The first warm Thursday in May, Pat Miller Neighborhood Square filled up the way it always does: folding chairs, a band tuning at the corner of Mount Vernon and Oxford, kids running loops around the trees. If you have lived in Del Ray for more than a summer or two, the picture is familiar. What is different in 2026 is who was setting up the tables.
For nearly three decades, First Thursday belonged to the Del Ray Business Association. This year the Del Ray Citizens Association took the wheel, and the volunteer-led group is running the whole season under new branding and a new roster of themes. That handoff, small as it sounds, is the frame for the summer. Del Ray's warm-weather calendar has quietly moved from a business-produced marketing event into a resident-produced neighborhood one, and it happens to be landing at the same moment the Avenue is getting its first real public water feature in more than fifteen years. If you already live here, both changes affect the shape of your Thursday nights and your Saturday afternoons in ways worth planning around.
The handoff behind First Thursday
The mechanics are simple. According to The Zebra, the Del Ray Citizens Association has assumed responsibility for organizing First Thursday, taking over from the Business Association that founded and produced the event for close to thirty years. The DRCA is a volunteer organization, which means the sponsors, non-profit beneficiaries, and themes shift more visibly from month to month.
The 2026 lineup, as published by both The Zebra and Del Ray Artisans:
| Date | Theme | Sponsor |
|---|---|---|
| May 7 | It's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood | Alexandria Hyundai |
| June 4 | Field Day | Del Ray Farmers Market |
| July 2 | America 250 | The Jen Walker Team |
All three run 5 to 8 p.m. and are free. The center of gravity is Pat Miller Neighborhood Square at Mount Vernon and Oxford, with programming that stretches down the Avenue depending on the theme. Del Ray Artisans, at 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, is running extended gallery hours from noon to 9 p.m. on First Thursdays from April through June, with a creative activity from 6:30 to 8 p.m. In May the gallery hosted the Alexandria City High School Titan Student Art Exhibition, which is the kind of pairing (student show plus street festival) that reads differently under the DRCA's community-first framing than it did under the Business Association's.
A practical read on the July 2 date: it lands the Wednesday-adjacent evening before the long weekend, which historically pulls people out of Del Ray toward Old Town's waterfront and the National Mall. Running the America 250 theme here first is a soft argument to stay put in the neighborhood before the July 4 exodus.
A splash pad where a pool has been closed since 2010
The bigger physical change to summer in Del Ray is happening behind Del Ray Artisans, at the triangle where Mount Vernon and Commonwealth meet. That parcel has held a shuttered pool since 2010. Per ALXnow, the site is now home to the Colasanto Interactive Fountain, a splash pad that anchors the multi-phase Del Ray Gateway project. The city's Department of Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities had construction timed to finish in late April, and the perimeter is being installed with artwork by Béatrice Coron. The same triangle holds the Nancy Dunning Memorial Garden.
Two things are worth knowing if you have small kids or grandkids.
First, the Gateway splash pad is only Del Ray's second public interactive fountain. The other, at Potomac Yard Park at 2501 Potomac Avenue, typically runs Memorial Day weekend through mid-October, per the city's parks department. That has meant a fifteen-minute walk or a short drive for families west of Commonwealth. The new fountain shortens that trip to the length of a stroller ride from most of central Del Ray.
Second, the Gateway is designed as more than a play feature. It sits directly behind an art gallery, next to a memorial garden, on the Avenue's most-photographed intersection. The city routed it that way intentionally, and the artwork by Coron signals it. This is the piece of infrastructure that will most obviously change how the corner functions on a Saturday morning in July.
Second Saturdays, in order
The Del Ray Business Association still runs the other rhythm that defines the season: Second Saturday. If you have not built a route around it, here is one that fits the neighborhood's compression between Hume and Bellefonte, drawn from what Visit Del Ray publishes:
- 9:00 a.m. Start at the Del Ray Farmers' Market at Pat Miller Neighborhood Square. The market is year-round, producer-only, and open Saturday mornings.
- 9:30 a.m. Walk south on Mount Vernon Avenue to the Del Ray Vintage & Flea Market, which sets up at three locations along the Avenue with over 50 vendors from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Domino magazine named it the best flea market in the state.
- Late morning. Detour east to the new Colasanto Interactive Fountain if the kids are with you, or west to the Mount Vernon Recreation Center fields at 2701 Commonwealth Avenue if there is a community event on the calendar.
- Lunch. Any of the Avenue standbys. The blocks between Hume and Bellefonte hold the densest cluster.
Anecdotally, most Del Ray residents run parts of that loop already. What is different in 2026 is that the middle stretch has been rebuilt around the Gateway triangle, so the drop-off and pickup pattern for the flea market shifts. Vendors closer to Commonwealth get more foot traffic from parents pushing strollers between Pat Miller and the fountain than they used to.
The rest of the summer calendar worth blocking off
Three more dates deserve a spot on the fridge.
Bands & Brews Summer Bar Crawl. Now in its sixth year per the DRBA, it moves through 15-plus Del Ray restaurants with live music and drink specials, benefiting the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria. It is the DRBA's signature summer event, distinct from the DRCA-run First Thursdays, and it is one of the clearer signals that both organizations are now producing the season in parallel rather than in overlap.
Alexandria & USA Birthday Celebration. Not a Del Ray event, strictly speaking, but the July 11 concert and fireworks at Oronoco Bay Park will pull the neighborhood east for the evening. Per VA250, the city is marking its 277th birthday and the country's 250th on the same night, with the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra performing. It is the one summer night when most of Del Ray ends up on the same lawn as most of Old Town.
Carlyle House Trivia Nights. Also not in Del Ray, but the schedule is worth noting because it fills the Thursdays that First Thursday does not. The City of Alexandria has trivia at Carlyle House Historic Park at 21 N. Fairfax Street on July 10 and 24 and August 7 and 21, 7 p.m., $15 per person. A different theme each night, prizes across the summer. This is the closest thing to a regular weeknight anchor for adults without kids in tow.
If you are the sort of resident who plans the summer once and then coasts, block those five dates plus the three First Thursdays and you have covered the load-bearing structure of the season. Everything else, from Yoga on the Magnolia Terrace at Carlyle House to the pop-up arts and crafts fairs at Tavern Square, is elective.
What this actually adds up to
The story most people will tell about Del Ray's summer is that a new splash pad opened and First Thursday came back. That is the version you will read on the visitor sites. The version that matters if you live here is a little different. A resident-run organization now produces the neighborhood's flagship street festival. A long-vacant pool footprint has been rebuilt into a piece of public art with water in it, dropped into the busiest intersection on the Avenue. The Business Association has narrowed its focus to markets, crawls, and merchant programming. Between those three changes, the shape of a Del Ray summer is different from what it was in 2024, and it will read differently again next year once the Gateway project's later phases come online.
If you own a home in Del Ray, this is the neighborhood context worth tracking, and the kind of on-the-ground detail we spend a lot of time paying attention to. When you are ready to talk about what any of it means for your block, or your home, Kristen Jones Real Estate is here. Request your complimentary home valuation and we will bring the local read along with the numbers.
