The Potomac Yard development will be on its way to gaining another massive chunk of office and retail space when developer Meridian Group breaks ground on its 445,000-square-foot National Gateway building next week.
Meridian is the master developer for a 40-acre plot of Potomac Yard that sits in Arlington. The area encompasses more than 300 acres and straddles Arlington County and the city of Alexandria, both of which began planning to redevelop it about seven years ago.
The new building, which is next to a recently completed 386-unit apartment building and across from a recently completed 481-unit condo building, will include 70,000 square feet of retail space, much of which will be an L.A. Fitness health club, said Meridian Group managing director Tim Eden.
Other buildings planned nearby include a 691-unit apartment building and a 625-room Marriott that will deliver in 2010, and two more office buildings with an uncertain delivery date.
A large office complex that houses the Environmental Protection Agency was completed in 2006.
Most of the new structures will surround a large stretch of green space called Center Park.
More than 1 million square feet of construction is proposed for the 165-acre old Alexandria rail yard in the Alexandria portion of Potomac Yard, but that could be held up if the city does not approve the developer’s proposed location for a pedestrian bridge over the rail tracks, which they are required by a 1999 agreement to build.
John Lindgren, a land acquisition manager with Pulte Homes, one of the project’s developers, told The Examiner recently that he expects the county to approve the plan by the end of the year.
The first portion of a planned Potomac Yard transitway, which will run from the Arlington-Alexandria line up to the south side of Crystal City, has secured all of its funding and will begin construction in 2008, said Bee Buergler of the Arlington County Department of Transportation.
