"It became increasingly important to our board to invest significant capital in a space we own, ensuring long-term stability and the ability to fully realize our program," Lori Carbonneau, executive director of McLean Project for the Arts, told FFXnow this spring. That space opened on April 30 at 6910 Fleetwood Road as the MPA Berlage Arts & Education Center.
Five months later, it has changed when downtown McLean's art can be seen. MPA's galleries inside the McLean Community Center close at 4 p.m. and stay dark on Sundays. The new galleries a few blocks away stay open until 9 p.m., and until 10 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. They share a floor with a full-service restaurant.
A storefront nobody ever leased
The Berlage Center fills the ground floor of The Signet, a residential condominium building at Fleetwood Road that FFXnow reports was finished in 2018. The commercial unit was meant for a restaurant or retail tenant, but nobody ever moved in. MPA bought it on September 13, 2024, and rebuilt the empty shell to fit its needs. Elm Street Park sits directly across the road.
The project cost $6.25 million to buy and fit out. By early May, MPA had raised $5.85 million of it. The funding included a $500,000 Economic Opportunity Reserve Fund grant from Fairfax County and $1.8 million from MPA's 45 board directors. Carbonneau said most of the rest came from "a very local investor base." The center is named for Bruce Berlage, an MPA board member and donor.
The Fleetwood Road site was not MPA's first plan. The nonprofit first looked at building an arts center at Clemyjontri Park, and in 2022 the Fairfax County Park Authority revised its master plan to allow one there as a future option. FFXnow described the finished center as the result of "nearly a decade of planning and a few detours along the way." Backers over those years included the McLean Community Foundation, the McLean Community Association, the McLean Revitalization Corp. and the office of Dranesville Supervisor Jimmy Bierman.
The new space adds up to about 6,100 square feet. It has three galleries, including a black-box installation room that can host digital work, film screenings and concerts. It also has classrooms, a meeting room, a ceramics studio and Café Monet. "We are just thrilled about the idea of increasing foot traffic, of being able to serve the local residents," Carbonneau said in April.
The hours tell the story
MPA now runs five galleries in two buildings that keep very different schedules.
| Location | Weekdays | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|---|
| MPA galleries at McLean Community Center, 1234 Ingleside Ave. | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. | 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. | Closed |
| MPA Berlage Center galleries, 6910 Fleetwood Rd. | 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., until 10 p.m. Friday | 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. | 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. |
| Café Monet dinner service | 4 to 9 p.m. Mon. to Thu., 4 to 10 p.m. Fri. | 3 to 10 p.m. | 3 to 9 p.m. |
For someone who works a weekday job, MPA's Ingleside Avenue galleries are only open on Saturdays. At the Berlage Center, a weeknight visit works: see the galleries after work, then sit down to dinner in the same room. ArtsFairfax listed slightly different Berlage hours in August. MPA's own visit page is the more current reference.
What is on the walls through mid-November
The Berlage galleries currently hold MPA's three fall solo exhibitions, which opened September 17 and run through November 14.
- FOREST, by Freya Grand. Paintings of forests as places that show both environmental damage and reasons for hope. "The act of standing alone in the silence of a remote place, both as a human being and as a painter, is essential," Grand said in the exhibition announcement.
- Afterlight, by Ian Husting. Six mixed-media works in two parts. Three wall reliefs show harm and decay, and three freestanding sculptures reach toward regrowth.
- Hubris and the Sublime, by Sally Veach. Work built from 18th-century botanical illustrations and layers painted after Hudson River School scenes of the Arctic, about humanity's wish to control nature.
All three artists will speak at the Berlage Center on Thursday, October 29, from 7 to 9 p.m. That is a time slot the community center galleries could not offer.
The Ingleside Avenue galleries are showing "(Not) Strictly Painting 15" through November 7, with work by a 48-artist roster. A Tea & Talk on that show is set for Wednesday, October 21, at 11 a.m. MPA and ArtsFairfax list different venues for it, so check with MPA before you go.
Café Monet, five months in
Café Monet opened about a week after the ribbon-cutting. MPA owns it, and Knead Hospitality + Design runs it. Knead is the D.C. group behind Succotash, Mi Vida and Gatsby. The name honors both Claude Monet and McLean's Monett family, local arts supporters who helped fund the project.
Washingtonian put it in its July roundup of new restaurants, pointing to Niçoise salad, quiche, steak frites, brunch and cocktails. Arlington Magazine reviewed it on August 18. The review described high ceilings, Palladian windows and a patio with a fountain. It praised the pain perdu, garlic-cheese sourdough, tarte flambée, beef bourguignon and pan-roasted salmon, and credited Knead's corporate chef, Jonathan Dearden. It found the house jambon-beurre closer to an Italian sub than the Parisian original.
The menus were last updated September 9. Weekday happy hour runs from 2 to 5 p.m., and brunch is served from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends. Through October 11, the café is also serving a Theatre Week dinner menu, part of a regional promotion run by Theatre Washington and the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington.
Artfest moved the other way
MPA now has its own building, but its best-known event has moved closer to the community center. The annual fall arts festival, formerly MPAartfest, is now McLean Artfest. The McLean Community Center produces it, and MPA serves as the visual-art partner. This year's festival was held October 4 at McLean Central Park, with more than 30 juried Mid-Atlantic artists, food trucks and a live stage.
Before the change, Carbonneau told FFXnow that MPA had at times struggled to keep its identity separate from the community center's. As an example, she said some visitors assumed MPAartfest was a community center event. Neither organization has said publicly why production changed hands. The new arrangement does give each one a clearer role. The community center runs the big outdoor festival, and MPA runs its own galleries, café and classes on Fleetwood Road.
Splitting the rest of October between the two
The community center still runs most of October. Its events mostly fall in the morning or on weekends, and the evening options are on the other side of downtown.
Daytime and early, mostly on the Ingleside Avenue side
- Fridays through October 30, 8 a.m. to noon: the McLean Farmers Market at Lewinsville Park, 1659 Chain Bridge Road. October 30 is the last market of the 2026 season.
- Saturday, October 10, 8 a.m.: the McLean 5K, starting and finishing at McLean Square Shopping Center, 6631 Old Dominion Drive. After the race, the Old Firehouse Center hosts IGNITE: Relax & Recover from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Monday, October 12, 9 a.m. to noon: Touch a Truck in the community center parking lot.
- Sunday, October 25, 2 p.m.: the Borisevich Duo in a chamber music program at the Alden Theatre.
- Through October 31, Wednesday through Saturday afternoons: "FALL into COLOR!", with art by Sandi Parker, at McLean Art Gallery in Chesterbrook Shopping Center.
After dark
- October 9 to 11 and October 16 to 18: the McLean Community Players' production of "The Addams Family" at the Alden Theatre. The center calls it family-friendly with humor for ages 8 and up, though it includes mild innuendo and mature language.
- Tuesday, October 13, 7 p.m.: "Treasure Island Reimagined: Jane Hawkins and the Pirate's Gold" at the Alden. Three performers voice the story alongside 1,200 projected illustrations.
- Thursday, October 29, 7 p.m.: the fall solo artist talk at the Berlage Center, with dinner downstairs at Café Monet.
- Saturday, October 31, 5 to 8 p.m.: the Festival of Frights & Trunk or Treat at the Old Firehouse, 1440 Chain Bridge Road.
What comes next on Fleetwood and Elm
The Berlage Center still has one piece to finish. MPA says its MPA Clay ceramics studio is set to open this month. The studio will offer Clay Sampler sessions, six- and seven-week Beginning Wheel classes, and hand-building courses. Studio memberships for experienced makers are capped at 36 artists and come with round-the-clock access. MPA's membership application lists the fee at $350 a month. MPA's class calendar did not yet show bookable fall dates.
Across the park, Highcrest has filed a rezoning proposal for the office buildings at 6816 and 6824 Elm Street. It describes a seven-story mixed-use building with 115 homes, about 4,520 square feet of ground-floor retail and a 0.3-acre urban park. As of July, Fairfax County staff had not formally accepted the application, and FFXnow's report gave no construction or opening date.
If you own near Elm Street Park and want to know how a new arts anchor and a pending rezoning next door could affect what your home is worth, Gurdeep Mangat can walk you through the downtown McLean changes that matter for your property. Schedule a complimentary consultation.
