Alexandria waterfront gets $1.3M upgrade

Washington, D.C. (Map, News) - Alexandria's City Council will consider a laundry list of improvements to the city's marina area Tuesday, in anticipation of thousands of visitors from the National Harbor convention center and hotel development in Prince George's County in April.

The upgrades are designed to market Alexandria to the new audience and spruce up the waterfront. Suggestions range from $293,000 in new lights around the marina to $1,900 to create a cell-phone audio tour.

"It's fairly unique to have a brand-new destination just emerge," said Stephanie Brown, president of Alexandria's Convention and Visitors Association. "It's very exciting and will really change the area."

Based on the 2,000 hotel rooms that will open at the 300-acre National Harbor development in April, Brown estimates that as many as 165,000 people at National Harbor in the spring and summer would be a "terrific target" for city marketing.

Despite a tight budget, the council included $700,000 for this fiscal year to prepare for National Harbor's scheduled April opening. The list of upgrades is prioritized into three tiers, the most important totaling some $794,000.

Alexandria Economic Development Partnership kicked in $40,000 and the city staff is proposing reallocating some $54,000 from the Alexandria Convention and Visitors Association to cover the remaining $94,000.

The most important list of upgrades includes funding for new lights, benches and signs at the marina and a seating area under the Chart House restaurant for water-taxi customers. The work group that created the list also suggests extending the hours of the city's tourism office and adding additional police officers to handle traffic.

The most expensive items include extra lighting, about $141,000 to operate a trolley between the water-taxi stop and the King Street Metro station and $118,000 in marketing materials to be displayed on the water taxi and at National Harbor.

The Council could consider funding the less important suggestions, totaling $509,716, from the city's contingency fund. The contingency fund is a small amount of the city's budget, available for unexpected needs, deputy city manager Mark Jinks said.

mhegstad@dcexaminer.com

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