Potomac Yard

In 2018, Amazon.com, Inc. announced plans to locate part of its "HQ2" second headquarters project in Northern Virginia, specifically in the newly re-branded cross-jurisdictional neighborhood of National Landing, which local and state officials said would include Potomac Yard as well as nearby parts of southern Arlington, including the Crystal City neighborhood that will be the hub of the HQ2 development.

[5] Prior to Amazon's selection of National Landing, Virginia Tech had stated it would establish an "Innovation Campus" in the Alexandria portion of the neighborhood.

[6]: 103–4  The land, much owned by the Swann and Daingerfield families, became part of Alexandria County, D.C. with the creation of the District of Columbia in 1791, and retroceded to Virginia in 1846.

[6]: 106  Order to the region's mishmash of active and abandoned rail lines and stations did not come until the City Beautiful movement of the late 19th century.

[8] The booming "Pot Yard" attracted thousands of workers, who largely settled in the areas of Del Ray and St. Elmo.

Potomac Yard in its heyday was one of the busiest railyards in the Eastern United States, processing thousands of cars daily.

Jack Kent Cooke, owner of the then Washington Redskins, unsuccessfully pushed for the construction of a new football stadium on the site.

Seventy of the 400 acres (1.6 km2) of the site were approved for retail use in 1995; the Potomac Yard Center, a 589,856-square-foot (54,799.4 m2) strip mall anchored by big box stores, was completed in 1997.

A mixed-use development apartment community called Station 650 was completed in 2015 in the Potomac Yard redevelopment of Alexandria, Virginia.

Located south of the main shopping district, it borders train tracks carrying freight and Virginia Railway Express commuter rail.

[12] The City of Alexandria has erected a series of seven signs in Potomac Yard Park that sequentially describe and illustrate the history of the area.