As Alexandria’s Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project RiverRenew starts making progress, it’s looking increasingly likely the project’s cost will approach the half-billion dollar mark.
During an update at the City Council meeting on Dec. 10 (Monday), Mayor Justin Wilson said the price will be towards the upper end of the $370 to $555 million price range.
(Updated 12/12) In the last thirty minutes of last night’s City Council meeting, the typically uneventful oral reports escalated into a verbal brawl over the Seminary Road diet.
The controversial lane reduction is part of the city’s Complete Streets project, which aims to change the city’s car-crowded roads into a more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly streetscape. On Seminary Road, that meant taking the formerly four-lane Seminary Road down to one travel lane in each direction with a turn lane/emergency vehicle lane separating them, and the addition of bicycle lanes on the side of the road.
(Updated at 2:25 p.m.) Alexandria is hoping to buy an apartment complex in the West End to maintain it as affordable housing.
The City Council is scheduled to consider a $8 million loan to the Alexandria Housing Development Corporation (AHDC), an affordable housing non-profit established by the city in 2004, at a meeting tonight (Tuesday).
The city will likely add gender and transgender identities to protected statuses in Alexandria.
The new ordinance is scheduled for an introduction and first reading at the City Council’s meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) and for public hearing and enactment on Saturday, Dec. 14.
An Alexandria agency that helps locals adapt to a changing job market is itself trying to figure out how to adjust its services to meet the city’s changing marketplace.
Facing the impacts of Amazon’s looming arrival, the Workforce Development Center (WDC) is working to modernize and realign its services to fit with younger demographics.
It’s one thing to make rules for scooters, but on Alexandria’s City Council, there are concerns about how the city can enforce proposed new restrictions in Old Town.
During the City Council meeting last Tuesday (Nov. 26), the council worked to fine-tune the next phase of the city’s electric scooter pilot program and shape how that implementation looks when it’s applied on Alexandria streets.
As Eisenhower East continues to grow, the City of Alexandria is hoping for input on how to shape the community as it continues to grow.
City staff is working on an update to the 2003 Eisenhower East Small Area Plan. A lot has changed for the area since 2003, with the National Science Foundation moving in and new developments taking shape. A draft of the update to the Small Area Plan focuses on how to build or maintain affordable housing and open space amid new development in the area.
As the City Council considers approving Alexandria’s e-scooter pilot program for another year, several of the city’s boards and commissions have written letters asking that scooters be prohibited from city sidewalks in one form or another.
A draft recommendation being presented to the City Council tomorrow (Tuesday) includes banning sidewalk riding in Old Town and along Mount Vernon Avenue, which runs through Arlandria and Del Ray.
Meeting About Detention Center Held Last Night — “Should a youth detention center in Northern Virginia stay open? That question spurred passionate debate at a series of public meetings this month, as the operators of the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center make decisions about the future of the facility… ‘I would like to see the facility stay open because it helps youth,’ said Bill Cleveland, former vice mayor of Alexandria.” [WTOP, Twitter/@AmyJacksonVA]
City Council Approves Waterfront Restaurant — “The Mill, a southern kitchen and market, gained approval to open in a historic Alexandria warehouse at 10 Duke Street on the waterfront. City Council voted on Nov. 16 to approve the special use permit and encroachment into the public right-of-way on Duke Street for a balcony, steps and signage.” [Patch]
Alexandria could open up new zoning options in the city for “continuum of care” facilities that would offer local seniors a new option to age in place.
While elder care homes, group homes for the elderly, nursing homes and hospice care are all included in sections in the zoning code, staff said in a report that there’s no definition for senior facilities that offer a “range of care options from independent living to assisted living, with or without memory care services, within one facility.”
Deli, News & More at 1406 King Street in Old Town sells, as the name may suggest, deli sandwiches, news, and more. But it’s the “and more” that got the shop in trouble earlier this year.
The shop opened in 1994 as a newsstand, and in 1995 got authorization to operate a carry-out restaurant in conjunction with the newsstand. But as any one of the 150 patrons a day at the store may have noticed, half of the shop is a convenience store it was never authorized to operate.
