(Updated at 4:10 p.m.) Alexandria is one step closer to the demolition of the NRG Potomac River Generating Station site in Old Town North.

On Saturday, City Council unanimously endorsed the plant owner’s Coordinated Sustainability Strategy, which outlines a plan to electrify the future mixed-use development slated to be built there.

Next month, City Council will conduct a public hearing on Hilco Redevelopment Partners’ (HRP) infrastructure development site plan, which details its proposal to build a mixed-use district. HRP plans on analyzing special use permits for the property between now and 2026.

Mayor Justin Wilson said that the project will be instructive for future projects.

“When’s the thing going to get knocked down?” Wilson joked to Hilco. “Today? Tomorrow?”

“If you could advance all of the approvals necessary, we’ll get started even faster,” replied Hilco’s attorney Mary Catherine Gibbs.

The plan to convert the property from district energy and combined heat and power systems to electric district energy and microgrid systems will mean all-electric building systems.

“Electrification of primary building systems ensures that there is a future pathway to carbon neutral operations while simultaneously delivering a high level of building performance and comfort,” HRP said.

HRP reported it will have to overcome a pandemic-induced severe supply chain backlog for critical equipment such as transformers, however.

HRP anticipates demolition could start next year. The former power plant first opened in 1949, shut down in 2012, and was acquired by HRP in 2020.

The site needs extensive remediation after leaky storage tanks bled pollutants into the soil.

The coal-fired power plant also severely polluted the air, according to HRP:

The facility emitted 3.15 million metric tons of CO2e annually, among other contaminants, or nearly 200 million metric tons of CO2e over the course of its operation. Concerned citizens hired scientists to study the power plant’s pollution, which triggered local and state investigations into the site. Air quality studies found that the plant violated national ambient air quality standards for sulfur dioxide, particulates, and nitrogen oxide.

The eventual redevelopment will occur in three phases, each consisting of two blocks, beginning with blocks “A” and “B” at the southernmost portion of the property. HRP proposes 80% of the buildings in blocks A, B and C to be residential development with 20% dedicated to commercial spaces

The project includes 14.2 acres of new or improved open space and people can share their vision for the open spaces in a survey that is active until May 31.

“At its core, the project is the removal and remediation of a power plant,” Dustin Smith, the city’s green building manager, told Council. “Following a decade’s long community process to achieve this, the redevelopment will bring with it stormwater and transportation infrastructure improvements and additional areas of open space to the Old Town North neighborhood.”

In its sustainability strategy documents, HRP said that the development will be transformed into a “vibrant, urban, mixed-use community that will include office, residential, arts, hotel, entertainment, retail, and restaurant use.”

“The property will be reconnected to the surrounding Old Town North neighborhood through the extension of the existing street network and the seamless integration of new publicly accessible parks with existing and future public open space,” the developer wrote.

“The site will be accessible through public transportation, the pedestrian and bicycle network, and will engage the adjoining uses and buildings, offering Alexandria the ability to showcase forward thinking urban and sustainable planning and development,” it continued.

Images via City of Alexandria

Crooked Beat Records will move from Old Town North to its new Del Ray home the week after Record Store Day on April 22 (Saturday), owner Bill Daly tells ALXnow.

The store’s last day at at 802 N. Fairfax Street will be on Saturday, April 29, after which it will be open on weekends. The new store at 2417 Mount Vernon Avenue in Del Ray will likely open in June.

“I’ve been starting to move in little by little,” Daly said of the new location. “I just installed the speakers for the stereo system.”

A former DJ at North Carolina State University, Daly worked for a record shop chain for years before founding Crooked Beat Records in 1997 in Raleigh. He moved the business to Adams Morgan in D.C. in 2004 and then to Alexandria in 2016.

Daly is now restocking his used vinyl records with a few estate sale deals.

“We haven’t been buying used records for more than a year to free up storage space,” he said. “Our used records are depleted 80%, and I’m now in talks to pick up 20,000 records in an estate collection.”

Record Store Day is Daly’s biggest day of the year, when world-famous artists release new work in vinyl, like Taylor Swift’s “folklore: the long pond studio sessions.” The store opens at 9 a.m. that day, and there’s a doorman to ensure 25 are allowed in at a time.

“You’ll see 300 people lined up around the block to get records,” Daly said. “A lot of high school girls are calling me about the Taylor Swift album. For some of them it will be the first record they ever bought.”

Record sales climbed 20% nationally last year, accounting for $1.2 billion in sales, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. It’s also the first time since 1988 that record sales have outpaced CDs.

“There’s a lot of factors to account for it,” Daly said. “Some would say records have a warmer sound, that they’re a physical medium and more tangible than CDs. For all our 25 years of being open, the vinyl customers are the most loyal. They just continue to come, sometimes from two and three hours away just to buy from us.”

Via Crooked Beat Records/Facebook

A massive plan to demolish the Montgomery Center in Old Town North unanimously passed through the Alexandria Planning Commission on Thursday night.

The two-acre project would demolish the 1970s-era shopping center and replace it with an eight-story 350,000-square-foot apartment building with 327 residential units, more than 25,000 square feet of retail and a 13,300-square-foot performance venue for up to 600 patrons.

Carr Companies bought Montgomery Center for $35 million from MRW Properties Inc. in 2021. There are about 25 tenants on the property, including The Art League, A La Lucia and Crossfit Old Town. The property is bordered by Montgomery, Madison, N. Royal and N. Fairfax Streets.

Ken Wire, the attorney for Carr Companies, said that tenants are being allowed to stay at the Montgomery Center until the end of 2023.

“We certainly understand and appreciate that change is hard,” Wire told the Planning Commission. “We are understanding that the loss of this building, with the small tenants, is difficult. There are 25 tenants in this space. We negotiated with every single one of them to keep them on the property as long as possible.”

The project includes:

• More than 13,500 square feet of publicly accessible open space in three locations, including a covered paseo connecting visitors from the north to south and connecting the open spaces
• Two levels of underground parking with 406 spaces
• A contribution of more than $900,000 to the Old Town North Streetscape and Implementation Fund
• An affordable housing contribution of $878,000 and 22 committed affordable units
• A $50,000 contribution to Capital Bikeshare
• $39,000 for parking meters
• A contribution of approximately $16,294 to the city’s Urban Forestry Fund

City Council will conduct a hearing on the project on April 15.

As plans for what will replace the Potomac River Generating Station in Old Town North gradually take shape, the city is still working through the specifics of how exactly to tear down the building.

Deputy Director for Infrastructure and Environmental Quality Bill Skrabak said in a presentation yesterday to the Alexandria Local Emergency Planning Committee — full disclosure, this reporter is a member of that committee — that rather than one big demolition the building will most likely be taken apart piece by piece.

“They’re going to be cutting up the big metal pieces with cranes and demolishing it, hauling it out on trucks and salvaging as much metal as they can,” Skrabak said. “Once the buildings get down to the ground, that’s when they would shift to remediation and soils.”

Skrabak also said there’s still work to be done to determine just how contaminated the soil at the site is. There are two large underground oil tanks at the property, at least one of which leaked around 2013. A remediation project was ongoing from 2016-2019 for that leak, but that remediation was to the standard of an industrial site, not a residential one like what’s proposed.

Beyond just those two tanks, though, Skrabak said there are other smaller tanks buried around the site that could contain chemicals.

One concern raised in the public comment at the meeting by nearby residents is that it’s still unclear just how contaminated the soil is at the site.

“We don’t have a gosh darn idea what’s underneath that building,” One resident said. “All the soil sampling and water sampling has been done in relatively benign areas but we have no clue what’s underneath that building. But here we are looking at how Hilco is going to approach this with what seems to be a pretty risk-tolerant position.”

But Skrabak said there’s a logic to demolishing the building before doing extensive testing on the soil.

“They will be doing an abatement to remove the contaminants before they demolish the buildings but you can’t do the remediation until the buildings are gone,” Skrabak said. “They’ll have to do additional samples once the building is gone.”

Skrabak said the soil will be sealed or covered when it’s transported away from the site in trucks.

“There are state requirements during construction for that material; they have to do the best job they can to reduce the amount of pollution as best they can,” Skrabak said. “There are certain structures they have to have, like the installation of a silt fence. What we try to do, when they’re excavating contaminated soils… we want them to get it in a container and into a truck and not have a big stockpile of contaminated soil sitting at the site for weeks.”

While Skrabak also said there’s no risk of runoff flowing back into neighborhoods, the same can’t be said for contaminants making their way into the Potomac River during demolition and construction. As locals have discovered in recent years, heavy rainfall can cause overflow to many stormwater management systems.

“Depending upon the level of issues, typically they have a sediment basin where they try to filter as much of that and let it settle before it gets discharged,” Skrabak said. “I do want to forewarn people, it’s not possible to have that level of disturbance and not have some dirt and mud. They’ll have a basin and settling tanks before it gets discharged, but if you have a large event it bypasses the filter.”

That demolition is still at least a year way. Alexandria Living Magazine reported in November that Hilco Redevelopment Partners confirmed the demolition of the power plant won’t start until mid-2024 at the earliest.

The Montgomery Center redevelopment is heading to Alexandria’s Planning Commission later this month.

The proposed development, first announced last spring, is a sweeping overhaul of a block at the heart of Old Town North.

The plan is to replace the current structure with a mixed-use development, featuring 327 residential units and 25,273 square feet of ground-floor retail. As part of a trade for bonus density, developer Carr Companies will provide 22 on-site affordable housing units and a monetary contribution.

Carr is also looking for city or public funding to aid in the construction of a three-level garage — or a two-level garage if no public funding is made available.

With the writing on the wall, some of the current tenants of Montgomery Center have been struggling to find a new home. Seichou Karate, a longtime martial arts school in the Montgomery Center, has been struggling to find a comparable new location. Local bike shop Wheel Nuts closed last December.

The project is heading to Planning Commission review at the March 30 meeting.

Seichou Karate Old Town was born in the 2007 Recession and adapted to survive the 2020 Covid pandemic, but after 16 years in the heart of Old Town North, it may not survive the neighborhood’s development boom.

Seichou Karate is one of a dozen stores at the Montgomery Center (807 North Royal Street) in Old Town North. The squat building sits at the heart of a rapidly developing area of the city. Carr Companies purchased the building and announced redevelopment plans last year.

With the building slated for demolition and redevelopment, a handful of local businesses that helped boost Old Town North for decades now find themselves victims of their own success. Beloved local bike shop Wheel Nuts closed in December after 20 years in business. Another shop owner on the block, who asked not to be named, said her shop would be running until they’re forced out. Like others on the block, she said she’s tried to find an alternate spot for her business, but it’s been difficult finding a location she can afford.

Richard Romero has run Seichou Karate since 2007, but has been teaching traditional martial and cultural arts in Old Town since 1997.

The brick walls around the interior of the dojo are holdovers from when that space was an alleyway between buildings. Under the mats, Romero said there are still manhole covers.

“I leased it 17 years ago and there was nothing here,” Romero said. “The bricks inside: that was the exterior of the other buildings.”

Before running the Seichou Karate, Romero was a lawyer, but said he couldn’t really find a place where he felt comfortable. Growing up in New York, he’d trained in karate, and when a coworker asked about martial arts, Romero agreed to teach him. That grew to a small class in the office, and Romero fell in love teaching.

“In 2004, I left law and taught at health clubs,” Romero said. “I was teaching at seven locations.”

Romero said going to work at Seichou Karate has never felt like “going to work.” Romero runs 28 classes per week out of the dojo. Two other trainers at Seichou Karate have been there for 12 years.

The building has gone through significant changes and improvements over the years, including a $22,000 investment in 2021 that Romero said proved to be ill-timed, as shortly after the improvements were completed it was announced that the building would be torn down.

“I get it,” Romero said. “I understand what these developers are up against. On the other hand… I feel confident they could do much more.”

Romero said he was hoping that Carr Companies could appoint a point person to help tenants relocate, but that hasn’t happened. There are doors a representative from Carr can open in the business world that smaller businesses can’t.

“I’ve been looking for 16 months,” Romero said. “If I do manage to call a landlord, many of them don’t want a karate school. There’s a reluctance for martial arts schools because we make noise and can’t afford the rent something like Chipotle can. but if Carr calls, they’ll pick up that phone.”

Other businesses around Montgomery Center told ALXnow that, like Romero, they’ve been searching for buildings to purchase or rent, but the rates are much higher than the Montgomery Center. While commercial real estate has struggled in recent years, Romero said many he’s encountered can still afford to wait for the safer bet of a national chain compared to a local business.

Romero and other businesses in Montgomery Center said they did receive offers to return to the Montgomery Center after the block was redeveloped, but Romero said he can’t afford to wait the several years it might take to build the new development.

For Seichou Karate, Romero said the deadline to find a new place is the end of March.

“We’ll stay here as long as they’ll let us stay,” Romero said. “This [community] isn’t something you can reproduce easily. Our students love us. We’re not a national brand, but around here, we’ve been a gem for the community. We teach something unique and provide holistic development. I’m not ready to hang up my obi just yet.”

Almost exactly two years after it opened, Loyal Companion (923 N. St. Asaph Street) in Old Town North will be closing for good.

The location’s closure is part of a broader sweep of closures following Independent Pet Partners filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. All stores outside of Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois will close.

Staff at Loyal Companion said they learned about the closure last Thursday. Pet grooming well end on Feb. 18 and the store will be closed by the end of the month, with all merchandise in the store set on sale before them.

According to a message on the company’s website:

To our Loyal Companion community,

With a heavy heart, we want to inform you that we’ve made the tough decision to close our Loyal Companion stores.  We have loved serving the community and supporting you on your pet wellness journey. ​

Our stores will be open through the end of February.  We will be offering liquidation discounts and we encourage you to take advantage of these great offers to get all the supplies you need.

While it’s hard to say goodbye, it’s easy to say thank you. Thank you for being part of our family. Thank you for caring about pet wellness. And thank you for supporting your local community. ​

We’ve enjoyed all the hugs and belly rubs along the way. ​

~ Your Loyal Companion Team

Updated at 6 p.m. Old Town residents and business owners are up in arms for not being officially notified of a route change for the George Washington Birthday Parade on Feb. 20 (President’s Day).

The parade will shut down large sections of Old Town North and Old Town near the King Street-Old Town Metro station, restricting parking and vehicular access for residents and businesses. The parade will start at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Pendleton Street and Fayette Street, and marchers will walk south down Fayette Street, hang a right on King Street and then end at the foot of the George Washington National Masonic Memorial at King Street and Commonwealth Avenue.

The new route was chosen by the volunteer-led the George Washington Birthday Parade Committee to recognize the 100th anniversary of the parade, which is the biggest annual parade celebrating George Washington in the world. The parade is traditionally held east of Washington Street near City Hall in the Old Town Historic District, but this year’s event will commemorate the construction of the Memorial in 1923, which saw then-President Calvin Coolidge, Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Virginia Governor E. L.Trinkle laying the cornerstone.

In November, the Committee submitted a request to the city to change the route. That request was approved on Jan. 24, and two days later parade organizers publicly announced that the parade will happen on Feb. 20, and that a number of side streets will also be closed.

“As with any large-scale event of this magnitude, a months-long process was necessary to assess the best approach,” Ebony Fleming, the city’s director of the Office of Communications and Public Information, told ALXnow. “While we are honored our city is home to such notable celebrations, we recognize how changes, and even temporary road closures, can be an inconvenience to our residents and business owners, especially on a holiday weekend. We will continue promoting the new parade route and ask impacted Alexandrians for their grace and flexibility as we prepare to welcome excited visitors for this historic occasion.”

The parade will be held between 1 and 3 p.m., and parking restrictions and access will be lifted no later than 5 p.m.

“If it’s such a big deal — the 100th anniversary — don’t you want to let people know?” said an Old Town resident who will be affected by the parking. “I haven’t heard anything about this parade at all.”

Parade spokesperson Bud Jackson said that the new route is a one-time experience, and acknowledged the inconvenience for residents and businesses. Jackson said that parade volunteers will soon be going door-to-door to inform those affected about the change.

“Like most parades, the George Washington Birthday Parade has always included portions of residential neighborhoods and inconvenienced some businesses,” Jackson told ALXnow. “We acknowledge that this year’s one-time only parade route change will inconvenience some residents and businesses.”

But many residents and business owners are either unhappy about the late notice or unaware of changes to the route.

“Certainly the organizers knew it was the 100 anniversary of this event for quite some time,” a business owner told ALXnow. “Perhaps even for the last 100 years. Why did the City allow them to change the route well after event permits were submitted and approved? Why were impacted residents and businesses not notified? Would a for profit organization like Pacers be given the same leniency? I don’t think so.”

The parade will also restrict vehicular access to a number of housing complexes, including The Asher (620 N. Fayette Street), The Henry (525 N. Fayette Street), The Prescott (1115 Cameron Street), 1111 Belle Pre Apartments (111 Belle Pre Way), as well as Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority properties.

“I didn’t know about (the new parade route) and none of the residents that I spoke with knew about it either but I haven’t heard any complaints,” said Kevin Harris, president of the ARHA Resident Association.

Another Old Town business owner said they will be losing up to $7,000 in business.

“We already have events and staff scheduled for February,” the business owner said. “Federal holidays are typically huge retail sales days. This will be a $5,000-to-$7,000 hit on our business. This is why notifying impacted businesses is required in the permitting process.”

Parade traffic and parking restrictions

While the parade starts at Pendleton and N. Fayette Streets, all parking on nearby side streets will be cleared by 9 a.m., according to organizers.

• The bridge at King Street and Commonwealth Avenue will be cleared by 5 a.m.
• All vehicles parked on the street will be towed between the 100 and 900 blocks of N. Fayette Streets (at the intersection with Braddock Place)
• All vehicles parked on N. Payne Street will be towed
• All vehicles parked on N. West Street from the intersection at King Street to Princess Street will be towed
• All vehicles parked on Queen Street and N. Fayette Street
• All vehicles parked on Princess Street, starting at the intersection with N. Fayette Street and going down to the intersection with King Street
• Traffic will be shut down (except for residents) on King Street to Janneys Lane
• Traffic will be shut down on Callahan Drive (except Amtrak station traffic and buses)
• Traffic will be shut down on Diagonal Road and portions of Daingerfield Road (except buses and local traffic)
• Traffic will be shut down on Sunset Street, Russell Road and Cedar Street near the intersection of King Street and Commonwealth Avenue

A volunteer-led group representing the rapidly-developing Old Town North will now have paid leadership, with funding from the City of Alexandria.

The group will be focused on assisting the city’s goals of turning Old Town North into an arts hub, amid several sweeping developments in the works there, including the eventual demolition and redevelopment of the GenOn Power Plant.

The city is giving the group $83,000 in  American Rescue Plan Act funding, which it will spend on staffing.

“This grant will enable OTNA to move beyond the all-volunteer stage with new professional staff, and to intensify its work toward its goals of implementing the Old Town North Small Area Plan and the Old Town North Arts and Cultural District,” per a release.

The grant comes as big changes are in the works to the area, facilitated by the same density trade that creates affordable housing to create arts spaces. The move has created some concern that it sets arts and affordable housing up as competing interests.

Last October, the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership announced it would be allocating $535,000 in total to several community organizations around Alexandria, including the Old Town North Alliance.

Former Vienna Town Council member Edythe Kelleher was hired as the first executive director.

A pedestrian suffered minor injuries after being struck by a vehicle in Old Town North early last Sunday night (Dec. 18).

The 56-year-old female victim was transported to the hospital after getting hit at around 5:40 p.m. at the intersection of Pendleton Street and N. Pitt Street.

The driver stayed at the scene and was charged with failure to pay full time attention.

The incident occurred less than a mile from where a pedestrian was struck in the 100 block of N. Henry Street on Wednesday, Dec. 14.

via Google Maps