Arlington/Alexandria for a family of soon to be 5. (sale, condos)

[cawiau]

I've posted in the DC metro forum but was referred here since it seems I will not find what I need in DC.

Both my wife and I are 31 and relocating to the metro DC area for work. Both my wife and I will be working in DC but for work I will need to be able to commute to Arlington/Alexandria (so close to metro and major highways important).

Our max budget is 600k but we would like to keep it in the low 500's if possible.

Requirement:
- family friendly (we are expecting our first)
- walkable and close to necessities (restaurants, gym, shopping)
- as far away from surburbia as possible : currently live there and don't want to have to drive to go get a gallon of milk.
- close metro/major highways.

My wife is open to condos while I would prefer a row home and would settle for a townhome; but really Open. We flew into VA twice before and drove around with our realtor. We like
old town but pricey, Del Ray had a few row homes in our price but small: we are coming from 2400
Sqft and it is crazy to think we will downside to 1,000sqft home for 200k more than we spent on our current house; but hey it is what it is.

Looked at the condos at the Potomac yard and geez! Found one resale one that was for 632k and we considered it for a bit. We also looked at Arlington and seems mostly high rise condos or maybe it is all we saw.

So would appreciate some guidance/suggestions on where to look. Moving there 6/18 and have 3 months in corporate housing before we find our own place. Also need to sale our current house in the process.