File photo

The Alexandria Times is primarily known for our thorough coverage of local news. Each week’s paper, depending on its size, includes anywhere from eight to 12 stories and briefs of hard news — plus an Alexandria-specific editorial.

We view this news emphasis as our bread and butter, and it will continue to be our priority. But to remain fresh and relevant, news organizations, like all businesses, need to evolve and provide their consumers new and interesting offerings. We have recently launched one such change in our new website at www.alextimes.com.

This week, we are happy to announce another major innovation in the way we present what’s happening in Alexandria: the premiere of the new Times Living section. This section will contain various elements that were previously scattered throughout the paper — such as our pet and health columns and home and calendar features — and will also contain a number of new wrinkles:

We are renaming Scene Around Town to Arts. As the title change suggests, we are expanding the focus of this section to include the visual arts, live music and movie reviews, in addition to our coverage of the local theatre scene.

Each month, we will publish a short feature highlighting an Alexandrian of interest to residents and readers. And each month, we will feature a neighborhood spotlight that will examine the Port City’s neighborhoods one at a time.

A new column called Foodie will make its debut June 16. It will be an eclectic and entertaining read, presenting recipes — and the story behind them — food trends and even information about certain ingredients. It initially will be staff written, but our hope is that readers and local chefs will contribute columns as well.

The Let’s Eat advertising feature will be revamped and after appearing in its traditional format one last time next week, have a sleek new appearance with photographs from the spotlighted restaurant.

Starting today, when you pick up your Alexandria Times you will find our traditional news content up front, followed by sports. The Times Living section will come next. Readers will be able to identify TL through its distinctive front page with the Times Living logo and an index of content. The section will contain colored page headers with the TL logo along the top throughout.

When you get to our opinion pages it means you’ve left Times Living. And after opinion will still come the crossword puzzle that many of you count on each week, as well as classifieds, obituaries and a few story jumps.

This new section and revamped content order was a team effort by our news, production and sales staffs. We are excited about the potential of Times Living to make our softer news content more accessible and interesting to readers. And as always, we welcome your comments and suggestions on how to improve this section — or any part of the Alexandria Times.