Salma Faqirzaava wants to be an attorney, but that future was impossible in Afghanistan. Now she’s back in school and learning English in Alexandria.
Eight months ago, Salma and her parents moved to Alexandria, where she enrolled in Alexandria City High School, finding herself navigating the busy hallways of the second largest high school in Virginia.
City-approved plans for the future of the Torpedo Factory Art Center are drawing serious concern from resident artists.
The Torpedo Factory Artists Association (TFAA) says it’s hopeful the plan will work, but that the city’s vibrancy initiative threatens to reduce rental space available to artists.
(Updated 3 p.m.) Alexandria’s teen pregnancy rate is falling, although Hispanic girls are disproportionately high, according to new data presented by the city.
The numbers are on the rise for Hispanic girls, with 22.4 pregnancies for every 1,000 female ages 15 to 17 reported in 2021, according to the Alexandria Campaign on Adolescent Pregnancy (ACAP), part of the Department of Community & Human Services. That’s an 8% increase from the previous year, but still below the 26 pregnancies per 1,000 females reported in 2020.
(Updated 1:25 p.m.) Alexandria is still clearing downed trees and in the wake of Saturday’s severe storm.
No one was reportedly injured in Saturday’s storm, which cut off power to an estimated 15,000 residents. As of Monday at around noon, there were still 131 households without power throughout Alexandria, according to Dominion Energy.
It’s been a scorching week in Alexandria, punctuated by two major crime events.
Someone was shot multiple times in an alley several blocks east of the Braddock Metro station last Saturday, followed on Monday afternoon by the city’s fifth homicide this year — the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old man on W. Glebe Road in Arlandria.
Alexandria hopes to award construction contracts before the end of the year for the long-awaited Del Ray Gateway project.
The finished product, which includes an interactive spray park and new public art, is expected to begin this year and wrap in 2024. Still, there is currently no specified date for when construction will begin, according to the city.
Thousands attended Alexandria’s birthday celebration on the waterfront on Saturday.
For a minute it seemed that rain on Saturday would result in a washout, like last year when the event was postponed. But skies cleared and grass dried enough for the event to continue as planned.
The price of riding on the Metro might go up and so could your tax bill.
Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson said that the region will experience collective pain by bailing out the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority from its projected $750 million budget deficit.
This summer, Alexandria is offering real estate tax exemptions for homeowners who install solar energy equipment in their homes.
The 2023 Solarize Alexandria program started this month and ends on August 31. It includes a free assessment, as well as discounts for tax-deductible olar equipment.
It’s been two years since Alexandria leadership put Dominion Energy’s feet to the fire over frequent outages. Dominion said it’s been making good on promises to improve the city’s power infrastructure, but city leaders are a little more skeptical.
Near the intersection of West Braddock Road and Russell Road in the Braddock neighborhood, Allen Moon, superintendent of contractor resource management with Dominion Energy, ran down the list of projects ongoing around Alexandria, from changing poles to targeted improvements in specific neighborhoods.
After considerable pushback, the city is rethinking its bonus height provision as a way to build affordable housing in Alexandria.
The city’s controversial zoning for housing plan proposes to upend a number of zoning ordinances. One of them is a bonus height amendment that would incentivize developers to add affordable housing to projects in exchange for two additional stories of construction in areas where height limits are 45 feet or more.
