Public officials and real estate executives broke ground on the new Virginia Railway Express (VRE) station house at Potomac Shores on Saturday.

Many community members met to both celebrate the completion of the $24 million, 350-spot parking garage and the beginning of the 20,000-square-foot station house project. Along with the station house will be two levels of retail space: restaurant space with indoor and outdoor dining and any number of retailers, such as ice cream or coffee shops.

A press release stated that the station house is designed to feature an arch pass-through for station access, which leads to a paved boardwalk overlooking the Potomac River. The boardwalk has been designed to connect to the Potomac Shores Trail System.

Located near the Potomac Shores Town Center, the hope is to spur further economic development and investment in the area, the real estate executives present and integral to the project stated.

Biddle Real Estate Ventures (BREV), a New York City-based firm, was responsible for the building aspect of the project and spearheaded the building efforts of the site’s parking garage.

“Today marks another step forward towards our dual goals of welcoming VRE service to Potomac Shores and bringing retail investment to the Marketplace within the Potomac Shores Town Center,” Peter Chavkin, a managing member of BREV, said. “We’re grateful for the leadership of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors as we continue to advance these projects.”

Many members of the Prince William County government were in attendance for the groundbreaking, including the Board of County Supervisors Chair At-Large DeShundra Jefferson.

“New commercial investment here at Potomac Shores will spur economic development that benefits all of Prince William County. Our county will continue to bring all resources to bear to move this process forward to completion,” Jefferson said.

Potomac District Supervisor Andrea Bailey also spoke at the groundbreaking, stating this is an important step in the county’s goals.

“The completion of the VRE garage and groundbreaking for the Station House at Potomac Shores brings us closer than ever to our long-held goals of VRE Service and commercial development within this community,” Bailey said. “I intend to work closely with relevant agencies and with private sector partners to see these goals realized.”

Woodbridge District Supervisor Margaret Franklin said this project will benefit the county as a whole.

“Improved transportation access and economic development that benefits our county as a whole have been a focus for me ever since I took office,” she said. “Today’s milestones at Potomac Shores mark a major step forward and I look forward to continued progress.”

The station house is expected to be completed in the final months of 2025. It is anticipated that the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority will acquire land adjacent to the station house next year as well, which will further the goal of 1 million square feet of commercial space in the area, a press release stated.

Press Release:

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is evaluating the performance of ParkZen, a new smart parking mobile app that enables local travelers to view real-time parking availability in six commuter lots in Fairfax, Prince William, and Stafford counties at no cost. The ParkZen app helps commuters check for and navigate to unoccupied parking spaces.

During the evaluation period, availability data will be reported for VDOT’s Saratoga Park and Ride lot in Springfield, Stringfellow Road Park and Ride lot in Centreville, and the Horner Road Commuter Lot in Woodbridge, as well as the three Virginia Railway Express (VRE) station parking lots at Backlick Road in Springfield, Brooke Road in Stafford, and Leeland Road in Falmouth. With a combined capacity of more than 5,000 parking spaces, travelers will be able to take advantage of these parking locations to conveniently transfer to buses, carpools, vanpools, or VRE trains.“Commuters have told us that not knowing whether parking is available at commuter lots is a deterrent to using transit, carpools, vanpools, and slugging,” said Amy McElwain, program manager for VDOT’s Office of Strategic Innovations. “We know that taking the guesswork out of parking makes it easier for commuters to get out of their single-occupant vehicles. However, the challenge has always been finding the resources to install and maintain reliable counting technology.”

ParkZen does not require the installation of counting equipment and allows users to instantly determine whether parking is available at a given lot, helping them navigate there with turn-by-turn guidance. Leveraging the power of smart crowdsourcing technology, ParkZen passively collects anonymized data from users only when they visit the selected commuter lots, in order to inform other drivers of lot occupancy levels.“Through this app, commuters can optimize the parking experience for themselves and others, enabling everyone to park quickly and catch buses, trains, and carpool rides,” said McElwain. “The more drivers who use the app during the trial period, the better job we will be able to do to validate this technology before scaling up to more locations.”

This parking technology will be initially available in the six designated lots for the early adopters during the evaluation period from November 2024 to January 2025. The free app is available in the App Store for iOS devices and the Google Play Store for Android devices. Top users will have a chance to earn a $50 Amazon gift card from ParkZen. If the trial period is successful, VDOT will evaluate rolling out the technology for other commuter lots throughout Northern Virginia and the Fredericksburg area starting in Spring 2025.

This project is one of several regional initiatives that aim to improve travel reliability and mobility. By using crowdsourced real-time mobility data, VDOT and its partners strive to optimize performance of the transportation network, prioritize the needs of commuters, and offer them convenient tools to make informed travel choices.