page_title: Potomac Yard station
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Potomac Yard station / History / Background
caption_attribution_description: Potomac Yard, Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia. (The airport is not seen in the photo.)
context_page_description: Potomac Yard is a planned Washington Metro station in Alexandria, Virginia, United States. The station will be operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, serving both the Blue and Yellow Lines, and is expected to open in Spring 2022. The station will be located at Alexandria's planned 7.5-million-square-foot Potomac Yard mixed-use development bounded by Richmond Highway and the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Upon its completion, Potomac Yard will be the second infill station to be added to the Washington Metro system, after NoMa–Gallaudet U in 2004. Potomac Yard is being constructed on the site of the former rail yard of the same name.
context_section_description: Plans to construct a Washington Metro station between the Braddock Road and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport stations on the Blue and Yellow Lines have been proposed since the 300-acre (120 ha) Potomac Yard retail and residential redevelopment began in the late 1990s with the construction of the Potomac Yard Shopping Center. The area of Metrorail at Potomac Yard was originally constructed in a way to allow for a future station.
  In June 2008, Alexandria's Planning Commission approved higher-density projects at a town center near the proposed Potomac Yard station site. The first official public meeting on the prospect of the Potomac Yard station was held on February 19, 2009 between Alexandria city officials and the Metrorail Station Feasibility Work Group in Alexandria City Hall.
  On June 12, 2010, the Alexandria City Council voted to rezone the 69-acre North Potomac Yard area in an effort to convert the 600,000-square-foot (56,000 m²) big-box Potomac Yard Shopping Center into a 7.5 million square feet (700,000 m²) mixed-use development centered around the proposed station. Prior to the construction of the Potomac Yard station, the rezoning of North Potomac Yard will allow for 1.4 million square feet (130,000 m²) of new development with the second phase to allow for 3.7 million square feet (340,000 m²) of development during the station's construction. Once the station is operational,  the development's final build-out will take place.
caption: The eponymous Potomac Yard in 1973
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