Alexandria approves 600+ housing units in Potomac Yard

Alexandria’s City Council unanimously approved special use permits for Maryland-based JBG Smith to develop 640 housing units in Potomac Yard at a Saturday meeting.

Located near the Potomac Yard Metro station, which opened in 2023, the project includes a mix of affordable and market-rate residences with rental apartments and for-sale townhomes, as well as 30,000 square feet of open space and 13,000 square feet of retail space. JBG Smith’s project will be built on the last remaining building parcels in the southern portion of Potomac Yard.

“I first started representing Potomac Yard in 2004 when it was a vacant piece of land, and I hope you all will mark today as the completion of that vision,” Cathy Puskar, a land use and zoning attorney with Walsh, Colucci, Lubeley & Walsh who represents the project’s developers, said during the meeting. “I am really happy to be here today to have a proposal that has a diversity of housing types in for-sale townhouses, multifamily rental and, more particularly, an affordable housing building right next to Metro, in a transit-rich environment with retail.”

Until 1982, Potomac Yard operated as a rail classification yard. Since then, the property has been redeveloped. Now anchored in part by Virginia Tech’s Academic Building One, which opened in January, Potomac Yard is close to Amazon’s HQ2 and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The project approved Saturday is located near where the failed Potomac Yard sports arena would have been built.

JBG Smith, an owner, operator and developer of mixed-use properties in the Washington, D.C., region, will develop 432 residential units — 480,533 square feet — of market-rate apartments in a seven-story building.

Additionally, Alexandria-based nonprofit Wesley Housing, which develops, owns and operates affordable housing, will deliver 88 units of affordable housing in two-and three-bedroom units, in a six-story building on land donated by JBG Smith. The building requires no city funding.

Finally, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers, a builder of luxury homes, will construct 120 single-family townhomes as part of the project.

A spokesperson for the developers declined to provide the cost of the development and said JBG Smith will provide details about a timeline closer to the start of construction.

“This mixed-use development is designed to bring much-needed rental, affordable, and family-friendly for-sale housing to the neighborhood, culminating a quarter century of development in the southern portion of Potomac Yard,” Taylor Lawch, co-head of development at JBG Smith, said in a news release.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated.