The West End

West End
Alexandria's West End includes areas annexed from Fairfax County in the 1950s. It is the most typically suburban part of Alexandria, with a street hierarchy of winding roads and cul-de-sacs. The section of Duke Street in the West End is known for a high-density residential area known to locals as "Landmark" due to its close proximity to nearby Landmark Mall, and for its concentration of strip and enclosed shopping malls. In more recent years, parts of Alexandria's West End have seen an influx of immigrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Pakistan, who have settled in the areas surrounding Seminary Road west of I-395.

The West End is composed of four main areas: Seminary Hill, Lower Alexandria, Landmark, and Seminary West. All are west of Quaker Lane, a major north-south artery that runs through the western side of Alexandria.
 * Seminary Hill, a mostly residential, single-family dwelling area near the Virginia Theological Seminary and the Episcopal and St. Stephen's & St. Agnes Schools off of Seminary Road, ending in the area just west of the Inova Alexandria Hospital.
 * Lower Alexandria (LA), south of the Duke Street corridor, are communities of small homes, rowhouses, townhomes along with commercial and retail real estate, including the Foxchase Shopping Center. The section between Wheeler Ave. and Jordan St. is also known as the "Block." In the 1960s and 1970s, this section of Alexandria was also known because of Shirley Duke, a complex of 2,214 low-priced rental apartments, which became the Foxchase development in the early 1980s after five years of stagnancy. There are also areas of industrial businesses south of Duke Street, primarily off Wheeler Ave., South Pickett St., and South Van Dorn St. In the very southern part of this area is the Eisenhower Ave. corridor running parallel to the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495) and west of Telegraph Rd, which is primarily industrial and commercial in nature. There has been some development in apartments and townhomes in the area west of Telegraph Rd and east of Clermont Ave along with Class 1 Offices and national brand hotels. The Van Dorn Metro Station here provides access to Washington, D.C.
 * The Landmark area, which includes Seminary Valley, a large single family area developed in the 1950s, is largely garden style apartments and condo-converted apartment hi-rises as well as a number of townhome developments from the 1970s is west of North Pickett St bordered by I-395/Van Dorn Street on the west and Seminary Road on the north. This area also includes Cameron Station and the main branch of the Alexandria Library, the Charles E. Beatley Central Library, named for Alexandria's two-time mayor in the 1970s and early eighties, Chuck Beatley. The Landmark Mall, developed in the mid-1960s and redeveloped in the 1980s, was Alexandria's primary retail area for decades. It is now anchored by Sears and Macy's department stores.
 * The Seminary West neighborhoods are the communities west of I-395 but within the city limits of Alexandria. Beauregard Street is the primary artery running north & south to a mix of development from town home communities, single family neighborhoods, three large senior citizen living centers, garden and hi-rise apartments and condominiums. The Mark Center office development is a large commercial area in this community, which also includes the Alexandria Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College and its Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. It is a 1,000,000-square-foot (93,000 m2) office tower complex developed for the US Dept of Defense and its BRAC initiative. The complex is an annex of US Army post Fort Belvoir. 6,300 federal office workers were expected to occupy the buildings.