At a City Council meeting this week, more details emerged about plans to convert the Eisenhower Valley’s long-beleaguered Victory Center into a new bastion of affordable housing.
The developer, Stonebridge, proposes to convert the long-vacant office building and part of the massive parking lot into 825 mixed-income housing units.
An argument over major roadway changes left City Council members, like drivers at the Duke Street and Cambridge Road intersection near Bishop Ireton High School, stuck at a messy impasse.
As the City of Alexandria’s been working through the Duke Street In Motion plans — an overhaul of Duke Street with a bigger focus on transit, cyclist and pedestrian safety — the intersection of Duke with Cambridge Road has been a sticking point.
Alexandria City Council Member Sarah Bagley won the most votes in Tuesday’s election, making her the presumptive vice mayor-elect.
Bagley won a second term, receiving 42,291 votes in Tuesday’s election, just 664 votes more than Council Member John Taylor Chapman, who got the second-most votes with 41,627 votes.
After over two decades of sitting empty at 5001 Eisenhower Avenue, the Victory Center could be converted into housing.
The proposal comes as Alexandria has been seeing an increasing number of office buildings converted to residential use.
Alexandria Mayor-elect Alyia Gaskins says voters made the right decision in electing Democrats to City Council on Election Day, and that the city is committed to promoting its progressive values under the shadow of a Republican Trump administration in the White House.
“I can’t predict what the next four years will look like under such unpredictable leadership,” Gaskins told ALXnow. “What I can say is that I’m confident Alexandria elected the right people to lead us through.”
Alexandria City Council Member Alyia Gaskins made history tonight by becoming the first Black woman elected mayor of the city.
Gaskins was surrounded by her City Council colleagues and Democratic supporters as she accepted the results at Pork Barrel BBQ in Del Ray.
Vote yet?
Thousands of Alexandrians cast their ballots today, and ALXnow visited multiple polling locations throughout the day.
Voting lines aren’t long in Alexandria, and more than 66% of the city’s registered voters have already cast their ballots in the 2024 general election.
As of noon, 17,813 ballots were cast across the city’s 32 precincts. There were also 47,967 voters who voted early. The city’s registrar predicts an 80% turnout.
About 80% of Alexandria voters are expected to turn out this Election Day, according to the city’s General Registrar and Director of Elections.
Registrar Angie Turner said that 80% of the city’s 99,369 registered voters are expected to vote.
After nearly a year of campaigning, City Council Member Alyia Gaskins said on election day that she’s ready to be the next mayor of Alexandria.
Gaskins won the three-way Democratic primary for mayor in June, and faces no opposition in the general election. She will be the first Black woman elected mayor of the city.
Update 10/30: Oct. 25 was a teacher work day, the students in the photo above were not in school.
Every day, countless Alexandria City High School students walk between campuses across one of the busiest intersections in the city, and city leaders said Alexandria’s been very lucky no one has been hurt yet.
