Alexandria's City Council has given final approval to a plan that will develop a vacant lot and replace a one-story barbershop in the Parker-Gray Historic District to make way for five four-story townhomes, where Another Level Hair Studio & Barbershop has operated for 17 years at 728 N. Patrick Street. The council voted to approve the project on October 17, clearing the way for construction at 724, 726 and 728 N. Patrick Street.
The vote was not unanimous. As reported by ALXnow, Council members John Taylor Chapman, Jacinta Greene and Abdel Elnoubi voted against the proposal. Chapman said he wants to keep businesses in the city and that losing economic activity to residential conversion troubled him, according to the outlet's reporting. The Planning Commission had earlier approved the plan by a 6-0 vote before it reached the full council.
This was not the council's first pass at the proposal. Last month, members deferred the plan specifically to discuss whether neighborhood-serving commercial space could be retained on the site, a debate that played out during a September 19 vote in which Chapman led a 5-2 decision to delay action, joined by Canek Aguirre, Sandy Marks, Elnoubi and Greene, while Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley opposed the deferral, per the same account.
Owner Says She Wasn't Told About the Plans
Yvonne Wanzer, who has run Another Level Hair Studio & Barbershop at 728 N. Patrick Street for 17 years, said earlier this year that property owners had not initially notified her about the townhome proposal, according to ALXnow's March reporting. She first heard of the project when ALXnow contacted her.
The property owner's representative told the council that the most interested buyers were townhome developers, not businesses looking to continue commercial use of the site. Tanner Scales, broker for the seller, said the same family has owned the parcel since the 1950s and had hoped to pass it down as a third-generation legacy project before ultimately deciding to sell. Scales said rising operating expenses across the city meant the owners could no longer keep the property as-is, and that after a wide-ranging marketing process, townhome developers emerged as the only buyers with tangible interest.
Jeffrey Schonberger is the current owner and principal of Alturas Real Estate Interests LLC, a D.C.-based company. Eric Bernstein and Kirby Holdings are reportedly buying the property to build the homes. The 724 N. Patrick Street lot spans 2,200 square feet and was assessed at $164,000 by city property records; the 726 N. Patrick Street property covers 4,400 square feet and was assessed at $630,600; and the 728 N. Patrick Street property, home to the barbershop, measures 3,650 square feet and was assessed at $430,500 in January, according to city property records cited by ALXnow.
Design Meant to Match the Historic Streetscape
The five proposed homes will each include four bedrooms, four-and-a-half bathrooms, one-car garages and roof decks, sitting directly across the street from the Charles Houston Recreation Center. Plans by Kulinski Group Architects draw on warehouse design. The Board of Architectural Review held a concept hearing on the plans in April at the Charles Houston Recreation Center, which sits directly across North Patrick Street from the project site and serves as a primary community hub in Parker-Gray.
The Parker-Gray Historic District, established locally in 1984 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010, grew out of the post-Civil War neighborhood known as Uptown, which served as the center of African American commercial, educational and civic life in Alexandria during segregation, according to the National Register of Historic Places listing. The neighborhood's name honors John Parker and Sarah Gray, principals of 19th-century segregated schools for African American children in Alexandria, who led the Snowden School for Boys and the Hallowell School for Girls respectively before the Parker-Gray School opened in 1920, per the ALXnow neighborhood history.
Part of a Wider Shift Along North Patrick Street
The townhome approval lands amid rapid change on this stretch of North Patrick Street. Directly north of the site, at 899 and 999 N. Henry Street, the $120 million Samuel Madden Homes redevelopment reached its structural topping-out milestone this month, redeveloping a site that had 66 public housing townhomes into a 207-unit affordable apartment complex that will include a neighborhood food hub along Patrick Street, as Hoodline previously reported.
City policy has also shifted to favor this kind of infill. In November 2023, Alexandria's City Council approved its Zoning for Housing initiative, eliminating single-family-only zoning and easing setback and open-space restrictions to encourage missing-middle housing, according to the City of Alexandria. The Patrick Street lots are slated for multi-unit residential development.
Economic pressure on small commercial landlords is part of the backdrop too: Alturas Real Estate Interests cited high expenses as a factor in seeking a buyer. The 22314 ZIP code covers Old Town and Parker-Gray.
