Hubert N. "Dutch" Hoffman Jr.

Hubert Nelson “Dutch” Hoffman Jr. was born on February 26, 1920 in Washington, D.C. His career arc carried him from a low-rank bakery position through a successful career as a New York Life insurance agent, into the real-estate development that would transform Alexandria’s Eisenhower Valley. ^[1] Source 1 Washington Post — Hubert Hoffman obit (2002) Newspaper

In 1958 he mortgaged his accumulated savings — by his own accounting, every dollar he had — to buy approximately seventy acres of swamp, scrub, and trailer-park landfill along Cameron Run, anticipating that the Capital Beltway then under planning would make the parcel newly accessible to federal-office tenants. The purchase price was approximately two hundred thousand dollars. ^[2] Source 2 ALXnow — Hoffman Company / Swamp Fox (2020) Website

A decade later he opened 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. … (1968) with the U.S. Department of Defense as the anchor tenant — the first major office building on the reclaimed land. Hoffman Building 2 followed in 1971; the Eisenhower Avenue Holiday Inn rounded out the development’s first phase shortly afterward, by which point the Hoffman Center totaled approximately one million square feet of office space. The work established the Eisenhower Valley as a federal-office corridor that the Hoffman family continues to expand today as the Hoffman Town Center, anchored since 2017 by the U.S. National Science Foundation headquarters.

Hoffman was the largest individual donor to INOVA Alexandria Hospital across his lifetime, 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. ^[1] Source 1 Washington Post — Hubert Hoffman obit (2002) Newspaper

He died of prostate cancer on June 15, 2002 at his home in Arlington, Virginia. He was survived by his wife Peggy Hoffman; children Hubert N. (Jay) Hoffman III, Nancy Connor, Holly Nolting, Thomas Hoffman, and Timothy Hoffman; ten grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren. A Hubert N. (“Dutch”) Hoffman Jr. historical marker stands in Alexandria recognizing his role in the Eisenhower Valley’s twentieth-century transformation. ^[3] Source 3 Hubert N. ('Dutch') Hoffman Jr. historical marker Photograph

The family’s Eisenhower Avenue mausoleum, where Hoffman was interred, was relocated in approximately 2014 to clear ground for an adjoining hotel development — a transition the Washington Post documented in detail. ^[4] Source 4 Washington Post — Hoffman mausoleum relocation (2014) Newspaper

Disambiguation. Hubert N. Hoffman Jr. is unrelated by any documented line to Jacob Hoffman, the early-republic Alexandria mayor 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 surname only.