Waterfront Warehouses Not Included in Sale of Washington Post

The Washington Post announced Monday it will be sold to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, for $250 million in cash.

Publisher and CEO Katharine Weymouth, a granddaughter of Katharine Graham, made the announcement to Washington Post employees at 4:30 p.m.

The sale will end the reign of the Graham family as owners of the fabled paper.

Bezos’ purchase is a personal one and Amazon is not absorbing The Post Co.

The sale includes The Post, its website and a bevy of other papers owned by The Post Co., including the Gazette Newspapers and Southern Maryland Newspapers, the Fairfax County Times and El Tiempo Latino.

Robinson Terminal Warehouse Corporation is included in the sale, but, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing, “the wharves and warehouses on the Alexandria, VA waterfront owned by Robinson Terminal Warehouse” are among the excluded assets of the deal.

In February, Robinson Terminal Warehouse Corporation announced plans to sell its two Alexandria waterfront warehouses—located at 1 Oronoco St. and 2 Duke St.

The Alexandria warehouses have long been used for storage.

The city assessed the value of Robinson Terminals North and South at approximately $30 million in 2012.

Jayne Shister, senior managing director at commercial real estate firm Cassidy Turley, told The Washington Post in February she expects condominium or apartment builders to be aggressive suitors to redevelop the warehouse properties.

“It’s on the water, on a park, within walking distance to King Street,” she said.  

Officials representing Robinson Terminal Corp. said in an October 2011 meeting that they support Alexandria’s waterfront redevelopment plan, which remains partially locked up in court.

Virginia’s Supreme Court heard the latest appeal of the riverside redevelopment plan in June. Three women living near the waterfront—April Burke, Beth Gibney and Marie Kux—argue that Alexandria City Council should not have approved the plan because it did not follow an appropriate process.

Among many complaints, they say Alexandria’s planning and zoning director should have processed their zoning protest before the council’s January 2012 5-2 vote on the waterfront plan.

The Virginia Supreme Court has yet to announce its decision on the matter.

City Attorney Jim Banks told the Alexandria Times in May that the best the plaintiffs can hope for is the high court nullifying zoning changes incorporated in the plan. Council could simply vote to implement the changes again, something it did in March.

Last week, the city announced the creation of a new department that will be charged with implementing the city’s waterfront small area plan and other projects.