They need to try and create ways to divert traffic off of Route 1, such as building a direct connector to the beltway from the University area. Also, try showing people that you can get to the UMCP area and beltway by other ways then going all the way down or up Route 1. Kenilworth will take you to the Beltway and I think there are a couple other back ways to get there as well.

Some areas like University Park are very nice but then appear bordered by slum areas down by the Knox boxes. They should knock all those down and even try to get rid of the Knox Towers and build more high rises or Commons like buildings over there and create a whole new off-campus area, complete with its own amenities. You could even build it in a way that a grocery store could be thrown in the mix.
Here is the original thread. (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=443543)
A direct route from the Beltway to Comcast Center has already been proposed. I think this would be a great idea because Route 1 is a traffic nightmare, it takes longer to get from 495 to campus than it does to get from my house in Kensington to the Beltway exit at CP. Another thing I don't like is how horrible and complex the overall layout of the roads are, on campus and off. A HRT Purple Line Stop at the Student Union would be a really good idea because that would help alleviate traffic for football and basketball games. The university does provide a continuous bus transit from the student union to the College Park Green Line station, but sometimes the bus doesn't run and it's really annoying to have to follow windy roads to the Metro. I also think that the fixed structures (i.e. university's campus, the metro, and MARC rails) really mess up the possibility of fixing up the town of College Park. The population of students vastly overwhelm the towns facilities but there is so much infrastructure (it's old so it should be torn down) that it is really hard to fix it all.

I have a bunch of pictures taken of the area, but I'm working on a getting a proposal of how to redevelop College Park for one of my course's, I'll post a lot of the information, pictures, and suggestions here once my computer is finally fixed and I finish the project.

For the time being this can be the thread for all developments in the College Park-Hyattesville-Greenbelt Area.

Prince George's Rebounding From Losses

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 12, 2007; D03

Prince George's County office market is showing slow signs of recovering after large tenants such as Verizon and Lockheed Martin downsized, leaving nearly 500,000 square feet of space vacant. By the end of last year, analysts said, vacancies had begun to stabilize, leasing rates were rising, and the old office space was being subdivided and leased to smaller companies.

The county's average asking rent, $22.37 per square foot, were still lower than Montgomery County's $27.87 and Northern Virginia's $29.73 and nearly half of the District's $43.83. But at 14.7 percent, the county's vacancy rate moved closer to the 10 percent that is considered equilibrium, due to moderate new construction and more tenants moving from mid-range rentals to Class A properties.

"The mix of tenants is improving, making the market less risky," said Niel Beggy, commercial real estate broker for office leasing in Prince George's at Cushman and Wakefield. "It's not as reliant on large government contractors, which are kind of cycling out."

In the past two years, as Verizon, Cingular, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell and Lucent were pulling out of office space, two new buildings totaling about 200,000 square feet were delivered in Greenbelt. Since then, property owners have been cutting those blocks of office space into smaller offices, which often are able to command higher rates.

"Landlords don't have exposure to the 100,000-square-foot tenant in a 300,000-square-foot portfolio going bye-bye," he said.

Sigrid Zialcita, research director at Cushman and Wakefield, said pending projects like National Harbor and other mixed-use development, as well as the fact that neighboring Montgomery County is limiting growth, are expected to help the market.

"Recovery is not a supply issue; it's a demand issue," Zialcita said. "We're not seeing the demand really go gangbusters in that area, but it has improved a lot."

More commercial parts of the county, such as Laurel, are seeing some of the lowest vacancy rates in the region (7.7 percent) and already this year, leases are being signed in Bowie for some of the largest spec space in the county, at rates in the low $30s per square foot.

Vacancy rates and rents in Bowie were the highest in the county. Over 27 percent of space was empty as brokers sought to fill new office space built on spec and lease rehabbed spaces whose previous tenants moved out. Analysts expect rates at a new office park in Landover built by Knollwood Development to run as high as $33.50 per square foot.

The Bowie area trends reflect a "flight to quality" -- successors to the government contractor tenants tend to be private-sector professional service organizations, such as law firms or marketing companies.

"The older '70s-, '80s-vintage buildings are becoming less attractive and tenant image is more important to them," Beggy said. "And that's important for the county."

The 300,000 square feet of office space that Miami-based Taylor Development and Land is building at the Prince George's Plaza Metro is one of the few new projects that developers are hoping will appeal the federal government.

"We're focusing on bringing in the [General Services Administration] along with private contractors they're doing business with," said Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Rademacher, though the firm does not have a contract yet.

Rents in Beltsville-College Park, the strongest area of the county's office space market, remained flat at $21.87 per square foot last year, but leasing activity was the highest in the county. Overall, the new construction is expected to help to push boutique rents into the low- to mid-$30s range, Zialcita said.

"You're still not seeing the same amount of activity the other counties are witnessing, but that's always been the case," she said.

School Board's Vote on Development Questioned


The Prince George's County Board of Education held a meeting Tuesday night at which it voted to write a letter authorizing negotiations over a multimillion-dollar development in Greenbelt that could require the closure of a school. That action had not been scheduled, leaving some county residents to question both the propriety of the vote and the decision.

The meeting was advertised for members of the school board's Capital Improvement Program Committee, but all nine board members attended and sat in their usual seats in the Upper Marlboro chambers.

They heard presentations from school system staff and the Apartment Investment and Management Co., or AIMCO, on redeveloping the 157-acre Springhill Lake site in Greenbelt. The developers want to demolish Springhill Lake Elementary School, which lies on low ground that would serve as a storm water management pond.

AIMCO has offered the school system $20 million to build a new school in Greenbelt.

But a study by school officials estimated that the impact of the project amounted to over $128 million. The district's figure includes the cost of demolishing the existing school, relocating a bus lot, building a combined middle and elementary school, renovating another area, and finally, building another new school to support increased enrollment from the development, which will have up to 5,800 housing units.

Told that AIMCO required a letter by Thursday expressing the board's willingness to allow negotiations to go forward, the entire board met in closed session, then openly voted 7 to 2 to order staff to write the letter. The board's chairman, R. Owen Johnson Jr. (District 5), other board members and witnesses at the meeting confirmed the account of the vote.

Superintendent John E. Deasy was not in the room when the board voted.

The board, which took office in December, has been attempting to explain its action ever since.

"The e-mail box runneth over this morning about the AIMCO project," said board member Rosalind A. Johnson (District 1), who represents the area of the proposed redevelopment. "There are always people who are going to be unhappy."

One of the e-mails came from Ann Harris Davidson, chair of the Berwyn Heights Educational Advisory Committee, who urged board members to rescind their vote.

"You have been elected to protect the interests of the Prince George's County Public Schools, not the interests of the shareholders of AIMCO," she wrote. "The differences between what AIMCO has offered and is offering and the costs and losses to the PGCPS that would be caused by AIMCO's plans are enormous."

In an advertised work session last night, the board voted 6 to 4 to reaffirm its decision and scheduled a public hearing for Wednesday on the issue.

Judy Mickens-Murray, a member of the previous, appointed school board who attended Tuesday's meeting, said she "thought it was really inappropriate to meet with a contractor and make recommendations without receiving the recommendations from the administration."

Rosalind Johnson said that in participating in the meeting she had been following the guidance of the board chairman as well as the advice of the board's attorney.

"I would not have been able to stay there if I had not, and others had not, and we had not, made certain that we were proceeding legally," she said.

Owen Johnson said that the session was "absolutely not" a formal meeting of the board -- that it was simply a meeting of the committee -- and that the vote had only been a recommendation to the full board. Yet the full board voted on the recommendation, he acknowledged.

"We're going to review the contents of the letter and make sure it's what we want and move forward," he said.

Deasy, who has not issued a formal recommendation on the offer, said the $20 million put forth by AIMCO was "insufficient to respond to the gap in what we perceive are going to be the impacts on the district."

Other board members agreed that AIMCO's offer was low. "It's far from where we need to be," Owen Johnson said.

But Patti Shwayder, a senior vice president for AIMCO, said that the school system's estimate of the impact of the development had steadily escalated over the past year.

"I wouldn't call it an impact of $128 million," Shwayder said. "That wouldn't pass the laugh test for us. We had discussions of how much this would cost. Our company always only offered to rebuild an elementary school in exchange for an elementary school."

Shwayder and board members said that the letter voted on by the school board would only authorize negotiations to proceed and would not bind them to give up the school.

"The letter just allows the process to move forward," she said. "There are a lot of questions, and obviously this is a new board. They need time to deliberate."

It was partly that newness that explained the confusion Tuesday, Owen Johnson said.

"We will continue to work very, very hard to do things openly," he said. "Bear with us. We're not trying to deceive anybody, ever."

Development like that around PG Plaza's metro station is great. I was down there 6 months ago and saw some of the construction taking place and was pleasantly surprised.

I have a bunch of pictures taken of the area, but I'm working on a getting a proposal of how to redevelop College Park for one of my course's, I'll post a lot of the information, pictures, and suggestions here once my computer is finally fixed and I finish the project.

Looking forward to you fixing your computer, so we can see those pics! :)