[Archived] City of Alexandria Selects EDAW to Serve as Waterfront Planning Consultants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 10, 2009

The City’s long-awaited Waterfront Plan is moving forward, with the selection of Alexandria-based EDAW (www.edaw.com) as the planning consultants to lead this process. EDAW, which has offices on Prince Street in Alexandria, has international experience in waterfront planning and local knowledge and capability. In Alexandria, EDAW prepared the 1983 Design Guidelines for the Waterfront, the Jones Point Park Plan, and numerous other City projects. The firm’s major waterfront projects include the Port of Los Angeles; the Port of Liverpool, England; and Taiyuan, Bengbu and Kunshan, riverfront locations in China. EDAW has also worked on plans for redeveloping the downtown and waterfront in Wilmington, North Carolina; the North Shore Riverfront Park in Pittsburgh; and the Tidal Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. EDAW also serves as consultants for the World Trade Center Memorial project.

As a whole, the EDAW team will advise on land use planning, land use economics, transportation and parking, urban design, environmental planning, marine engineering, historic and cultural resources, and meeting facilitation. Of the team, Alan Harwood, who is a resident of Alexandria, will serve as project director, and Andrea Sweigart, will be project manager. Examples of specific projects Harwood has worked on include the Wilmington, North Carolina Vision 2020 Plan; Washington, DC’s National Capital Framework Plan, Poplar Point Development Plan, and the CapitalSpace Parks and Open Space Comprehensive Plan. Sweigart’s projects include the Tidal Schuylkill River Master Plan in Pennsylvania, the Big Darby Accord Watershed Master Plan in Ohio, and the Solomon’s Island Redevelopment Plan in Maryland.

“We are fortunate,” stated Faroll Hamer, director of the Alexandria Department of Planning and Zoning, “to get an internationally recognized land use planning firm with extensive waterfront planning experience to assist the City with the important waterfront planning process.”

The City is considering using a new process for waterfront planning that will highlight diverse community involvement, interactive design workshops, and professional expertise from an award-winning design firm renowned for waterfront design.
 
The Waterfront Plan will cover

• the area from Jones Point Park (where the National Park Service has completed its planning) in the south to Daingerfield Island in the north;
• approximately, by Union Street (south of Queen Street) and Fairfax Street (north of Queen Street) to the west, and then Bashford Lane out to the George Washington Memorial Parkway north to Daingerfield Island.

A series of stakeholder interviews, which have already been undertaken, has provided the City with an overview of the perceived opportunities, issues, and challenges related to Alexandria’s Waterfront planning.

The passionate, broad, and high level of interest in this project throughout the Alexandria community has underscored the need for a public process that is as inclusive as possible. To maximize participation from residents throughout the City, a series of open public meetings are contemplated to be held in lieu of appointing a limited advisory group. The Planning Commission will play an active role in guiding the process. These meetings will take different forms, ranging from tours and informational presentations to interactive design workshops. The City encourages all interested parties to participate by attending and contributing to these meetings. 

The public process, which will begin in early 2009, will take approximately 18 months to complete. An update on the draft plan process and the proposed schedule will be submitted to the City Council for discussion on January 13. There will also be a City Council work session on January 27 to discuss the Waterfront planning process. Subsequently, on February 10, City Council will formally adopt a Waterfront planning process structure.

To receive updates and future meeting notices, please sign up for the free online subscription service eNews at enews.alexandriava.gov. For further information, visit the Department of Planning and Zoning’s Web page alexandriava.gov/planning or contact Andrea Barlow, project manager, at (703) 838-4666 or andrea.barlow@alexandriava.gov.