Play Street Museum In Ashburn Opens, Offers Town Square Play Space For Kids

ASHBURN, VA — There's a new Town Square in Ashburn with a fire station, pet rescue, doctor's office, grocery store, café, apartment, and recycling center all in one place. The only catch? It's made for the little ones.

Play Street Museum Ashburn opened March 12 at the Ashburn Village Center (44110 Ashburn Shopping Plaza #140). The Ashburn franchise, owned by Jen Fritzeen and her husband of Reston, and her daughter Emily of Leesburg, focuses on creative, education-based play for children ages 1 to 8. The center, while not a day care, encourages families to play together.

"We very much encourage parent-child interaction," said Fritzeen. "A lot of the stuff really can be a learning experience, and it's fun to see Mom or Dad sitting down with their little one."

Fritzeen said her daughter has three young children and wanted to find a play space that didn't involve ball pits, play tunnels and video games. The family found Play Street Museum, which had no Virginia locations. After scoping out the new Play Street Museum in Severna Park, Maryland last year, the family "fell in love with the concept."

"There are so many families here in Ashburn that are looking for something fun to do, something different," said Fritzeen.

Play Street Museum franchises have a few design options for play spaces, and the Ashburn location chose the Town Square theme. Highlights include a fire station with a model truck in collaboration with the Ashburn Volunteer Fire Department, pet rescue with a real bearded dragon, a recycle truck, café, doctor's office and more. The fire station includes fire outfits, and Play Street Museum is working to get ones that say Ashburn Volunteer Fire Department.

Other concepts in the play space rotate. The discovery rug section changes six times a year — the current construction theme will change to the ocean in April and May, then dinosaurs in June and July.

Play Street Museum also has an art wall rotating monthly with a featured art project, easel painting and craft tables as well as featured activities. The current featured activity is magnets, while Picasso is the featured art for the month.

Rounding out the offerings are daily enrichment activities: music on Monday, creative on Tuesday, science on Wednesday, practical life on Thursday and the enrichment rug theme on Fridays.

All activities are included with admission, except activities with an extra cost such as slime making, pottery painting, bracelet making, and paint-on tie-dye. Along with the play space, Play Street Museum has a retail section with children's products.

Play Street Museum offers play sessions as well as birthday parties and field trip reservations. Weeknight and weekend events like play sessions, seasonal parties and slime events may be offered on occasion. Five-visit play passes are available in addition to individual play sessions, and these can apply to a group with multiple kids.

Fritzeen recommends reservations, as many of the times are filling up in the first days of the business. She says reservations allow the business to monitor the number of kids coming in, as other play places may get crowded with kids.

Fritzeen says the community response has been overwhelming, and play sessions have been booking up, especially on weekends. Birthday parties are already booking out through May.

"It seems people are very happy. I've gotten a lot of complements," said Fritzeen. "There's nothing like this really in the area."

Play sessions are an hour and a half, and the half hour between sessions is dedicated to cleaning. Fritzeen says that is to ensure each session begins with a clean setting.

"I was a pediatric nurse for 34 years...and I kind of pay attention to where they are playing so we can sanitize," said Fritzeen.

The family has an area agreement to open more Northern Virginia locations of Play Street Museum. Fritzeen told Patch they are actively looking for sites in Arlington and Fairfax counties.

"We really want to bring this concept throughout the Northern Virginia area," said Fritzeen. "There will be different themes when we do the other two. If you're in Ashburn, maybe you'll go to the other ones once in a while and do something different."