The mixed-use revolution is happening across the river, too. (And in the river: we saw a crab shell that also had retail inside.) That's why we're showcasing the Future of Alexandria tomorrow morning at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Here's three reasons why the city's sizzling:

1. The Kingsley

Among our speakers will be legendary Bob Pinkard (right, with colleague Peter Kleeblatt), who founded the predecessor to Cassidy Turley but is now an active investor in Alexandria. Old Town will finally get a full-service grocery store when Buchanan Partners and Bob's Pinkard Group, along with partners including Buvermo Investments and Principal Financial, deliver a brand-new Harris Teeter on the ground floor of its Kingsley project on Madison Street. The store should open in October, Bob says, and there's also 175 apartment units. Bob tells us Buchanan's Steve Hubert and Kingsley McAdam "took their sleeping bags down to the project to get it completed."

2. Hoffman Town Center - NSF

By 2017, the National Science Foundation's over 2,000 employees will have moved to a new office building at Hoffman Town Center off Eisenhower Avenue. (If only they used their science skills to build a pulley system, the move wouldn't take three years.) USAA Real Estate purchased the site from the Hoffman family this past spring, and Lowe Enterprises will develop it. But there's other uses in the works at the Hoffman site, too, and Bob says the retail and hotel additions could help as much as the NSF.

3. Robinson Terminal

Even more mixed-use will come to Alexandria when EYA, JBG, and CityInterests finish their revamp of the Robinson Terminal buildings on the Old Town Waterfront. The site, which for years served as a shipping terminal, includes a total of 600k SF, and Mandarin Oriental developer CityInterests has already publicly said it'll build a boutique hotel with accompanying residential and retail on the site of the northern warehouse, which it controls. We'll be covering much more at tomorrow's event—click here for more info.