The Connection

In a 5-1 vote, the City Council approved EYA’s redevelopment of Robinson Terminal South. In many ways, the City Council public hearing on April 18 was largely a repeat of the April 9 Planning Commission and a number of committee hearings before that. Many of the same voices from the audience voiced the same concerns or showed the same support. Following prolonged discussions with city staff around compromises between the city and the developer, members of the City Council expressed some lingering concerns and made a few final changes to the agreement.

There was also a small amount of backlash regarding EYA’s compromise with the city to bring compacted dirt to the site via barge rather than truck. In a letter to the City Council on behalf of the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce, President and CEO John Long and Chairman Walter Clarke expressed strong approval for the site, but said that for future developments, the city should consider using the truck haul-route used during the construction of the Woodrow Wilson bridge rather than continue to use barging.

In previous meetings, local citizens with boats in nearby docks expressed concerns regarding silt build up as a result from barging. Brian Buzzell, a local citizen and business owner, said barging would have an impact on the marina just south of the dock, though he still expressed his support for the EYA project.

Major topics of discussion for the public and the council involved parking and the design of the buildings. Zoning Ordinances would require EYA to build 123 parking spaces for the multi-family residential units and 19 visitor spaces, 142 parking spaces in total. Part of the development special use permit for the site would allow EYA to build 132 spaces.

In the public comment, Buzzell also referred to parking as “the elephant in the room,” a phrase that would be brought up again several times throughout the public hearing on the topic.

“No one has solved this problem in Old Town and it is not fair to the applicant to burden [EYA] with the solution,” said Buzzell. “The issue should be addressed within the broader context of a comprehensive plan.”

While one citizen quoted “if you build it, they will come” from 1989 film “Field of Dreams” as a commentary on the site’s potential revitalization of the waterfront, Susan Savitch asked the City Council to remember the end of the film.

“[In “Field of Dreams”] you see thousands and thousands of cars coming to a cornfield to park and the thing they were looking at was a baseball field,” said Savitch. “Those numbers and that ratio is what we need to keep in mind here. We’re not going to build a baseball field, obviously, but we need parking for the folks who come to the waterfront.”

Townsend “Van” Van Fleet, president of the Old Town Civic Association, asked the City Council not to approve the parking reduction and not to allow residents of the development to obtain District One parking stickers, which would allow them to park on the nearby roads.

For Bert Ely, co-chair of the Friends of the Alexandria Waterfront, parking at the new Robinson Terminal South development is ground zero for the impendent parking nightmare facing Old Town.

“The situation will only get worse as development continues and visitors increase, residents increase, and supply of parking shrinks due to closure of parking lot on Strand,” said Ely referring to the lot being repurposed for the recently approved Old Dominion Boat Club. “The only solution is that each new site must provide sufficient on street parking to meet peak parking demand generated by that project regardless of what drives that demand … If staff believes on-site parking for the Robinson Terminal South project is sufficient, then staff should have no objection to barring Robinson Terminal South residents from obtaining District One parking permits.”

Yon Lambert, director of Parking and Transportation and Environmental Services, said that preventing taxpayers and residents of District One from receiving the same treatment as the rest of the citizens was establishing bad policy, and noted that on-street parking was necessary in case residents, for any reason, could not access the garage. But City Council didn’t agree.

“But ... they do have access to the garage,” said Vice Mayor Allison Silberberg. “We already have a [parking] problem. We do, and it’s going to get much worse. We want the warehouses to go, that’s clear as day, but what we put its place and how we accommodate new residents and those who live here for decades … is a quality of life issue. Parking is an issue. We can study it but we also have to use common sense.”

The council voted to allow greater flexibility in how garage spaces were assigned, but also voted to ban District One parking permits from residents of the South Robinson Terminal until the council recieves a recommendation from the Old Town Area Parking Study.

“I see a lot of checks and balances, and I see a lot of foresight regarding problems that may exist,” said Councilwoman Del Pepper. “But there is no doubt in my mind that if we don’t treat this area as a separate area and not allow parking permits, you’re going to have every guest, every visitor, every nanny, every worker occupying the neighborhoods around. It will just happen that way. You have to have those parking permits denied.”

The design of the project also came under fire, and received support, from members of the public and the City Council.

Katy Cannady reflected on a trip to Inverness, Scotland, in 2005, when a cab driver lamented that the town had torn down a Victorian building to erect a glass-walled structure by the lake.

“I told him they do that where I live too,” said Cannady.

Continuing the City Council public hearing’s European tour, Hank Savitch noted that Paris would not permit a development like this building in its historic district.

Van Fleet argued that the design, mass, and scale were the “the real elephants in the room.”

“The proposed design is not appropriate for the Old Town historic waterfront,” said Van Fleet. “Viewing the three monolithic buildings from the river or the bridge will seriously detract from the current charm of the riverscape, visibly highlighting the fact that this development has no relevance or connectivity to anything in the old and historic district.”

Silberberg expressed agreement with public criticism of the project’s design, comparing the glass waterfront to a building from Los Angeles.

“The connection to the buildings around it is not what I had hoped,” said Silberberg. “This design doesn’t really seem to fit here. It doesn’t fit in and it’s not to scale [with the neighborhood]. We just had a boat club design come in here that does reflect, far more, the historic district than this. Getting rid of the warehouses is excellent, but what we replace it with has to fit in and be to scale.”

City Councilman John Chapman expressed disappointment with the flat roofs, which he said conflicts with nearby buildings, and felt that the warehouse feel was too much of a nod to the past. Pepper wasn’t ecstatic regarding the glass facing the waterfront, but was happy about brick walls on the rest of the property.

Others in the public and the council were more pleased with the design.

“This is a city that’s reason for being is as an active commercial waterfront, and I think it’s grand that the City Council has gone forward with bringing activity back to the waterfront,” said Robert Atkinson. “I do have a concern that there’s some feeling that we should freeze Alexandria architecturally … I think it’s incumbent on every generation, over time, to have cities that grow and evolve.”

“The face to the water is the opportunity to push the envelope from the architectural perspective,” said City Councilman Justin Wilson. “There’s not a city in the world that’s built the same architecture through thousands of years, the architecture evolves as you move forward. Ultimately, you want to advance the face of architecture in the city, and the face to the waterfront does that.”

City Councilman Tim Lovain took a moment to express sympathy for the architects being alternatively told by the council that their design is too modern and not modern enough.

“I feel sorry for the architects who have to build something on the waterfront,” said Lovain. “People want something that’s evocative but not imitative. The vice-mayor talked about something being a cousin of existing buildings but not a sibling. Evocation is in the eye of the beholder. In general, I think the end result is excellent. It transitions well with the neighborhoods … and the waterfront side is innovative and attractive.”

Ultimately, Mayor William Euille said he was satisfied with the design. Euille reflected on a time, when he was growing up in Alexandria, that the waterfront wasn’t where it is today. The children played on train tracks and Old Town was lined with warehouses.

“The picture up here, that’s nice, but it’s an artist’s rendition,” said Euille. “It may have been what it looked like in the 1700s or 1800s. That’s great, I’d love to restore all that, but believe me, our waterfront did not look like that picture … Am I pleased with 100 percent of what’s being proposed … no, but it’s better than what we have today. I’d rather have something than to continue to have boarded up, dilapidated warehouses and vacant lots. Like any and everything else, we’ll find ways to embrace what will be there, and we’ll reflect in three, five, or maybe 10 years from now and say ‘wow, what a wonderful job’. Or we’ll say ‘hey, who were those crazy folks?’ But at 65 I’ll be gone by then.”

While residents of the redeveloped Robinson Terminal South not receiving District One parking stickers is a loss for EYA, Jonathan Rak, an attorney representing EYA, said the overall approval still marked a success.

“It’s a process solution,” said Rak. “Not everyone gets everything they want, including the applicant, but we think it’s an excellent result that’s benefited from all this extensive input.”