Eisenhower Avenue has been transformed from uban wasteland into a vibrant community.

Everything Old is New Again
Regenerating urban wasteland strengthens existing communities and prevents the erosion of America's countryside.

By Robert Burke
Eisenhower Avenue cuts through what used to be the heart of Alexandria’s industrial and railroad corridor. For most of this century, freight trains rolled across the low, flat land on the city’s southern boundary. But when the railyard died out in the 1980s, what was left behind wasn’t of much use. "It was the dumping ground for a lot of nasty stuff," says Agnes Artemel, an environmental and planning consultant in Alexandria. What was there, though, was plenty of open space — a valuable commodity in an urban area.

In the past two decades, a combination of private and public forces has turned the old railroad site and much of the rest of this 4.5-mile corridor of land along Eisenhower Avenue into a rising commercial and residential area. The avenue itself was made whole in the 1980s, when the city reconnected its broken sections. Metrorail opened three stations there, and the city rezoned it in 1992 for commercial use. The Eisenhower Avenue Public/Private Partnership, a coalition of landowners and residents formed in 1994, helped win construction of a new connector road with the Beltway. Today the corridor has more than 250 businesses and 15,000 employees.

The redevelopment could accelerate if the federal Patent and Trademark Office moves from Crystal City to a 2.5 million-square-foot office to be built at a new mixed-used development near the King Street Metro.

The transformation of the Eisenhower Avenue corridor’s 500 acres, say proponents of smart growth, is evidence that commercial opportunities exist in the inner suburbs, and that economic expansion isn’t restricted to the open spaces of Loudoun and Prince William. "This was an industrial area that’s becoming a first-class office area," Artemel says.

Redeveloping old industrial sites and commercial areas and obsolete subdivisions makes sense because it makes use of existing roads and transit. "That’s what we have to do," says John B. Adams Jr., CEO of Spotsylvania County’s Bowman Distilleries and a founder of the New Dominion Business Council, a group of business people who support smart growth. "Instead of just pushing out all the time, we’ve got to go and fix places. We just act as though we’ve got infinity out there. It’s a very flawed way to look at it."

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Proponents of expanding the region’s road network say the outer suburbs need new highways because that’s where new development will go. The inner suburbs, they argue, are largely built out. But smart growth advocates say that’s a myth — the inner localities have plenty of room.

"To this day, there are more building permits in Fairfax than in Loudoun and Prince William combined," says Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Loudoun County might be one of the nation’s fastest-growing localities, says urban region designer Ed Risse, "but as far as real numbers, Fairfax is growing more. When you build [MCI] WorldCom it looks like the whole world is going out there. But if you compare it to the growth in Crystal City or Rosslyn, it’s a drop in the bucket."

Cheaper land in the outer suburbs attracts commercial developers and corporations. Yet Miller argues that the deal isn’t so sweet for everyone. When a large employer leaves an urban area for the country, employees face longer commutes without the option of transit. And each new subdivision puts more demand on schools and roads, which leads to higher taxes.

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Alexandria’s not alone in trying to bring new life to older developed areas. Fairfax County is encouraging redevelopment in its established commercial areas.

Fairfax supervisor Sharon Bulova says a Fairfax City project is a good example. A developer there has proposed "a terrific looking group of buildings that would make the downtown of the city of Fairfax function as a town center," she says. In Annandale, the county fixed up an aging business district and will allow higher density commercial developments. The result, Bulova says, is that "20 years from now, downtown Annandale will be an exciting place — a destination instead of a place you pass through to get somewhere else."

Smart growth advocates say even a commercial powerhouse like Tysons Corner could use redesigning. "Tysons has stopped working because the only access is by car," says Stewart Schwartz of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Adding more transit options, housing and making it more pedestrian-friendly "will keep it economically viable and make it a functional mixed-use community."

Adams says Americans should take a lesson from European communities. "Those people had far less real estate. There’s always a way of redoing what you’re doing." But in the United States, developers have always found an easier profit by "buying out a farmer and putting up new houses."

Statewide, the potential for redevelopment and in-fill is enormous, says planner Ed Risse. "We do not need to develop a single additional acre of land to accommodate all of the growth projected for Virginia in the next 25 years."

Cities like Richmond and Roanoke have thousands of acres of land with urban infrastructure not being utilized. Along the rail corridor that parallels Interstate 95 are small towns that can be revitalized as high-speed rails link the Washington metropolitan area with RIchmond. The same is true of the towns along the rail line that parallels Route 29 through Charlottesville and Lynchburg, he says.

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In recent years, both public and private projects have sprung up in the Eisenhower Avenue corridor. The Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse was built in 1996 near the proposed site of the new patent office. It is also next to the condominium towers of the Carlyle Project, a 76-acre project of residential, retail and office development that is partly completed. What the area lacks is retail — such as grocery stores, pharmacies and restaurants, says Artemel. If the patent office is built, though, its 7,000 employees will bring in stores. "It will make a huge difference in speeding up the development of the corridor. I think retailers will feel they do have a market in the area."

A major retail development already underway next to the Eisenhower Avenue Metro is the Hoffman Center, which broke ground in October on a 24-screen movie center, the first phase of a larger retail project, Artemel says. "That’s really a lot going on the avenue all of the sudden, which is really great."

The next step in positioning the corridor for development is the construction of a connector road from Eisenhower Avenue to Duke Street to open access into the city. The two current paths are on either side of Cameron Station. "It’s going to be a little tough, but eventually it will happen," Artemel says. "It’s essential to have that."

The redevelopment of Eisenhower Avenue is working because it had support from the city and from property owners, Artemel says. The public/private partnership was initially formed to lobby for a Beltway connector, but expanded its mission to push for improvements along the whole corridor. "We did a lot of good things," she says. "There were people who’d been on the avenue for 30 years and others who’d moved in the year before, but they all agreed, ‘This is what we should do, let’s do it.’"