Days before Christmas, the City joined with a few partners, some familiar and some new, to announce the future of the Landmark Mall site. The new development plan will move Inova Alexandria Hospital from its home for the past 58 years on Seminary Road to a new modern facility on the site of Landmark Mall.

The site, one of the largest sites inside the Beltway awaiting redevelopment, will see a billion dollars of new investment, including a new Level II trauma center, medical office buildings, residential, retail, parks, a new fire station replacing Fire Station 208, new committed affordable housing and a new transit hub anchoring the City's new bus rapid transit network, DASH and Metrobus.

Conquering those obstacles requires a unique partnership and financial arrangement. A local firm, Foulger-Pratt is leading a joint venture in partnership with Howard Hughes Corporation, the current owner of the mall site, and Seritage Growth Properties, the owner of the Sears site. They were able to bring Inova Health System into the arrangement to anchor this redevelopment.

Nearly 55 years ago, then-Virginia Lieutenant Governor Mills Godwin Jr. (later Virginia's 60th and 62nd Governor) came to Alexandria to open Landmark Mall. Today, the work to restore the Landmark Mall site to a productive use of real estate for our City is a top focus for our community.

In June 2013, after taking over ownership of the mall site, the Howard Hughes Corporation received approval by the Planning Commission and City Council for a redevelopment of their portion of the site . A slower than expected leasing market slowed their intentions to redevelop. 

In 2015, Howard Hughes Corporation was back at City Hall to apply for very minor amendments to the approval that was issued in 2013. These changes were approved by City Council in April of 2015.

Sears spun-off a new Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in 2015 called Seritage Growth Properties to maximize value out of their remaining real estate.  The Landmark Mall Sears store property is now owned by this REIT.  

The Howard Hughes Corporation later announced that it had purchased the Macy's store site. 

The Howard Hughes Corporation subsequently announced that the existing mall site is closing. 

Almost two years ago, Council approved revisions to the Master Plan to advance a comprehensive redevelopment of the site.

Two decades ago, when the ownership of the properties at Landmark Mall received their tax assessments from the City, the actual mall site was assessed at $76.4 million. The Sears store was assessed at $19.7 million. The Macy's store site was assessed at $17 million. 

Over 7 years ago, I proposed that the City develop a broadband plan to help bring true competition to Alexandria's broadband market.

Last month, the City issued a revised solicitation to select a vendor to construct a municipal fiber network to serve City and School facilities around our community.  

For years, Alexandria has sought new private investment in broadband infrastructure. For most of our residents, we have one company providing Internet connectivity and television. With new Verizon FIOS deployment plans shelved around the country and Google Fiber largely dead, the investment in broadband infrastructure must fall to local governments. Regardless of the performance of incumbent providers, technological innovation and reliability thrives on competition.   

Concurrent with the FY 2017 budget process, the City completed the initial financial estimates for the first phase of the infrastructure build-out .The plan is designed to replace the City's existing connectivity agreement for City facilities with a City-owned fiber network. 

By leveraging E-Rate funding from the FCC, achieving operating savings from the costs of the existing agreement, and the potential for private leases of our infrastructure, the effort may be able to pay for itself.     

In the fall of 2016, the Council unanimously took the next step in this important process, as we requested that the City Manager formally solicit for new providers to partner with the City. 

One of the core components of the original proposal I made was that the City adopt a "Dig Once" policy.  Essentially that's a policy that makes the City more efficient by leveraging existing underground infrastructure work to add conduit and other infrastructure at the same time. With hundreds of millions of dollars of sewer and transportation work scheduled over the next decade, we should sequence and combine that work to be the most efficient. 

Alexandria remains one in a relatively small list of Virginia jurisdictions who have a private water utility. Virginia American Water Company  (VAWC), a subsidiary of a large national company, provides the water supply to Alexandria's residents and businesses.

As a private utility, VAWC is subject to the authority of the State Corporation Commission (SCC) in Richmond. In November of 2018, the utility filed before the SCC for a rate increase. This increase is significant and also proposes to make an additional service charge permanent. 

In 2019, the City Council voted to intervene in this application before the SCC and oppose this rate increase. 

In November, the SCC concurred with the City's position and rejected most of VAWC's requested increase. As such, all Alexandria water rate-payers will receive a refund retroactive to May 1, 2019. VAWC had originally applied for up to a 15.84% increase. The SCC approved an increase of up to 2.9%.

The Commission appointed a hearing examiner to look at the facts in the case and make a recommendation. The response of the hearing examiner in June of 2015 supported the City's perspective. 

Then, the City filed a response urging the Commission's support of the findings of the hearing examiner.

In September of 2015, the Commission concurred with their hearing examiner and that case was closed. 

Yet at the end of October 2015, VAWC applied to the State Corporation Commission for another rate increase. The increase took effect on April 1, 2016 and increased the typical residential customer's bill by approximately $4 per month. Additionally, they again applied for permission to create the new infrastructure services charge. Under state law, the increase goes into effect, but if the Commission lowers or eliminates the increase, every customer will be entitled to a refund. 

Another hearing examiner was appointed. At the end of November 2016, this hearing examiner provided his report. While the examiner did not accept all of the rate increases proposed by VAWC, he did approve a 3 year pilot of the new Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Service Charge. In December of 2016, the City provided its response to this recommendation. 

In addition to significantly limiting the rate increase, the SCC also rejected the request to make the Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Service Charge permanent.

To support the City's view on the inappropriateness of this type of unchecked rate increase mechanism, Senator Adam Ebbin proposed legislation during the 2017 General Assembly session to prevent such a fee structure in the future. Unfortunately, the legislation did not survive the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.

At the beginning of December, Carpenter's Shelter and the Alexandria Housing Development Corporation (AHDC) celebrated the opening of "The Bloom." This unique partnership with the City provides a replacement homeless shelter for Carpenter's and 97 units of committed affordable housing (including 10 units for former Carpenter's clients) just south of the Monroe Avenue Bridge on Route 1. You can watch the ribbon-cutting event online.

Later that same day, we broke ground on "The Waypoint." Wesley Housing, a non-profit housing developer began construction of this new affordable housing project that will be constructed in partnership with the City and Fairlington Presbyterian Church. This project, will bring 81 new units of affordable housing which will serve residents earning 30%, 50% and 60% of the area median income in our community.

Later this month, "The Lineage at North Patrick Street," the reborn Ramsey Homes, will begin to see new residents moving in. Developed by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA), this new development will provide a total of 52 new units, again serving residents at 30%, 50% and 60% of our area median income.

All three of these development efforts were a continuation of the public/private partnerships that the City employs to create affordable housing. All three projects utilized City tax dollars and successfully competed for Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) administered by Virginia Housing (formerly the Virginia Housing Development Corporation).

A year ago, the City hosted our 2020 Housing Summit. The event was designed to draw residents and policy experts from around the region and the nation. The attendees discussed the status of the City's implementation of our 2013 Housing Master Plan along with discussion of our continued housing challenges and the options to address those challenges in the future. It was a thought-provoking session and you can review the presentations and videos for all of the sessions online.

During my presentation at the beginning of the session, I discussed the City's achievement toward our goal of creating or preserving an additional 2,000 committed affordable units before 2025. Through a variety of efforts, the City had accounted for 1,404 of the 2,000 housing units we are working towards. 

Of the 1,404 units 735 of them have been created through partnerships with non-profits and the City's housing authority, the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority. These partnerships have typically utilized Federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) and braided several different funding approaches. Creating housing that remains affordable regardless of often unforgiving market conditions requires creativity and a little luck. 

A year ago our City's Housing staff assembled the financing for the acquisition of a West End property that had been on the market. With the purchase, which closed last year, the building and its units will be preserved as committed affordable housing. 

The Avana Alexandria Apartments is a building located at 3001 Park Center Drive. It consists of 326 apartments, with most currently affordable at market rates to residents making 70% - 80% of the Area Median Income. 

The building has now been re-branded as "Parkstone Alexandria," and last month the preservation effort was awarded a "Trend Award" by the Urban Land Institute of Washington for the innovation.

The purchase was made by the Alexandria Housing Development Corporation (AHDC), a housing development non-profit created by the City, and it represents two firsts: 

With this purchase, AHDC will be able to operate the building as committed workforce housing for decades to come. This is an exciting arrangement that highlights the partnerships required to make affordable housing happen in our city. 

In September, the City Council unanimously approved the extension of pre-development financing to AHDC and Wesley Housing to explore three other affordable housing development opportunities:

Less than eight months ago, the City received our first tranche of Federal CARES Act money. We have put that money to good use in benefiting the residents and businesses in need in our City.

In June, as we were on track to fully expend the $13.9 million that the City received, I wrote to urge the quick release of the second tranche of funding. At the end of July, the Governor announced the allocation of that money to address the significant need that remained.

While jurisdictions around the country have faced real criticism for frivolous expenditure of these scarce funds, the City committed early in this crisis to ensure that we effectively used these funds to assist our residents and businesses who have suffered during this crisis and that we leave no dollar on the table. I believe we have done just that.

In late March, the President signed the CARES Act which provided $2 trillion to assist residents, businesses and government.

The United States Department of Treasury provided guidance detailing how the funds can be used.  While the City and other jurisdictions urged maximum flexibility from the Federal Government, the money the City received is limited to:

In May, the House of Representatives enacted "The Heroes Act." This legislation included a substantial local government assistance component. For Alexandria, this legislation would provide $81.9 million to replace revenue that has been lost due to COVID-19 public health restrictions. While not fully replacing the our losses, this allocation would have gone a long way to easing the burden on our local taxpayers and services.

The legislation signed earlier this week by the President does many good things, but it did omit new assistance to local governments.

With this expectation, the Council voted last month to allocate $1 million of local resources to fill the gap as the Federal resources disappear. This additional funding will address rent relief efforts and food insecurity efforts during the beginning of this year.

While there is new hope that COVID-19 may soon be behind us, the hardship faced by our residents and businesses will continue for a while to come. The City will continue to find ways to provide the support required.

While the big headline of this newsletter is the move of Inova Alexandria Hospital to Landmark Mall, just before the pandemic hit Inova announced another planned expansion of healthcare services in our City with the development of a new Inova HealthPlex in Oakville Triangle. 

Almost six years ago, the City Council approved the Oakville Triangle and Route 1 Corridor Vision Plan. The site was approved for increased mixed-use density along with expansion and improvement of existing green spaces, new affordable housing, "maker space" to replicate some of the existing light industrial spaces and improvements to the road network in the plan area. 

However, the plan was likely ahead of the market and the plan approval sat dormant for several years. In late 2018, implementation of the plan was immediately accelerated with the announcement that the new Virginia Tech Innovation Campus would be located within Oakville Triangle. Yet that announcement did not last long, as Virginia Tech ultimately decided they needed more room to grow and they moved across Route 1 to North Potomac Yard.

Last month, the City Council unanimously approved the master plan amendment to accommodate this new configuration for Oakville Triangle.

Bringing this new healthcare resource to Alexandria will provide an important resource for our community and spur redevelopment in a strategic area of our City.

Last month, Alexandria was notified by the Human Rights Campaign that for the first time, we were awarded a perfect 100 score on the "Municipal Equality Index." We join only 3 other Virginia localities in this distinction and only 93 other localities nationally.

A little over 32 years ago, Alexandria became one of the first jurisdictions in the Commonwealth of Virginia to amend our Human Rights ordinance to include protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Passed on a divided vote of the Council, this action empowered the City government to seek out and eliminate discrimination in our community.

A year ago, the City Council unanimously adopted an ordinance amending our human rights ordinance again, this time to include protections against discrimination based on gender identity and expression. This proposal, originally suggested by my colleague Councilman Seifeldein, expanded upon protections that the City had provided for its employees.

Yet the broadband-dependent applications of tomorrow will be delivered through a variety of different technologies. The next iteration of cellular technology is known as 5G, which will be capable of delivering broadband capabilities far beyond current deployments. 

How to facilitate the deployment of 5G has been the topic of both Federal and state rule-making and lawmaking.  Over two years ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued an order attempting to accelerate deployment of 5G by preempting some local authority over this infrastructure work. Similarly, the Commonwealth of Virginia adopted new legislation facilitating the construction of so-called "small cell" installations, which support existing 4G networks and are often required for 5G deployment. 

Our City staff has worked to develop new guidelines and ordinances to allow this new wireless deployment, while being respectful of the potential aesthetic impacts to our streetscape. 

Last month, the Council approved 10 year agreements with three different carriers permitting them more extensive deployment around our community.