If you're wondering what that giant crane is doing at King Street and Beauregard, construction continues on the Gateway Alexandria, a planned 585,000-square foot mixed-use project that will be anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store.
It will also be retail, office space and apartments. (And yes, there is another Harris Teeter store just 1.3 miles away in Shirlington Village.)
The Gateway is set to open in early 2019.
Houston-based Weingarten Realty Investors purchased the 5.2-acre site, located across from TGIFriday's and Northern Virginia Community College, adjacent to Fairfax and Arlington counties. Their net investment is expected to be $160 million, according to Holliday Fenoglio Fowler, LP.
Others involved in the project include Abramson Properties and Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.
Expect to see 352 luxury multi-housing units — with 74 designated for affordable housing. There will be 110,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, anchored by the grocery store as well as 87,000 square feet of office space. Underground parking will accommodate 820 cars.
Photo courtesy of Weingarten Realty
Gateway Alexandria project team
The project team includes Weingarten Realty, Abramson Properties and Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.
The entire project will also be home to a new bus rapid transit station that will be a part of the City's upcoming West End Transitway.
The space formerly housed a mattress store, a convenience store, a check-cashing store and a Five Guys hamburger restaurant in addition to the former Jefferson Memorial Hospital. (A new Five Guys is opening at the former Verizon store in Bailey's Crossroads.)
The City approved a loan of up to $5.5 million to the nonprofit developer of the affordable project, Alexandria Housing Development Corporation (AHDC), from the City's Housing Opportunity Fund in November 2015; this included a $350,000 predevelopment loan (approved in June 2015).
The City's financial support has enabled AHDC to broaden the affordability levels within the project. Eight units will be affordable to households at 40 percent of the area median income (AMI), 29 will be affordable to households at 50 percent AMI, and 37 will be affordable to households at 60 percent AMI. Eighty-four percent of the units will be family-sized with two to three bedrooms, and 10 percent will be accessible.
The building will be affordable for 60 years. As part of its financing package, AHDC applied and was awarded low-income housing tax credit equity during the 2016 tax credit cycle.
