News

It was a fast week in Alexandria! Welcome to ALXnow’s Friday recap of top stories.

This week started as the city cleaned up from last Friday’s damaging storm that knocked over trees, closed roads and disrupted power for thousands. Our top story was on the report of a suspected car thief who ended up in the hospital with serious injuries after a high-speed chase ended in a crash early Monday morning.


News

More than 130 families from the MacArthur Elementary School community delivered a letter to the School Board this week opposing redistricting changes heading to the School Board for a final decision next month.

Keep Students Together, a new group dedicated to the issue, said that the proposals tosplit the elementary school community” are speculative and rushed, and will disrupt kids who started their elementary school experiences during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.


News

Chuck Todd, NBC News chief political analyst, will be the judge at the 16th annual Taste of Del Ray on June 1.

The former Meet the Press host has a long history with Alexandria, and he’ll decide on the top dishes between 14 restaurants at the ticketed event, which will run from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Mount Vernon Recreation Center fields (2701 Commonwealth Avenue).


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The Alexandria Sheriff’s Office is making free identification cards for kids at community events.

ASO launched the program last month with a donation from Dominion Energy. Look for ASO staff at public events, like the city’s monthly community cookouts, to get a free photo identification card for kids with a photograph and fingerprint. Parents will get the only copies of the identifications, and ASO will not store the data.


News

The Alexandria Police Department got a fake phone call Thursday afternoon warning that a man with a gun was walking into the 7-Eleven at Mount Vernon Avenue and W. Glebe Road, intent on committing a robbery.

Police believe that the call to the Alexandria Department of Communications Center was made through Caller ID Spoofing — concealing an identity by deliberately falsifying data sent to a Caller ID display.


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According to a draft memorandum of understanding between the school system and police, the Alexandria Police Department officers are considered “school officials” with access to the records of Alexandria City Public Schools students.

The School Board is conducting a public hearing on the draft MOU on Tuesday night, May 27. The 40-page document is an update to the two-year agreement between police and ACPS. Once approved, the updated agreement will be in effect from July 1, 2025, to June 30, 2027. APD provides school resource officers at Alexandria City High School and the city’s two middle schools.


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No serious injuries were reported after the management office for the Fairlington Villages condo association caught fire Wednesday afternoon.

Alexandria Fire Department and Arlington firefighters responded around 2 p.m. to a report of a building on fire at 3001 S. Abingdon Street, near Abingdon Elementary School in the Fairlington neighborhood, according to ARLnow. Fairlington Village manages dozens of buildings and about 1,700 townhome and apartments on nearly 100 acres in Alexandria and Arlington. Two firefighters were treated for non-life threatening injuries at the scene.


News

A senior living community in Alexandria’s West End is looking to expand by building a two-towered 14- to 16-story apartment building with 257 units.

The View Alexandria by Goodwin Living acquired the seven-acre property at 5000 Fairbanks Avenue and 5101 Fillmore Avenue from Hermitage Northern Virginia three years ago. It currently consists of a five-story medical building, surface parking and a six-story apartment building with 126 units for independent and assisted living care. Now Goodwin Living is asking the city for permission to approve a development special use permit for a 700,000-square-foot building by increasing its allowable height from 150 feet to 175 feet for the south tower, six feet on the North Tower (to 156 feet), a 30% bonus density and a reduction of off-street parking.


News

The developer of a seven-story, 180-unit apartment building across the street from the Braddock Road Metro station is asking the city for an extension of its development special use permit.

West Street Acquisitions says a number of important steps have been made on the one-acre project at 727 N. West Street, which was denied by the City Council in March 2021 and then approved two months later. After some delays, including a legal battle with a neighbor citing city regulations prohibiting the Council from reviewing a denied application for a year, work on the four-year-old project has been slow, and the development special use permit is about to expire.


News

An Alexandria man is being held without bond after allegedly stealing a number of bicycles, breaking into an apartment in Old Town to steal a purse, and then using a debit card at a nearby convenience store.

The 54-year-old suspect was arrested on May 8 and charged with possession of burglary tools, entering a dwelling with intent to commit larceny, and multiple counts of destruction of property, trespassing, and petit larceny.


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After being in business for less than two years, Dollar Tree in Arlandria has temporarily closed.

The store opened at 3811 Mount Vernon Avenue in 2023. The former home of CVS was vacant for a decade before Dollar Tree moved in.


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