The city of Alexandria, Virginia, has given the developer behind Amazon's second headquarters project approval to develop hundreds of new rental apartments and for-sale townhouses close to the tech giant's HQ2 campus.
JBG Smith announced Monday that it earned a thumbs-up from the City Council for its plans to create 640 apartments and townhouses in the Potomac Yard neighborhood. The development plan also includes more than 30,000 square feet of open space and 13,000 square feet of retail.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based developer expects to begin submitting permits for the new homes in early 2026, a spokesperson for JBG Smith told CoStar News via email.
The project is located in an area that forms the southern portion of the multi-neighborhood district known as National Landing, which was rebranded when e-commerce colossus Amazon chose Northern Virginia for its HQ2 office campus.
“This mixed-use development is designed to bring much-needed rental, affordable and family-friendly for-sale housing to the neighborhood, culminating a quarter century of development in the southern portion of Potomac Yard,” Taylor Lawch, co-head of development at JBG Smith, said in a statement.
The development sites are close to where the owners of the Washington Capitals and Wizards professional hockey and basketball teams considered building a new sports complex a few years ago. The deal fell through in 2024, and the teams are staying in the nation's capital.
JBG submitted plans for the project last year, and in that time, the total number of units has evolved slightly. The approved proposal encompasses a mix of affordable and market-rate residences across four vacant parcels adjacent to the Potomac Yard Metro rail station.
In one section, the developer plans a 480,533-square-foot, seven-story building with 432 market-rate apartments. At another, it selected Alexandria-based Wesley Housing to build a 108,269-square-foot, six-story building with 88 dedicated affordable rental units that would predominantly have two to three bedrooms.
In a final section, it selected Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers to build 120 single-family townhouse units encompassing a total of 316,800 square feet.
Residential demand for the area is supported by connectivity to regional job hubs, walkable retail corridors and institutions like Virginia Tech's Innovation Campus, CoStar’s latest multifamily report on Potomac Yard found.
The city's planning commission recommended earlier this month that the City Council approve the project. Some commissioners said they disliked the fact that the townhouses will have garages with room for two vehicles apiece, creating additional traffic in the densely developed area.