Developer Proposal Raises A Furor

Loss of Firetrucks Possible for Del Ray

At one point in the 1990s, the former railroad yard called Potomac Yard -- which straddles Arlington County and Alexandria -- was one of the biggest undeveloped pieces of urban land on the East Coast.

After Alexandria fought a bruising battle with Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke to keep a football stadium out of its part of the railroad yard, the city in 1999 approved a plan for a 235-acre "city within a city" with 4.5 million square feet of retail, office and residential development, including 1,900 homes.

Seven years later, however, the city and developer discovered that they have a major design flaw on their hands: The streets are too narrow. Alexandria's firetrucks would scrape the sides of the planned luxury townhouses on their way to an emergency, an analysis showed.

"It's a showstopper, that's for sure," said Art Dahlberg, director of the fire department's code enforcement bureau.

The developer wants to fix the problem by building a $7 million fire station at a prominent spot in a Potomac Yard neighborhood that has a wider turning radius for the trucks. But that would mean another Alexandria neighborhood, trendy Del Ray, could lose its firetrucks to the fashionable new houses across the way, igniting a hot summer controversy.

"It came out of nowhere," said Justin Wilson, past president of the Del Ray Citizens Association. "Rumors started going around that they're getting rid of our fire station. That's a very raw thing, and it gets people riled up."

City officials say the problem dates to 1999, when the city approved a wide-ranging plan for a neighborhood to rise out of the bleak industrial wasteland along Route 1. It will be just south and east of the Potomac Yard shopping center, a busy complex with a multiplex theater and retailers such as Target, near Reagan National Airport. (Construction rigs are already busy at the Arlington end of the yard, where work is underway on six office buildings with 2.5 million square feet of space, two 11-story condominium buildings and other projects.)

City planners envisioned narrow urban streets in the manner of the historic Old Town neighborhood, along with a tree-lined Main Street-type boulevard. They hoped to attract upscale retail to a town square that would be like the development in Arlington's Clarendon, which has brought in such businesses as Whole Foods Market and the Cheesecake Factory in recent years.

But a problem arose in recent months, when the developer, Potomac Yard Development LLC, showed city officials plans calling for urban townhouses of three and four stories sitting near curbs instead of homes with wider lawns, according to Dahlberg.

Dahlberg's calculations showed that firetrucks -- such as a 56-foot ladder truck or 32-foot pumper -- would whack into the sides of the houses as they tried to turn on the new neighborhood's streets.

Instead of widening the streets or pruning the townhouses to fix the problem, the developer gave the city a third option: It would build a fire station right there in the neighborhood, so the trucks would not have to rush as far. Analysis showed that emergency crews would have an easier turning radius going south, instead of north from the existing fire station at East Windsor and Mount Vernon avenues.

And to sweeten the deal, the developer would provide room for 60 units of affordable housing -- which the city desperately needs -- atop the new building.

M. Catharine Puskar, an attorney and spokesman for the developer, did not respond to telephone messages requesting comment, nor did other lawyers involved in the case.

"This is a significant project," Dahlberg said. "It was their job to do a design that met city ordinances and state codes. . . . This is building a city within a city, which is not a simple task."

He added, however: "It's not a matter of failure or finding fault. It's about finding the tweaks we need to make it work."

The "tweaks" are causing outrage in Del Ray, which would keep its fire station but would lose most of the equipment there except for one ambulance. The cost to keep that fire station open, along with the new location, would be more than $1 million a year.

Fire officials insist that moving the firetrucks across busy Route 1 would not hurt response times. The city has been holding public meetings about the changes, which the City Council is scheduled to take up in October.

"Our analysis shows that moving the station to Potomac Yard does not adversely impact service delivery in the area," said Alexandria Fire Chief Gary A. Mesaris. "Some areas we would be able to reach quicker."