317 Unit Affordable Housing Complex in North College Park Moves to Final Design

• At tomorrow’s meeting, the Council will discuss the detailed site plan (DSP) of the “Flats at College Park” by RST development.
  Key components of the development include
• A 5-7 story, mixed-use development at 9113 Baltimore Avenue.
• The property consists of approximately 3.81 acres and fronts on the east side of Baltimore Avenue between Delaware and Cherokee Streets.
• Currently, the site contains three motels: Days Inn, Howard Johnson’s, and Red Roof Inn, which will be razed.
• Includes 317 multi-family units,
• 3,296 square feet of commercial space
• The project will be affordable housing financed with State of Maryland Low Income Housing Tax Credits.
• A six-level, 360-space parking garage will be provided on-site with full access from Cherokee Street and right-out only onto Baltimore Avenue.
• Right-of-way ranging in width from 18-23 feet will be dedicated to SHA along the Baltimore Avenue frontage (50 feet from the centerline). Five feet of right-of-way will be dedicated to the City along Delaware Street (25 feet from the centerline).
• The Applicant is offering this space rent-free to Meals-on-Wheels, and they are negotiating. If this does not work out, the Applicant states they will use it for a co-working space.
• The outdoor facilities include
  • a pool, a courtyard,
  • a playground,
  • a dog park,
  • grilling areas, and an outdoor terrace.
• Indoor facilities include:
  • a sunroom lounge with a coffee bar overlooking the exterior courtyard,
  • a library with a café,
  • a business center,
  • a multi-purpose room,
  • a fitness center,
  • a game room,
  • a kitchenette, and
  • bike storage with two fix-it stations.

Staff is recommending several changes to the detailed site plan – most of them are minor ones.

1. Remove the 4-ground floor residential units (249-252) at the southern end of the building and provide commercial space/shopfronts.
2. Identify a micro-mobility parking area on Baltimore Avenue or Cherokee Street.
3. Provide a “Do Not Enter” sign at the Baltimore Avenue exit and add a median to
   Baltimore Avenue at the garage exit, subject to the approval of SHA.
4. Provide details of signage along 48th Avenue, such as “Service Entry Only” and restrictions for resident vehicles, including information regarding move-ins/outs
5.  Provide tabletop crosswalks in front of the garage entrance/exit on Cherokee Street and Baltimore Avenue, subject to engineering/grading/permitting feasibility. If not feasible, provide a painted crosswalk or another material to distinguish these crosswalks.
6. Re-label the site plan to remove “residential use” from the 3,296-square-foot area along Cherokee Street.
7. Remove the shopfront treatment where residential uses extend to the ground floor.
8. Remove the spandrel at level three along Baltimore Avenue to improve the shopfront treatment.
9. Enhance the lobby entrance by adding a canopy that extends to the sidewalk.
10. Use dark colors for the base and light colors for the upper stories, and only use the orange accent panels on one portion of the building.
11. Extend the bracketing surrounding some of the balconies to include all the balconies in a vertical alignment, particularly along the Baltimore Avenue frontage.
12. For the garage façade, the color of the veneer panels should match the color of the adjoining building walls. The base should be dark and the upper floors lighter. In addition, a metal screen grid shall be installed to enable planting to create a green screen.
13. Change the building identification sign over the entrance to the commercial space to identify appropriately identify the space (Sheet A202, Detail F1).
14. Indicate a clearance bar with dimensioned height placed at the parking garage entrance.
15. Provide an artistic treatment detail to all sides of the ground transformer located at the southeast corner of the south building. This transformer and all the other ones placed on the property will be an on site oil reclamation service to ensure that there are never any power outages.
16. Remove fencing proposed along 48th Avenue or revise to comply with the City fence ordinance (the first 25 feet from Delaware Street, the fencing should not exceed 3-feet in height and can be a picket fence as depicted on Sheet L301, detail 11). The screen fence shown across Lot 9 should be removed.
17. Clarify which of the existing trees will be removed and which will remain on Sheet L401B and any other relevant sheet.
18. Consider tree substitutions for the following problematic species: (a) Boxwoods (b) Otto Luyken-Consider Juniper horizontalis, abelia, or Cornus sericea
19. Consider removing T-4 and the other (5) specimen trees with permission from the adjacent owner. Add (2) Swamp White Oaks in location of T-4 if removed.
20. Provide a green roof on flat roof surfaces, where feasible
21. Construction and maintenance of improvements to the City’s unimproved 40-foot-wide right-of-way known as 48th Avenue, for approximately 219 feet west of Delaware Street, following City design standards (including installation of a roadbed, roadway, curb, gutter, and a five-foot-wide sidewalk on the east side and four-foot-wide sidewalk on the west side). “No Through Street” and “No Parking” signs shall be posted and enforced by the City.
22. A public access easement to the City for the “T-shaped” hammerhead turn-around located on the Applicant’s property at the end of 48th Avenue-See Public Use Easement
    Plan.
23. A public access easement to the City to accommodate the sidewalk along Delaware Street-See Public Use Easement Plan.
24. Construction of an exclusive right turn lane on Cherokee Street between the site access and US Route 1 following City and SHA standards.
25. Installation of high visibility (piano keys), and crosswalks along US Route 1 on Indian Lane and Fox Street, as indicated in the BPIS, subject to any required SHA approval.
26. Installation of pedestrian signals and high visibility crosswalks (piano keys) along the US 1 and Cherokee Street intersection, as indicated in the BPIS, subject to any required SHA approval.
27. Acknowledgment of responsibility for maintenance of pedestrian light fixtures, landscaping, and sidewalks.
28. Restrictions related to construction staging and hours of operation, if needed.
29. If feasible, provision of an outdoor public art feature can be matched by City funds (up to $15,000).
30. Evidence of NGBS SILVER certification.

View from the northwest corner on Route 1

View from the southwest corner  on Route 1

View from the southeast corner

View from the northeast corner