What To Expect from the King Street Corridor Initiative

Oct 24

Written By

Live, work, and play Old Town Alexandria. That’s the goal behind the City of Alexandria and Visit Alexandria’s current joint effort known as the King Street Corridor Initiative. KSCI is designed to enhance programming, beautification, and marketing along King Street in order to remain a popular destination and resist market share erosion amidst buzzworthy development at The Wharf, Georgetown, National Harbor, and along the Capitol riverfront.In other words, when D.C. Metro-area residents think about where they want to go for dinner or where to enjoy a sunny Saturday afternoon, KSCI aims to get them to think of Old Town, not just The Wharf. Public and private sectors got together and realized that Old Town offers just as much, if not more, of what’s to be found at these other destinations and mobilized to maintain and bolster an extraordinary resident and visitor experience.One big part of this is the Waterfront Park programming, which launched with the recent Portside in Old Town Festival. Visit Alexandria brought a waterfront beer garden from Port City Brewing Company, live music, crafts, and food, and offered free tours of the tall ship Godspeed.All the rain we’ve been getting recently slowed development and forced the Festival to be moved from the foot of King Street to another waterfront location in Old Town, but there is more programming to come throughout the fall and winter.The idea is to establish a continuous waterfront experience all along Old Town’s waterfront, connecting the currently detached series of separate parks, and there will be rotating public events, more waterfront beer gardens, art, history and archaeology happenings, Portside Holidays, and much more.We will see the KSCI-raised funds dedicated to enhancing the waterfront and downtown experience reflected in flower baskets and holiday decorations along King Street, fun events, more marketing, and a permanent installation of the celebrity tall ship Providence, which appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean. We’re thrilled to announce that TTR Sotheby’s International Realty is a founding private sector partner, demonstrating the firm’s emphasis on devoted community participation and service. We hope to see you at many of the upcoming events!