RT. 1 Bypass Through UMD Golf Course?

[adelphi_sky]

This is starting to become big news. Here is an update on the proposal. Personally, I'm torn. While the gold course is a nice recreational facility, how much more would the are improve with more development? Sure, the loss of green space sucks. It will be interesting how the pros and cons weigh out.

Gibbons said in an interview that the concept he described to Loh featured "an academic village with retail, office, hotel and residential" properties that would be owned by the university.
The school is interested in the idea, which has also piqued the attention of golfers and others worried they could lose the 150-acre course.

Read more: Developer reaches out to UMD with $100 million-plus proposal to develop land, improve transportation - baltimoresun.com

[adelphi_sky]

Here's an update on the UMD Golf Course development proposal. I'm still on the fence about this one. Yes, it is a great course and a valuable open green space. But university president Loh makes a good point about the University growing and in 20 years, the golf course then becomes more appealing for an expanded campus. As far as the development not being TOD, people forget that the Purple Line station would be less than half a mile from the edge of the golf course.

Loh appears to be all for it. He's noted as trying to build College Park into a top 10 college town. Though one has to wonder why RT. 1 is so frickin' hard to develop. It's like it is cursed or something. With all the traffic flowing through RT. 1, it should be a developer's dream. Yet sites are still left with overgrown weeds and dilapidated structures on about 25% of RT 1. And by the way, how long does it take to retrofit a frickin' Denny's?

At any rate, the conversation is getting heated. Especially since the developer has upped the anti by throwing words around like Wegman's.

“We are trying to attract and keep people here,” Loh said in his first interview about the plan. More upscale housing and retail could help do that, he said.

Loh said Gibbons showed him “upscale faculty and staff housing, condos or townhouses, and a lot of restaurants. ... He wanted to bring in a Wegman’s.”

If I read another developer's use of the word upscale I'm going to scream. That word has been watered down in the last few years. And it always turns out that upscale never means upscale like Georgetown or Bethesda, but upscale like some cookie-cutter middle-class suburb. Do I think Wegman's would build in College Park? Hell no. It would take up the entire golf course unless it will be a mini urban version like proposed for the Walter Reed site. More details this week apparently.

Read more: If you build it, will faculty and staff come? - The Washington Post

[adelphi_sky]

The developer canceled plans to develop 50 acres of the UMD golf course due to political and public push back.

A Maryland developer said Wednesday that he is abandoning his proposal to build an academic village on part of the University of Maryland golf course.

In a letter to U-Md. President Wallace Loh, developer Brian Gibbons cited growing opposition from political leaders, as the reason he no longer plans to submit either a concept plan or a development proposal to the university.

“As someone who loves the university, it was never my intent for this concept to become a political football or have the university become embroiled in political theater,” Gibbons said in the letter sent Wednesday.

Read more: Maryland developer drops plan to build ‘academic village’ at U-Md. golf course - The Washington Post