Portions of the property around the shuttered GenOn power plant in northeast Alexandria may be divided up for redevelopment.
The 25-acre site the power plant sits on is owned by Potomac Electric Power Company (also known as PEPCO). The plant itself is owned by GenOn, which has a decades-long lease on the building with PEPCO.
The Alexandria Times first reported that 1300 N. Royal St. is on the agenda for the Alexandria Planning Commission on March 3. The applicant wants to divide the property into three separate lots, which would make it easier to sell to developers.
“My understanding of what this subdivision is doing is that … it would enable a fee ownership of the land,” Jeffrey Farner, deputy director of the Department of Planning and Zoning, told The Alexandria Times. “So rather than a long-term lease, it would be a fee ownership, which would enable the future redevelopment.”
According to the application materials available in the Planning Commission March 3 docket (click here), PEPCO wants to "divide the property into three (3) new legal lots of land for future sale or redevelopment." The first lot would be more than 800,000 square feet and located southeast of the plant along the Potomac River. The second two lots would be west of the plant along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and Slaters Lane, and each would be less than 170,000 square feet.
After eight years of work by the City Council and state, the coal-fired plant closed on Oct. 1, 2012. It was called the single largest source of air pollutants in Northern Virginia. The complete history is available at www.alexandriava.gov/GenOn.
There is a significant amount of redevelopment slated for the northeastern portion of Alexandria in the coming years, including development at 1201 N. Royal Street, just a block away from the power plant property. That development calls for a residential and arts district there.
Just a few blocks south, the former Crowne Plaza is being converted to condos with space for MetroStage.
