T.J. Maxx is planning on moving to a sectioned-off portion of the former Shoppers Food Warehouse in Potomac Yard next month.

T.J. Maxx staff told ALXnow that the store will move from its current location at 3451 Richmond Highway and reopen at 3875 Richmond Highway on Thursday, Oct. 19.

The former Shoppers closed in 2020 and until recently was expected to be transformed into an Amazon Fresh.

Now with those plans scrapped, T.J. Maxx will take up more than half of the 50,000 square foot former grocery store, which was divided into two properties (3875 and 3801 Richmond Highway).

“The sign is up and we’re moving,” a T.J. Maxx employee said. “We’re reopening on Oct. 19. It’s very exciting, after being here all these years.”

Potomac Yard is managed by JBG Smith Properties and JPMorgan Chase & Co., which are both overseeing a massive mixed-use development of the area.

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) announced yesterday that Virginia Tech students at the new Potomac Yard-adjacent campus will get unlimited metro trips at a significant discount.

WMATA said Virginia Tech is being added to the transit network’s “U-Pass Program.” The program is included in the cost of attendance at schools for around $1 per day.

According to the release:

Virginia Tech joins a growing list of colleges and universities enrolled in the program that provides full-time students unlimited trips on Metrorail and Metrobus during the academic year at a significant discount.

The program will give students convenient, affordable transit options and coincides with Virginia Tech’s expansion in the region with the future Innovation Campus expected to open in 2024 next to Metro’s new Potomac Yard Station.

Full time students at the Innovation Campus, Northern Virginia Center, Virginia Tech Research Center, and Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center— will receive a specially designed U-Pass with the Virginia Tech logo. The pass will be valid during the fall and spring semesters during the 2023-24 academic year.

Metro’s U-Pass is compatible with Apple Wallets too, for folks that want to avoid carrying a Metro card.

The Innovation Campus at Virginia Tech is scheduled to open next year.

Dominion Energy’s Glebe Electric Transmission Project in Potomac Yard just got a little more attractive.

Since last winter, the parking lot in the 3800 block of Richmond Highway in Potomac Yard has been home to a tall, ugly concrete structure to hide the work Dominion has been doing to create underground electric transmission lines and rebuild and modernize the Glebe Substation in nearby Arlington County.

The sound walls will be up until at least the end of the year, and to make their appearance easier on the eyes Dominion just unveiled two giant posters showing Potomac Yard in the future by local artist Lea Craigie.

Craigie, who was the official 2022 National Cherry Blossom artist, digitally created two 23-foot-by-30-foot posters for the project. A poster depicting an evening scene faces Richmond Highway, while the other poster faces the parking lot.

“These walls weren’t the most pleasant things to look at,” Craigie said. “I want people to feel happy and peaceful when they look at my art. I also want them to think about the environment. In my pieces you’ll see electric chargers on the cars, solar panels, trains, wind turbines, and a diverse mix of people.”

The project timeline is below.

Alexandria Police are investigating the theft of more than $500 worth of items from a CVS store near Potomac Yard on Saturday night.

At around 5:30 p.m., a man wearing a red shirt and black pants and carrying a black backpack allegedly put the items in a garbage bag and walked out of the store at at 2601 Richmond Highway, which is near the intersection with Swann Avenue.

Police responded about an hour later, according to scanner traffic. No one was injured in the incident and no arrest was made.

Anyone with information on this incident can call the APD non-emergency number at 703-746-4444. Callers can remain anonymous.

Images via Google Maps

Potomac Yard’s microbrewery Hops Grill and Brewery didn’t live to see the new Potomac Yard Metro station open, but the Washington Business Journal reported the location at 3625 Richmond Highway could see new life as a bank.

The Business Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has leased the microbrewery as part of a broader push throughout the region.

The bank won’t take up all of the 6,900-square-foot space, the Business Journal said, as about half of it will be subleased.

The new location is not far from the planned Virginia Tech campus and a stone’s throw from the new Potomac Yard Metro station that opened last month.

Image via Google Maps

It’s finally here: the Potomac Yard Metro station officially opened last week.

City, state and federal officials gathered with workers who had labored on the station for years for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.

Last year, Metro ridership was slow to climb back from the low levels of ridership during the pandemic. New reports earlier this year showed the Metro system hit a post-pandemic peak in March, though general ridership numbers remain at around half where it was pre-pandemic.

(Updated at 1:15 p.m.) During the celebration of the grand opening of the Potomac Yard Metro Station, electrician Antonio Jones looked up at the structure he and countless other laborers worked on over the last few years.

For him and other members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — as much as for the city staffers, transportation executives and elected leaders from across the region in attendance — today (Friday) was a day of triumph: the Potomac Yard Metro station is finally open.

“It feels good,” Jones told ALXnow. “I couldn’t wait to come out here and be a part of it. It’s bittersweet; in construction, you work yourself out of a job. But we worked vigorously to get it here on time. I get to ride past and tell my children I worked on this.”

It was a day that seemed like it might never get here. After years of groundwork laid to have the new station built, it was a project plagued with delays that pushed the opening back more than a full year past the original planned opening. But, to thematically appropriate songs like “I Will Survive” and “Don’t Stop Believing,” today’s ribbon-cutting was a celebration.

It was a who’s-who of elected officials, including Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, along with the 8th District’s Congressman Don Beyer and Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson.

WMATA Board chair Paul Smedberg, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation Director Jennifer DeBruhl, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Chair Phyllis Randall, and Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands were all on stage for the ceremony.

Beyer noted particular excitement about the nearby Virginia Tech campus, calling it the “MIT or Carnegie Mellon of the 21st century.” Warner repeatedly referenced with hope that the station could be connected to the — still very undetermined — new FBI Headquarters in Springfield that Warner and other Virginia leaders have been advocating for.

For Alexandrians, though, the station was in-and-of-itself something to celebrate.

“What a great day to be an Alexandrian,” Mayor Justin Wilson said. “I’m now the sixth Alexandria Mayor to get up and wait to say these words: Alexandria, your Potomac Yard Station is open.”

Randy Clarke, WMATA General Manager and CEO, noted that 1,300 riders had already passed through the station before the official ribbon-cutting today, and Wilson said he was “so excited I went through the turnstile 1,300 times.”

It was also a somber moment as city leaders remembered former mayors Kerry Donley and Patsy Ticer, advocates for Potomac Yard who didn’t live to see the station opening.

“We talk a lot about in this business about the L-word: Legacy,” Wilson said. “For the past three and a half years, this site has been the workplace of hundreds of tradespeople. They have come to work every day under some of the worst conditions: a pandemic, rain, snow. They put in long hours and put decades of training to the test. But today, their legacy begins.”

Wilson also credited city staff, partners who helped finance the project, and Alexandrians at large.

“To countless Alexandrians who believed in this project when almost nobody else did: this is your legacy,” Wilson said. “This is your station. This station is going to change lives forever and we made it happen together.”

There were no injuries or arrests after a man allegedly displayed a handgun during an argument in the parking lot of the Potomac Yard Shopping Center on Wednesday afternoon.

Police were dispatched for an assault in the 3400 block of Richmond Highway at around 4:15 p.m. The victim told police that he got into another argument with a man just outside the Best Buy (3401 Richmond Highway) and that the suspect allegedly revealed a handgun in his waistband.

Nothing was stolen and there were no injuries reported, according to the Alexandria Police Department.

The suspect drove away in a white Jeep, and APD said it will continue to follow up on the incident.

Anyone with information on this incident can call the APD non-emergency number at 703-746-4444. Callers can remain anonymous.

Image via Google Maps

Target is pressing charges against a Maryland man who allegedly stole nearly $1,500 worth of products in three separate shoplifting incidents, according to a recently released search warrant affidavit.

The 54-year-old suspect allegedly did not scan 47 products totaling $442.42 on Saturday, March 17, and then 108 products totaling $1,040.30 on Sunday, March 18. Police reviewed security footage and found that the man appeared to scan some items in his basket, bag them and then put the bags on top of unscanned items.

On Thursday, April 6, the suspect allegedly made a third attempt but was confronted by a loss prevention employee and “ran away,” according to the search warrant affidavit.

Police reviewed security footage and found that the suspect drove from the store in his wife’s Dodge Caravan with Maryland license plates. Police called the wife, who said that her husband was out shopping and gave them his phone number. Police then received calls from the suspect asking if he could pay for the items.

“(The suspect) apologized and asked if he could come back and pay for the items,” police said in the search warrant affidavit. “However, Target had said they wanted to press charges.”

The suspect was served with a summons at Alexandria Police headquarters on April 16 and charged with petit larceny, which is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine. He goes to court on May 26.

Image via Google Maps

Personal security cameras, speed cameras in school zones, summer youth employment programs and eviction prevention funding are just a few of the final additions included in the fiscal year 2024 budget by the Alexandria City Council on Tuesday.

Council approved funding a $20,000 program to encourage businesses and homeowners with a “small incentive” to set up security cameras to deter crime, as well as increase their coordination with the Alexandria Police Department.

“I like the concept,” Mayor Justin Wilson said. “I think we want our residents to partner with us in providing this kind of neighborhood visibility.”

Other additions include $490,000 for five speed cameras at school crossing zones around the city. Last year, Council approved $400,000 for the speed camera program in five school zones.

Not all of the requests made the final cut. Vice Mayor Amy Jackson’s request to give the Alexandria Commission for Women $20,000 for it’s 50th anniversary event failed to gain consensus.

Council also took $657,629 from the budget that was intended for the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center (200 S. Whiting Street), pending proposals from City Manager Jim Parajon to find alternative uses for the facility, pursue regional partnerships for facility use and optimize capacity for the underutilized space.

The full list of additions to the budget are below.

• Out of School Time Program (OSTP) staffing ($200,000) — This increases paid leave and benefits for part-time staffing with the city’s Out of School Time program.
• Fee waiver for OSTP participants ($15,000) — This would fund a waiver for program participants eligible for SNAP and TANF.
• Speed cameras in school zones ($490,000) — This adds five photo speed cameras to school crossing zones prioritized by the city’s Department of Transportation and Environmental Services
• Childcare services ($50,000) — This will provide child-minding services at City COuncil town hall events, as well as select board, committee and commission meetings.
• Additional eviction prevention funding ($150,000) — This would increase the current funding level of $100,000, all of which will “reasonably assist 40 households in FY24,” according to the city.
• Central coordinator for immigrant affairs/refugee settlement ($110,000) — This would explore a new position or series of positions that could advance efforts to connect immigrant communities with information, resources and services and address the city’s challenges with immigrant populations.
• RPCA Mental Health Pilot position ($75,000) — These funds would go toward developing a Department of Recreation Parks and Cultural Activities pilot program for youth mental health services.
• Summer youth employment program ($214,943) — This would expand the program by 50%, to serve 255 children (85 more than the current program).
• Study for local housing voucher program ($250,000) — This would add funding for a study on a voucher-like program that stabilizes housing and enables access for low-income housholds across the city’s private rental market.
• City library security ($70,000) — This funding maintains library security staffing at current levels.
• Department of Aging and Adult Services ($19,000) — This fills the gap created by Virginia budget formula changed related to the Older Americans Act.
• DASH service line expansion on Line 33 ($120,000) — This would expand DASH Line 33 service from once every 60 minutes to 30 minutes on Sundays, easing connections to the new Potomac Yard Metro Station.
• Visit Alexandria advertising ($78,000) — This additional funding can be used by Visit Alexandria for any sort of media, online or print advertising, either regionally or nationally at their discretion.
• City Council aide compensation increase ($5,300) — This is a 2% scale compensation adjustment.
• Private security camera incentive program ($20,000)
• Continuation of AEDP economic recovery manager ($147,208) — The ERPM is responsible for creating and administering AEDPs Business Association Grant program, which supports Alexandria business associations as well as other ARDP rogramming to promote economic recovery.
• Rental inspection program enhancement ($136,000) — This allows staff to evaluate non-compliant multi-family rental properties.

The budget will be approved on May 3 and go into effect on July 1.