Alexandria Orb Page One News December 18, 2000

Six days after the Alexandria City council voted to trade away most of the proposed Washington Street Urban Deck, the Alexandria Orb with its far more generous lengthier urban deck made page one of The Alexandria Journal, and The Fairfax Journal on December 18, 2000.

Note the ironic juxtaposition with the article about “City negotiating with Feds for open space: Jones Point redesign prompts new talks”, (let alone “Schools turn to big brother: Surveillance Discussed”).

Strange how such negotiations never seemed to include any request to even study the Alexandria Orb design or concept, let alone restoring some of the lost proposed deck as proposed from 1994 to 2000.

This includes the subsequent time, post September 11, 2001, when anti-terrorist incidence planning eliminated the vehicular parking lots beneath the new spans, relocating them elsewhere in Jones Point Park. It seemed to me a logical time for a renewed request to adopt the Alexandria Orb, in late 2001-early 2002, just as construction preparations were underway for the thing that is now – as spring 2007, is almost complete.