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City of Alexandria, VA City of Alexandria, VA

Landmark / Van Dorn Planning

Landmark Van Dorn Plan Revised rendering

City Council Adopts Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan

At its June 13, 2009 meeting, the Alexandria City Council unanimously adopted ordinance 4598 incorporating the Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan into the City's Master Plan as an amendment to the Landmark/Van Dorn Small Area Plan.  To view the public testimony and Council discussion, please visit the City Council Docket Page.

The plan envisions the redevelopment of Landmark Mall and the major parcels to the south as a lively, mixed-use town center for Alexandria's West End. Incorporating retail, residential, office and hotel development and a number of urban parks and plazas, the town center would be organized in a walkable grid of urban blocks. A new bridge over Duke Street is proposed to connect Landmark Mall to the rest of the town center and to other neighborhoods to the south.

South on Van Dorn Street from Landmark Mall, the area between Edsall Road and Pickett Street would also be revitalized with new mixed-use development.

A new transit system in dedicated lanes, as proposed in the City's recently adopted Transportation Master Plan, would provide connections to the Van Dorn Metro and to other locations in the region.

The details of the plan and its implementation concepts are outlined in the plan documents below.

Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan  

To read or download the plan by chapter, click on the links below.

Cover, Title Page and Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Vision and Guiding Principles
Chapter 3: The Plan for Landmark/Van Dorn (Summary of Recommendations)
Chapter 4: Land Use
Chapter 5: Transportation
Chapter 6: Urban Design
Chapter 7: Development Guidelines
Chapter 8: Environmental Sustainability
Chapter 9: Implementation 

To download the entire plan as a single file, click on the link below. The plan is laid out to print duplexed (two-sided print) on laser printers. The file may take five or ten minutes to download even on a high-speed internet connection. The document window may not update until this download is complete. 

Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan (single 18-megabyte PDF file)

Related Technical Documents

Transportation Element Technical Report
Projected Fiscal Impact - Net Tax Revenue
Technical Report on Development Contribution Potential 

For Further Information

For further information on the Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan and current activities in the Landmark/Van Dorn area, please call Pat Mann at 703.746.3857, or mail or e-mail at the contact information in the bottom of the left-hand column on this web page.

Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan Archive

The links below document the history of the development of the Landmark/Van Dorn Corridor Plan and provide additional background on the issues addressed and how policies were developed. These documents include presentations made at each of the community meetings during the planning process and notes on participation at key community workshops. 

Advisory Group Draft Review 

The Advisory Group raised a number of issues regarding the draft plan at the meeting of November 17,  and additional issues were raised in e-mails to staff.  The document linked below provides a list of these issues and staff responses to them.

          Advisory Group Issues and Staff Responses 

Meeting Materials

Additional Documents

Links 

Images, Maps, and Plans 

Background

The Landmark/Van Dorn Area Plan effort began in the summer of 2004 with the goal of developing recommendations for revitalization of the Van Dorn Street Corridor and Landmark Mall in response to General Growth Properties plans to redevelop the mall. A conceptual plan for the area was developed and is outlined in the meeting presentation for June 29, 2006 in the documents list below. The Landmark/Van Dorn Advisory Group reviewed materials previously developed, as well as new information on proposals for the Mall, new information on economics, transportation and other factors that affect planning in the area.

Landmark Mall Redevelopment

General Growth Properties (GGP), a Chicago-based shopping center operator, approached the City in 2004 with the intent to redevelop the 51-acre Landmark Mall site. The site presents the City with significant challenges and opportunities. It is one of the largest redevelopment opportunities in the West End and has the potential to encourage the revitalization of nearby sites. However, separate corporate mergers involving Sears, Hechts (now Macy’s) and General Growth Properties have delayed agreement among these parties on the Mall’s revitalization.

Recently, General Growth Properties has appointed a new manager for the project and renewed its commitment to redevelopment of the shopping center as a mixed-use center better integrated into the fabric of its surrounding community. This provides the City with an opportunity to help create a “place” that provides a community focus for the West End.

Landmark/Van Dorn Advisory Group

The Landmark/Van Dorn Advisory Group was established by the City Council on November 19, 2007. The members of the group were appointed by the Mayor. A list of the members is at the link below. The resolution establishing the panel outlines its mission.

Documents Posted at the Request of Advisory Group Members:

  • West End Citizen Principles (posted at the request of Jack Sullivan)

    Staff Comments on West End Citizen Principles

    The West End Citizen Principles paper characterizes the 2006 concept plan (presented in the June, 2006 and January, 2007 presentations above) in a way that does not reflect the plan's concepts for development of Landmark Mall or of affordable housing.

    With respect to Landmark Mall, the Principles imply that Landmark Mall would have less commercial development under the plan than it has today. In fact, the plan provided for a 2.0 FAR for the site, for a total of 4.5 million square feet, compared to the current floor area of approximately 1.0 million square feet. The assumed development included approximately the same retail floor area as currently exists on the site, with the addition of approximately 1400 residential units, a hotel, and approximately 250,000 square feet of office use, for a total FAR of 1.4 to 1.5. Approximately one million square feet of additional floor area with unspecified use would be permitted in the long term. Slide 8 of the plan summary presentation from January 4, 2007 shows nearly a doubling of retail and hotel use in the planning area, and an increase in office use from nearly none to approximately 500,000 square feet. 

    With respect to affordable housing, the Principles imply that affordable housing was the justification for proposing mixed-use redevelopment of existing commercial properties. Mixed-use retail plus residential use as the land use mix for redeveloped sites was assumed for two reasons. First, residential use as a component of mixed-use projects is a requirement for lively, active mixed-use centers. Mixed-use developments that include only commercial uses (retail and office) are often empty of activity at night. Second, residential demand was seen by the market study conducted for the plan as the primary driving force behind redevelopment demand for these sites. By comparison, the market study saw little office demand in the Van Dorn Street corridor until an active mixed-use environment could be created that would attract certain office users. The affordable housing program for the plan was intended to ensure long-term sustainable affordability in the planning area in the face of rapid loss of market-rate affordable housing citywide by (1) not encouraging redevelopment of existing garden apartment areas and (2) requiring that a significantly greater share of affordable and workforce housing be included in all mixed-use and residential projects resulting from rezoning than is typically provided in density bonus projects or with voluntary affordable housing contributions. The affordable housing analysis conducted for the project used 15% affordable and workforce housing units as a target for new mixed-use and residential projects (January 4, 2007 presentation on affordable housing). The information in the background report for the project (page 13 of the May, 2005 Understanding the Place Report) indicates that in 2000, approximately 71% of the housing in the context area for the plan was rental housing, compared to approximately 60% citywide. The citywide share of rental housing units as a percentage of all occupied housing units has fallen to approximately 52% according to the 2006 American Community Survey (slide 13 from December 17, 2007 staff presentation), and it is likely that the share of rentals in the Landmark/Van Dorn Plan Context Area has also fallen substantially since that time.

    These concepts will be re-evaluated as part of the current program for development of the plan for the Landmark/Van Dorn area.

301 King Street, Room 2100
Alexandria, VA 22314
703.746.4666
Fax: 703.838.6393
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