The Hoffman family

The Hoffman family transformed Alexandria’s Eisenhower Valley from swampland and trailer parks into one of the Washington region’s largest federal-office corridors across the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

The family’s Alexandria story begins with Hubert N. "Dutch" Hoffman Jr. Person Hubert N. "Dutch" Hoffman Jr. b. 1920 · d. 2002 Alexandria real-estate developer who in 1958 bought seventy acres of Eisenhower Valley swamp and trailer-park landfill for two hundred thousand dollars and over the next … , a Washington-D.C.-born insurance agent who in 1958 mortgaged his savings to buy approximately seventy acres of swamp, scrub, and trailer-park landfill along what was then Cameron Run, anticipating the impact that the planned Capital Beltway would have on the parcel’s accessibility. He built 2461 Eisenhower Avenue Place 2461 Eisenhower Avenue Mid-rise office building completed 1968 at 2461 Eisenhower Avenue — the first major structure on the seventy-acre Eisenhower Valley parcel that bought from swampland in 1958. … in 1968 with the U.S. Department of Defense as the original anchor tenant, Hoffman Building 2 in 1971, and the Eisenhower Avenue Holiday Inn shortly afterward. The Hoffman Center reached approximately one million square feet of office space by 1972. ^[1] Source 1 ALXnow — Hoffman Company / Swamp Fox (2020) Website

Hubert and his wife Peggy Hoffman were the parents of five children — Hubert N. (Jay) Hoffman III, Nancy Connor, Holly Nolting, Thomas Hoffman, and Timothy Hoffman — and grandparents of ten as of 2002. The family’s philanthropic record across the period is substantial: Hubert was the largest individual donor to INOVA Alexandria Hospital, including a one-million-dollar 1996 gift to expand the hospital’s emergency department in gratitude for its role in saving his son’s life. ^[2] Source 2 Washington Post — Hubert Hoffman obit (2002) Newspaper

Hubert died in 2002 and the Hoffman Town Center continues to expand under the family business. The U.S. National Science Foundation moved its headquarters to the Town Center in 2017; the AMC Hoffman Town Center cinema multiplex operates on the parcel as well. A family mausoleum that once stood on the Eisenhower Avenue site was relocated in approximately 2014 to clear ground for a hotel project, an episode the Washington Post covered in detail. ^[3] Source 3 Washington Post — Hoffman mausoleum relocation (2014) Newspaper

Per the corpus’s living-individuals policy (see methodology), the second- and third-generation Hoffmans now leading the family business are mentioned by name in narrative when documented in public records but do not have standalone profile pages.

Disambiguation. This twentieth-century Hoffman developer family is unrelated by any documented line to Jacob Hoffman, the early-republic-era Alexandrian who served as mayor of the city and who briefly owned the 220 North Washington Street Place 220 North Washington Street Late-Georgian 1797 townhouse at the corner of North Washington and Queen built by merchant John Wise. Charles Lee, U.S. Attorney General and brother of Light-Horse Harry, lived … in the 1820s. The two Hoffman lines share a common surname only.