camps and leagues where you can learn to play sports. This is literally worth moving to Springfield for, no joke.

Hidden Pond Nature Center has a playground, trails and the Nature Center is the Visitor Center where you can check out any programs, see live animals or peruse books and items about nature.

There’s the Studio for Piano if your little one is interested in learning to play, as well as the Perfect Pitch Music Studio where you can learn piano or take voice lessons.

Conclusion

We hope this gave you a great idea of what it would be like to live in Springfield! There’s a lot to know about the lifestyle, if you have any questions please reach out to us!