Planning Commission OKs IDA Office at Potomac Yard
Last-minute move secures $30,000 for traffic-calming money specifically for Del Ray.
The Alexandria Planning Commission approved Tuesday plans for a 370,000-square-foot office for the Institute of Defense Analyses in Potomac Yard Land Bay G, just south of where Target is currently located.
The proposal will go before the City Council on Dec. 15.
The office, the first non-residential building in the Potomac Yard development to enter the city’s approval process, is expected to be the focal point of a new town center. The proposed office is seen by city staff as an important addition to Potomac Yard, envisioned as a mixed-used center that also supports retail and other services.
IDA has outgrown its current office, located next to BRAC-133 in the West End.
Its proposed Potomac Yard structure is composed of two, eight-story towers built on a connected ground floor. It will have a 580-space parking garage consisting of one level below grade and four levels above grade. The 1.88-acre lot was originally planned for a hotel.
Traffic volume analysis submitted by the developer predicted the office would create an increase of 773 peak hour morning vehicle trips and 1,036 more peak afternoon trips to what exists today in the area. These numbers include a net change of 60 additional trips in the morning peak hour and 23 fewer trips for the afternoon peak hour when compared to what was approved to the area in 2009.
City staff hopes the traffic numbers will be mitigated by the Route 1 Bus Rapid Transitway, which will have a stop near the office, when it is completed in December 2013. The proposed Potomac Yard Metro station was cited by planners as another potential source of traffic mitigation.
Two members of the Traffic and Parking Board of the Del Ray Citizens Association, following a community meeting with city planners on traffic issues on Nov. 29, asked the city to take a proactive approach to traffic-calming measures, specifically on neighborhood streets in Del Ray.
“We want to city to be proactive,” said Sandy Modell, an E. Custis Avenue resident. “We have to do this right otherwise it will not be enjoyable.”
Farroll Hamer, the city’s director of Planning and Zoning, said at the Nov. 29 meeting that it was too late in the process to ask the developer for additional money.
On Tuesday, Rich Baier, the city’s director of Transportation and Environmental Services, and the developer agreed to secure about $30,000 from an already agreed upon $90,000 donation for parking meters to be used for some traffic-calming measures in Del Ray. The money will be used at Baier’s discretion.
Baier is planning a second community meeting with Del Ray residents in January to discuss when and how to use the money.
“This proposal is good for IDA and its good for the city,” Planning Commissioner Stewart Dunn said.
Jim Roberts
7:28 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
Missing from the traffic stats is the point at which reasonable road capacity is reached.
Since the road can't be widened, it should be not difficult to make a good guesstimate of the number of vehicles that will create gridlock on HW 1.
Some percentage of this number should become the Do Not Exceed level, and a useful guide for future planning.
Richard
9:23 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
Potomac Yard will be a case study in the future on how NOT to develop land.
Mt Vernon elementary and Maury elementary are adding trailers because of capacity issues. And less than a 1/4 mile away the city is allowing the construction of thousands of additional housing units. Where will the kids in those houses go to school?
Parents who dropped almost a million dollars on a house (and pay the city about $10,000 a year in taxes) will be sending their kids to school in a trailer.
Just how the hell did that happen?
Howard B.
9:41 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
Director Hammer informs us that it's too late to ask the developer for additional money for traffic-calming. Why didn't we ask before it was too late?
Doug
10:11 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
And we all though Rt 1 traffic through PY was bad now. It got worse when that new traffic light went in just south of Target. And now -- 800 - 1000+ additional vehicle trips each cycle of the commute? What about when all of the new houses are occupied?
Callimachus
10:32 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
As long as we look more and more like Arlington, the City Council seems to be happy.
MAK
10:38 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
No mention of the Metro station in the area? All the angst over the projected traffic issues at the BRAC site on Seminary Rd and PTO seems to have been for naught. Can we hope the same for this project? Mabye, just maybe, the City planners are smarter than we think.
Autoexec.bat
11:19 am on Friday, December 7, 2012
Unless they can make a new school materialize out of thin air in the next two years, they're not smarter than we think.
Lee Hernly
3:43 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
You obviously don't live in Carlyle with the parking & traffic headaches.
Diane Costello
1:57 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
There is much missing from this discussion about a potential IDA move, particularly relevant background.
“IDA has outgrown its current office, located next to BRAC-133 in the West End.”
IDA has been located at the Mark Center for well over 25 years. They purchased property in 2006 adjacent to their current building for future expansion needs. In fact, IDA went before City Council 13 June 2009 with a DSUP request for 368,400 sq.ft. of office space in two buildings instead of the originally approved one. The DSUP was approved (http://dockets.alexandriava.gov/fy09/061309ph/di17.pdf).
So, why one asks, would they want to move to Potomac Yard? What’s changed since? BRAC-133 now looms over the IDA building and its property.
One only has to review the video from the 21 Nov 2009 City Council public hearing, to hear the sentiments of two major employers at the Mark Center – IDA and CNA – with respect to their new neighbor BRAC-133: “…park-like environment turned into what looked like almost an industrial zone virtually overnight.”
CNA in fact sued the Army and then Duke Realty. They plan on vacating their leased space presumably in 2014 to move to Arlington (http://arlingtonmercury.org/articles/center-for-naval-analyses-to-move-to-clarendon/). “In the early ‘80s we were in Arlington. We had a brief moment of insanity and we moved to Alexandria,” said Chief Operating Officer Katherine McGrady. “Now we just want to move home.”
Diane Costello
1:58 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Exactly what is the City proposal to keep IDA in Alexandria?
The IDA move will likely require IDA Board approval as well as finding a buyer for their existing building and property. And like the rental space to be vacated by CNA, who will be the interested parties for such property adjacent to a behemoth of a structure and potential terrorist target?
The West End will be losing two highly desirable employers - CNA to Arlington and IDA to Potomac Yard due to BRAC. More fallout from the actions/inactions of Mayor Euille and the responsible City Council: Councilwoman Del Pepper, Councilmen Krupicka, Smedberg, Lovain, Wilson and Gaines.
Doug
10:01 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Diane - the new location, which is what this entire article is about, is located in Alexandria.
Diane Costello
4:01 am on Saturday, December 8, 2012
Thank you Doug; I am fully aware that Potomac Yard is in Alexandria. The possibility of IDA moving there has been known since at least June.
Please read my entire comment (two successive parts). The article states “IDA has outgrown its current office, located next to BRAC-133 in the West End” and therefore, implies that this move is necessary for expansion purposes. That is not true as I point out – IDA moved from its previous location, also in the Mark Center, to its present building which it bought as well as adjoining acreage for possible future growth. And it has had City approval for such an expansion at its current location since June 2009 – plan acreage of 7.24 acres, 368,400 sq.ft. of new office space in two buildings, approximately 790 parking spaces and 100,000 sq.ft. of open space.
The article describes the Potomac Yard site as 1.88 acres and the project as 370,000 sq.ft. in two towers and a 580 space parking garage.
Does that sound like a logical trade-off to you?
“This proposal is good for IDA and it’s good for the city,” Planning Commissioner Stewart Dunn said. Really? How is it good for IDA? And exactly what is the City offering in this “proposal” to keep from losing IDA as it did CNA?
There would be no need for IDA to move if BRAC 133 had not become their neighbor. And for that we can thank Mayor Euille and the respective City Council for rolling out the welcome mat for DoD at that site.
David
4:42 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Proximity to a new metro station in Potomac yards is now even more critical.
Katy Cannady
5:26 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
I followed the approval process for the proposed Metro station at Potomac Yard. The staff reports for the relevant small area plan state plainly that the proposed Metro station will handle only 50 per cent of the new traffic generated by the 7 million square feet of development that comes with the Metro station. Half the traffic is the usual maximum captured by a Metro. That is about the as good as the split between private vehicles and Metro riders in the condos, apartments and townhomes immediatley surrounding the Braddock Road Metro. So a new Metro station is not as much of a traffic cure as some think it will be.
Richard
5:44 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Metro is loud, slow, hot, cold, crowded and expensive. No one with the ability and means to travel by car would choose it over a car. I live by King Street Metro. My commute would be about $6 and 45 minutes each way by train. By car it's 25 minutes and less than $3 a day. Which option would you pick?
Brett G.
7:39 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Well, about 91% of commuters in the region agree with you, Richard, as only 8% of commuters in the DC region use Metro. See page 7 of this 2009 Census Report: http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf.
I don't really believe that building massive residential/commercial areas near Metro stations relieves traffic in some way (see Arlington, Carlyle). No, most people drive, it's that simple. Even if half the people who are going to live/work in PY take Metro (if a station is ever built, that is), that would still leave thousands of additional cars each day to the PY/Route 1 area with all this development.
Even should the Potomac Yard Metro station finally be built, it's probably of more utility to shoppers than actual commuters (provided they actually build it close to the actual stores, and not so far south and east of the stores that people just drive).
Couple all this with no widening of Route 1 and the bizarre 7 block-middle-of-Route 1-bus lane (I'm still trying to figure out how that short of a distance is going to help anything and how it is going to work with autos taking left turn lanes in front of buses) and I think we all know the word is cluster---.
If anyone is aware of links to any additional traffic studies on this, links would be great.
Doug
9:59 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
I live 5 blocks from the Braddock Road Metro and work in downtown DC. I choose to ride Metro M-F. It's faster, door-to-door, than driving and it costs less than gas + parking + wear & tear.
Michael H.
12:23 pm on Saturday, December 8, 2012
91% of commuters in every part of the DC region? No. Perhaps among people in Loudoun and western Fairfax. But in Arlington and DC? Not even close. More than a third of residents in DC don't even own cars.
In 2010, only 41% of employed DC residents drove to work. The majority used other forms of transportation, from MetroRail and Metrobus to cycling and walking. (And taxis too, though that was a small percentage of people.)
In more densely-populated areas with nearby mass transit and other options, many, if not most, people do NOT drive.
Kim Moore
6:57 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Is the developer still planning to build a school on what is now the new sports field? I thought that that was part of the agreement when the City approved the PY plan.
It looks to me like PY is going to be a new Carlyle; a major government office serving as the anchor to a residential development.
Drew Hansen
7:12 pm on Friday, December 7, 2012
Kim, look for a story touching on the school situation on Monday.