Waterfront4All Slams Report from Group Opposing City Plan for Waterfront Redevelopment

A group supporting the city’s most recent plan to develop Alexandria’s waterfront refuted a from Citizens for an Alternative Alexandria Waterfront Plan, calling it inconsistent and vague on funding.

“After months of supposed research, the alternative plan is clearly heavy in rhetoric and light on substance,” said a statement from Waterfront4All. “The first hundred pages are dedicated to criticizing the city’s plan. The second hundred pages are partially spent criticizing other city waterfront projects."

“With all the criticism, it’s hard to find any legitimate components of their plan,” said Waterfront4All co-founder Dennis Auld. 

The group slams CAAWP for criticizing the city’s “self-funded” plan “but they have no problem advocating for a $100 million plus plan with no funding whatsoever.”

Waterfront4All also expresses concern over CAAWP’s proposal for a museum “without identifying any funding sources for it” and for advocating the purchase of land “without identifying how the money would be raised for that acquisition or suggests trading land the city doesn’t have.”

CAAWP has charged that the city's $200 million pricetag for a "Parks and Museum" plan is overinflated and could be achieved well with less expense. In its plan, it offers four of its own redevelopment and financing scenarios but says it is "not conducting a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of all the options as viewed against the city plan."

Waterfront4All also questions CAAWP’s opposition to the some land from the Old Dominion Boat Club but then advocates purchasing the Robinson Terminal land.

Parking mitigation is an issue front and center in the waterfront redevelopment debate and Waterfront4All said CAAWP’s plans for a museum designed to attract 1,100 visitors daily would aggravate the area’s traffic congestion.

The number of visitors and program participants for Historic Alexandria museums in fiscal year 2010 was 162,700, according to the Office of Historic Alexandria. However, that does not include visitors to non-city museums and historic sites in Alexandria such as the .

“Clearly, these are just cursory observations” said Auld. “We will wait for the city’s analysis of their plan and look forward to getting a better understanding of it from the professionals who have dedicated their lives to the service of our community.” 

Acting City Manager Bruce Johnson said last week that he plans to some aspects of the new CAAWP report.