Townhomes will be built on 6 acres of the 16-acre property where Victory Center stands; the office building will remain.
Alexandria officials will be considering a tax break to the owners of the Victory Center to help facilitate the building's conversion from office to residential.
Stonebridge, the owner of the building, is requesting a partial property tax abatement from the city in exchange for incorporating a "significant number of committed affordable and workforce units" in the building, Washington Business Journals reported.
The Victory Center, a large, high-rise office building in the Eisenhower (West) Valley has been underused for decades.
City Council will take up the matter on Tuesday at it's legislative meeting. The meeting is at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
According to a city memo:
"5001 Eisenhower Avenue is a large, outdated office building, originally constructed in 1973 for the U.S. Army Material Command. Since that agency's move to Ft. Belvoir in 2003, the 600,000+ SF building has been vacant. Despite the efforts of two owners over 21 years to identify and secure federal tenants, the most likely user of an office building of this size and orientation, no lease was ever executed. The building's chronic vacancy has significantly raised Alexandria's total office vacancy rate and is a contributing impediment to significant Eisenhower West redevelopment activity."
The closest the office building came to usefulness was when in 2015, when the government awarded a lease for the relocation of the TSA headquarters -- but that award was overturned. The building also competed for the relocation of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) headquarters, according to city records.
"With that in mind, and in light of the current post-pandemic state of the office market, the property owner has determined that conversion of the existing building to residential use is its highest and best use."
