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Alexandria council asks staff to study alternate pump‑station site for waterfront flood project
Summary
Mayor Leah Gaskins asked council to authorize a roughly $150,000, three‑month study of 1 Prince Street as an alternate pump‑station site for a waterfront flood‑mitigation project; council generally agreed to pursue additional analysis while members cautioned about cost, timing and real‑estate sensitivity.
Mayor Leah Gaskins told the City Council that the city is facing worsening waterfront flooding and outlined a proposal to briefly pause current design work so staff could analyze an alternative pump‑station location at 1 Prince Street.
"We know that it's not going to be able to fully stop flooding, but we do believe that we have a duty as public servants ... to make sure that we are investing in our infrastructure," Gaskins said, explaining that staff estimates a scope-of-work cost of about $150,000 and an additional three months to study the site.
Council members supported further study but pressed staff on the fiscal and timing tradeoffs. Vice Mayor Amy Bagley warned that delays and redesigns risk inflating the total project cost. "There is a time value of money," Bagley said, urging council to weigh the risk that a delayed or redesigned project could become more expensive.
Project manager Matt Landis briefed council on technical constraints, saying the proposed bulkhead height, stormwater improvements and pump station design are correlated. "In many ways, the complexity of the project is that the solutions really tie it together," Landis said, and noted the team could explore phasing so some stormwater improvements function by gravity until a pump station is added.
Councilman Chapman raised procedural concerns about publicly discussing potential property options that could affect acquisition strategy. The city manager responded that no direction to purchase had been requested and that any negotiations or purchases would follow the city's customary executive‑session process.
Council consensus was to direct staff to pursue the additional analysis and return with findings comparing the cost, construction impacts and tradeoffs of the 1 Prince Street option against the current plan. Staff said the study would inform whether to proceed with the current design or consider the alternate location, and that any reallocation of CIP funding would be considered if the option proved feasible.
