Metro’s board of directors last week voted to begin relocating Old Town Alexandria’s Royal Street Bus Garage, a community nuisance that residents have long wanted moved.
“It no longer fits in the neighborhood,” said Alexandria Mayor William Euille, who sits on Metro’s board. “It’s a heavy commercial-use building in a residential and historic district. I’ve been pushing for this for the eight and a half years I’ve been on the Metro board.”
The garage, which was built in 1945, houses 87 Metrobuses that depart and return throughout the day and most of the night, and sometimes idle noisily, residents have said. But the neighborhood likely will have to wait for relief.
Metro staff is still working to find a suitable new spot for the buses and to find a developer to buy the Royal Street site. The board voted Thursday to begin a preliminary engineering study and to fund a public hearing process for the replacement of the site.
That qualifies as “establishing a project,” a measure Metro must take to qualify for an expected $3.4 million grant from the Federal Transit Administration.
The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation will provide an additional $850,000 for the initiative. Metro has narrowed the list of potential sites for the new garage to three, none of which is in Alexandria. Two of the locations are in Fairfax County, and one is in the District.
Once Metro vacates the Royal Street garage,it likely will be developed into a residential building or town houses, or possibly into a mixed-use center including office space, Euille said. Metro will select a development partner for the site, and the developer will have to seek planning and zoning approval from the city before moving forward.
