Alexandria approved roughly 640 homes for Potomac Yard’s final vacant blocks

The approved plan

Three sites could add roughly 640 homes beside Metro.

The largest piece belongs to JBG SMITH on Landbay G, Blocks B and E. Alexandria approved a seven-story building with 432 market-rate rental apartments, approximately 13,196 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, and a roughly 20,000-square-foot publicly accessible Town Green. The approval establishes what the site may become; it is not evidence that the building is under construction.

Across East Glebe Road, Wesley Housing plans an all-affordable apartment building at 601 East Glebe Road on a roughly 0.55-acre site donated by JBG SMITH. The December 2025 approval package described 88 apartments. Wesley’s February 2026 presentation and Virginia Housing’s June 2026 rankings use 89: 10 studios, five one-bedroom apartments, 55 two-bedroom apartments, and 19 three-bedroom apartments. That makes 74 of the 89 homes family-sized two- or three-bedroom units. The affordability range runs from 30% to 80% of area median income.

The third site is 2601 Main Line Boulevard, where Toll Brothers has approval for 120 for-sale single-family townhomes and approximately 11,000 square feet of park or open space. The public record establishes the approved use and unit count. It does not yet establish a sales launch, prices, floor plans, or a construction schedule.

The unit count needs a footnote. The approved package used 88 affordable apartments, producing the widely reported total of 640. Wesley’s newer financing documents use 89, which would bring the current component count to 641. ‘Roughly 640’ is the clearest shorthand until the final count is reconciled.

The pivot

More than one million square feet of planned office capacity became room for housing.

The older CDD #10 framework allowed up to 1,747,346 square feet of office space. Alexandria reduced that allocation to 698,000 square feet—a decrease of 1,049,346 square feet. At the same time, the residential ceiling increased from 2,239 to 2,800 homes, a gain of 561. The three current projects total roughly 640 homes because some residential capacity had already been approved but remained unused.

The amendment also removed the separate allocation for 170 hotel rooms, adjusted retail capacity from 120,000 to 115,000 square feet, and created a 330,000-square-foot flexible category that could be used for office, residential, retail, hotel, or continuum-of-care development. In plain English, the city kept room for future changes without leaving all of the unbuilt capacity locked into offices.

This is a zoning shift, not a demolition story. The three sites are vacant, and much of the office capacity assigned to them had never been built. They sit in southern Potomac Yard’s CDD #10, south of the existing shopping center. The Target-centered shopping center, the former arena proposal, and Virginia Tech’s nearby campus are in North Potomac Yard’s separate CDD #19. These housing approvals did not directly replace the arena proposal and should not be described as a product of that deal’s collapse.

City staff described all three sites as within approximately a five-minute walk of the Potomac Yard–VT Metro station’s south pavilion. The station opened on May 19, 2023. Potomac Yard was planned around that transit connection long before passengers could actually use it; the final vacant southern blocks are now approved primarily for homes rather than the office program once assigned to the land.

Where it stands

Approved does not mean every building is ready to break ground.

Alexandria City Council approved the master-plan and CDD amendments in November 2025, then approved the three project permits in December. That sequence matters. The land-use approvals are in place, but a planning approval is not a financing award, a building permit, or a construction start—and no single schedule applies to all three projects.

For JBG SMITH’s 432-apartment building, the approved conditions require the applicant to make its best efforts to finance the project and place it under construction before June 1, 2027. If construction has not begun by then, the applicant must begin programming the blocks as interim open space until work starts. June 1, 2027 is a conditioned target, not a promised groundbreaking date.

Wesley Housing’s February 2026 presentation said the nonprofit was preparing a competitive 9% Low-Income Housing Tax Credit application. Virginia Housing’s board-approved final rankings from June 17 list Wesley Potomac Yard with 89 apartments and a $2.6 million credit request as ‘Unfunded.’ The zoning approval remains valid, and unfunded does not mean canceled. It means a major construction-financing source was not awarded in that round.

Wesley said the development was not relying on a City construction loan, but that is not the same as receiving no public help. Its presentation requested City support for tax-credit scoring and rental assistance for nine apartments. Until replacement financing or a later award is secured, an earlier anticipated construction or completion date should not be treated as guaranteed.

The Toll Brothers townhomes are approved, but a public construction start, sales launch, pricing, floor plans, and completion schedule have not been announced or confirmed in the cited sources. The approvals also connect the projects: the final group of Toll Brothers townhomes cannot receive occupancy approval if financing for the affordable building has not been obtained, subject to the detailed conditions in the city record.

The next meaningful signal will not be another rendering. It will be an approved final site plan, a financing award, a building permit, or visible work on the ground.