Inova plans major new hospital, offices at Alexandria’s Landmark Mall site
By Patricia Sullivan,
Inova Health System will build a $1 billion medical campus on the site of the vacant Landmark Mall on Alexandria’s West End, the hospital and city announced Tuesday.
The hospital system plans to anchor a walkable, 4 million-square-foot medical, retail and residential community in place of the soon-to-be-demolished mall site. The hospital will include a larger emergency room than the one at its current location on Seminary Road and will become the third Level II trauma center in Northern Virginia, employing 2,000 people overall, officials said. The complex will feature private patient rooms, a new cancer center and a medical office building with about 50 specialists.
“What makes this different from previous plans is . . . this is a sustainable use in high demand at a time when medical services are needed,” said Stephanie Landrum, chief executive of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership. “This is decades’ worth of investment.”
The proposal includes the use of $54 million in public bond financing that will require the city to buy the land and lease it to Inova, as well as $76 million in public bond financing for site preparation and infrastructure at the Landmark site and adjacent Duke Street and Van Dorn Street corridors.
Alexandria officials said these investments are expected to generate $778 million in city tax revenue over the 30-year life of the bonds.
[From 2013: Plan for new mixed-use community at Landmark Mall]
The redevelopment anticipates the hospital center would become part of a mixed-use, walkable urban village, with a central plaza and parks. A transit hub would include bus rapid transit, the local DASH bus system and Metrobus. A new Alexandria Fire and Emergency Medical Services station is also planned.
The development will be led by real estate investment and development firm Foulger-Pratt, the Howard Hughes Corp., which owns the most of the mall, and Seritage Growth Properties, which acquired the old Sears building.
Construction could begin as soon as 2023, with the first buildings ready in 2025, the city and hospital said.
The existing Inova Alexandria Hospital eventually will be emptied and redeveloped for housing, officials said. Inova’s plans for an ambulatory care center at Oakville Triangle across Potomac Yard on the east side of the city will go forward, Inova president and chief executive J. Stephen Jones said.
The 52-acre Landmark Mall site has long been a thorn in the side of the city. Built in 1965 as an open-air center with three anchor stores, it was intended to draw customers from all over the region, and for a while it did.
A 2008 redevelopment plan failed due to the bankruptcy of the mall’s then-owner, General Growth Properties. Most of the property was sold to the Howard Hughes Corp., but Sears and Macy’s owned their own stores and getting all three owners to agree on a path forward proved difficult.
Several attempts to redevelop the once-vibrant shopping center failed, and it was used in recent years as both a homeless shelter and a location for filming scenes of the “Wonder Woman” sequel.
Read more:
Landmark Mall to temporarily house a homeless shelter
“Wonder Woman 1984” filmed at, of all places, Alexandria’s Landmark Mall
Inova Health Systems
Inova Health Systems plans a $1 billion medical campus on the site of the vacant Landmark Mall in Alexandria’s West End.
