Gateway Park construction to start soon
I often get questions about the status of developments on and along Route 1, especially on the part that crosses north College Park. Here are a few things I think we can talk about.
1. Gateway Park: At the south side of Edgewood Road intersection, just south of Beltway, the construction of the Gateway Park will begin fairly soon, possibly in this year. The final design has been approved and we gave the contract to a landscaping firm to construct the park.
2. 9909 Baltimore Ave. (The Spooky House). On the north side of the Gateway Park, we’ve started working with the community to replace the current so called spooky house by something nice that our residents can enjoy. There are suggestions about turning this into a park using some unused grant money. A committee has been formed involving residents living int he area and looking into various options.
3. Down south on Route 1, we started working with the SHA to have signalized crosswalks at Cherryhill. The construction has been completed and the
4. Also, SHA has been working on a plan to build continuous sidewalk on east side of Route 1 from Cherry Hill to Cherokee. Representatives from the SHA came to the Council meeting back in June this year to talk about the plan. Please read more about that here. Several month ago, I took a walk along Route 1 in north College Park with our City engineer and Council member Wojahn to check the pedestrian safety issues there.
5. Removing Eyesores: Further in the South, we gave contracts to take down 2 eyesores, one at Cherokee street and another at Fox St. Please read more about these projects here.
6. Two new developments are coming to the area around Cherokee Street, formerly known as JPI East and JPI West development. Each will bring some 8000 sq ft of retails.
7. A little further down, the City worked with the state to get 20 million for the engineering work of re-development of Route 1 in the south of Rt 193. This is a good news because sooner this part is developed, sooner we can start working on part in north College Park.
harry
I am all for turning the “spooky house” property into an open space (park area). Please do all that you can to prevent any commercial development on that lot as it will bring lots of unwanted traffic to Nantucket Rd, and also make the Rt. 1 / Edgewood Rd intersection more dangerous and congested.
DAK4Blizzard
I like harry’s idea for the spooky house. Does the house’s property include the entire block from Route 1 to 47th Place? If so, that’s a good amount of potential.
It was an important step for the 1st segment of Route 1 to reach the engineering phase. But to my knowledge the 1st segment isn’t funded for right-of-way acquisition or construction. Is this because we’re awaiting the completion of the engineering phase to determine which properties need to be acquired (and thus the cost of right-of-way and construction)? If so, what’s the level of concern over the potential cost delaying the project several more years?
Fazlul Kabir
Hi DAK4Blizzard, Thanks for your question. Yes, the 9909 Baltimore ave (aka the Spooky House) property includes the area from Route 1 to 47th Place (of a total of 1.2 acre).
Your’re right on the Rt1 development south of 193. The engineering design phase needs to be completed in order to begin the construction and right-of-way property acquisition.
Laura Garnett
These are all great developments. How can I find more information about development in downtown College Park and area surrounding the College Park Metro Station? Why is the area surrounding the metro station occupied by large, flat parking lots instead of mixed-use, vibrant, transit-oriented development?
Robert Catlin
The College Park Metro area (east of the railroad) was rezoned in 1998 to be essentiallly a suburban office park. Shortly thereafter the University bought up almost the entire area to become a research office park. Efforts are now underway(see the link below) to rezone that area for mixed use.
http://www.pgplanning.org/Projects/Ongoing_Plans_and_Projects/Community_Plans_and_Studies/College_Park-Riverdale_Park_Transit_District_Development_Plan.htm
Downtown College Park has three ongoing projects, a short term (10-year?) use of the property across from Plato’s as a 7-11; the Toll Brothers redevelopment of the Knox boxes (south of South Campus Commons, about 1/2 mile west of Route 1) to house 1600 students, with a modest amount of retail; and the Maryland Book Exchange Project. The Book Exchange is currently being razed. It will be replace with housing for about 850 students and a modest amount of retail.
The Applebee’s/Kinko site is also ripe for redevelopment, as the Applebee’s lease is expiring in a couple of years. Other projects are being explored, as a number of downtown retail properties were recently left to the University. The University should gain title to these properties from the estate in the next few months.
A litttle to the north (above Rossborough Lane) are plans are for a large conference hotel. Plans for the hotel should be made public soon.
Aaron Marcavitch
Great info – great update. We love the things that Shop College Park have been doing to recognize the development downtown, as well as the work by the Planning Department for putting out the development update monthly.
Don’t forget that any of these project may have tourism potential. Those types of projects are eligible for funding from the Maryland Heritage Areas program late winter/early spring 2014.