Alexandria’s DASH buses may look a little different this week if you ride in the West End.
The new white West End bus traveling the new AT1 Plus route will feature artwork showing the route and various destinations in Alexandria’s West End, according to DASH.
The West End Business Association (WEBA) just celebrated 15 years of promoting businesses across Alexandria’s increasingly developed West End.
The organization was founded in 2005. Wendy Albert, owner of Tempo Restaurant (4231 Duke Street) and former president of WEBA, hosted the birthday celebration at her restaurant.
(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) An apartment building in the West End filled with smoke Tuesday afternoon as a result of an electrical fire in the basement.
The fire was reported around 2 p.m. at the Foxchase Apartments, on the 100 block of N. Jordan Street, near Duke Street.
In an effort to make maximum use of limited space, Alexandria City Public Schools (ACPS) is planning to wedge a new gym at Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School directly over the student drop-off circle.
Ferdinand T. Day Elementary School — a retrofit of an existing office building at 1701 N. Beauregard Street — opened in September 2018. While ACPS was able to change the office structure into a school for 650 students, the school division said on the project website that building constraints meant there was no physical activity space or assembly area in the original designs.
(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).
Landmark Mall may be all but dead, but a trailer for the upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 revives the Alexandria landmark to its full ’80s glory.
Wonder Woman filmed in Alexandria and D.C. in 2018. The film will see Gal Gadot as Diana Prince — aka Wonder Woman — face off against Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) and Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal).
After the launch of the I-395 Express Lanes, Transurban is turning its attention to a ramp connecting I-395 to Seminary Road near the Mark Center.
The south-facing ramp, which opened in 2016, is currently restricted to HOV traffic and buses traveling north in the morning and south in the evenings. Transurban hopes to change that, opening the ramp up to toll-paying traffic — allowing another point of access to Seminary Road for drivers on I-395 and another incentive to use the Express Lanes.
Alexandria Home Sale Prices Rise Above Arlington — “The Amazon HQ2 effect on home prices in Northern Virginia continues and, at least by one measure, the Alexandria housing market is now more expensive than Arlington County. At least it was in October, the most recent month for which data is available.” [WTOP]
Trampoline Park Hoping to Open By End of Year — “Management for Get Air Trampoline Park, an indoor recreation and amusement park, confirmed that the Alexandria location is scheduled to open in the second half of December. The space Get Air is occupying at 340 S. Pickett St. was formerly a U.S. Post Office in the West End Village shopping center.” [Alexandria Living]
(Updated 5:35 p.m.) Watch out, Red Lobster, there’s another crustacean crawling into town across Van Dorn Street.
According to a city permit application, the national seafood chain Crafty Crab is planning on moving into the shell of Portner Brewhouse (5770 Dow Avenue) in the Modera Tempo mixed-use development. A representative of the applicant confirmed the new location was part of the national chain.
A long-planned bus rapid transit network (BRT) that would run through Alexandria’s West End is moving forward early next year, though the dedicated bus lanes featured prominently in the conceptual stage might not make it into the initial designs.
The city’s vision for the West End Transitway is a series of transit improvements to create a reliable, accessible bus line that would run from the Van Dorn Metro station to the Pentagon, hitting West End destinations that aren’t accessible by Metro, like the Mark Center, Southern Towers, and the perhaps soon-to-be-redeveloped Landmark Mall.
An Alexandria boutique gym has moved to a new location in the West End.
Sand and Steel Fitness opened in a larger, “state-of-the-art” space at 5418 Eisenhower Avenue on November 1. Previously, the gym was located along Alfred Street in Old Town.
