Is College Park On Track To Becoming A Top 20 College Town? (Baltimore: apartment, lease)

[adelphi_sky]

Now that we are almost 2 years away from 2020, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at COllege Park's progress on its goal to become a top 20 college town by 2020. Your thoughts.

[adelphi_sky]

I think College Park is a tad behind schedule. Even though we have new developments coming online in the next few years, it still takes time for everything to gel. New buildings don't make a college town. There has to be the feel as well. There has to be intentional programming between the university, town, and businesses to make everything come together.

Programming, programming, programming. While the university is getting out into the community with partnerships with venues like Milkboy and College Park Day, there needs to be more. There is a need for music festivals, art festivals, etc that are along RT.1 and not tucked away like College Park Day was. There is enough space on the front lawn of the chapel down by Rt. 1 to have a stage and people sitting on the lawn facing RT. 1 for a music festival in the summer.

We need a concert hall. The Clarice is great and top-of-the-line, but a music venue like the Fillmore IN College Park will go a long way to livening up the area throughout the year. Make it versatile to where you can have theater plays as well. The Clarice is disjointed from the main street of the city. ADd a restaurant on the roof.

Clothing stores. Food is great but EVERY retail space doesn't have to contain a food service retailer. I think College Park is at a tipping point for places to eat. THe UMD hotel added the upscale component, but I think there will be more turnover the more food establishments come online. At Riverdale Park Station You have a whole lot of food retailers yet to come online. This doesn't even include the Southern Gateway project. College Park needs to start diversifying its retail options. It's sad to drive by Bently's in the middle of the day and see it empty.

Which brings me to my last point. Density. College Park needs more professionals living in the area to sustain all the food retail. And that needs to happen fast. I'd say we need at least a 1000 new units online by 2021. The FUSE apartment fire was a big setback. But if they can come online as well as the College Park Metro development by Gilbane and then the Southern Gateway, College Park can be pretty close to 1000 new non-student units by 2021.

THen give it all about 5 years to gel.

[lookingbutnotlost]

I actually think clothing stores is the biggest thing. It would be great to have small boutiques, not nec. chain stores. I always wonder where these kids shop.

[DoughLow805]

Baltimore avenue is the biggest obstacle to college park, they need to really emphasize improving the walkability along and around Baltimore Ave...maybe they need pedestrian bridges over over tunnels under Baltimore Ave. They also need to add a buffer (sidewalk plot) between the sidewalk and street everywhere on Baltimore Ave on both sides at least from RPS to the south and whatever they think is the northbound pedestrian boundary

the best thing they could do is buy up all the land and housing on Knox Road from Baltimore Ave to the College Park metro...line the streets on both sides with street facing retail (bars, concert venues, restaurants, shops)...shut the street down permanently to traffic except buses and bikes...basically a much much cheaper version of Georgetown without the traffic along M street. I went to U of Wisconsin, see state street for an example.

[TheJetSet]

retail, retail, retail. Retail in unsustainable without the wealth and incomes to support it and those incomes for us common folk come from office jobs. Quality retailers arent even going to take a chance if the demographic isnt right, hence why college park has sat dormant until the University started pushing and focusing on a better college town. Lucky for college park it has a pool of facility, college and grad students that are paid well or have the backing of mommy and daddy.

What the university needs to do is get more office space on route 1 and fill them with at least regional offices of technology companies and home grown start ups from the university, Maryland as a whole has done a terrible job commercializing patents with all the Federal agencies and Johns Hopkins, they should have been in the top 3 in the nation but this area lacks an entrepreneurial spirit so you get what you get.

It's going to be much harder to get quality retail (if at all) if you dont have the jobs come in first, this is what needs to be fast tracked; innovation, commercialization and turning them into viable companies that will lease space in the city.

The odd and stupid thing is the push by the University to develop an exit strategy for starups, sure that can be a plan B but the primary focus should be helping them to grow into a facebook, google or uber size company that can acquire others, Ive never read this to be primary focus by the state, university or business groups but the opposite is true with getting them to sell. I guess that's part of the reason why Maryland only has four fortune 500 companies while virginia has over 20 and even Connecticut has about 10, Massachusetts 14 , Pennsylvania 21, New Jersey 21 etc. It's quite pathetic and shows that something is very wrong with Maryland's business climate which has affected everything, including retail.

[adelphi_sky]

Originally Posted by TheJetSet

retail, retail, retail. Retail in unsustainable without the wealth and incomes to support it and those incomes for us common folk come from office jobs. Quality retailers arent even going to take a chance if the demographic isnt right, hence why college park has sat dormant until the University started pushing and focusing on a better college town. Lucky for college park it has a pool of facility, college and grad students that are paid well or have the backing of mommy and daddy.

What the university needs to do is get more office space on route 1 and fill them with at least regional offices of technology companies and home grown start ups from the university, Maryland as a whole has done a terrible job commercializing patents with all the Federal agencies and Johns Hopkins, they should have been in the top 3 in the nation but this area lacks an entrepreneurial spirit so you get what you get.

It's going to be much harder to get quality retail (if at all) if you dont have the jobs come in first, this is what needs to be fast tracked; innovation, commercialization and turning them into viable companies that will lease space in the city.

The odd and stupid thing is the push by the University to develop an exit strategy for starups, sure that can be a plan B but the primary focus should be helping them to grow into a facebook, google or uber size company that can acquire others, Ive never read this to be primary focus by the state, university or business groups but the opposite is true with getting them to sell. I guess that's part of the reason why Maryland only has four fortune 500 companies while virginia has over 20 and even Connecticut has about 10, Massachusetts 14 , Pennsylvania 21, New Jersey 21 etc. It's quite pathetic and shows that something is very wrong with Maryland's business climate which has affected everything, including retail.

I do agree that there needs to be an office component on RT.1 The Discovery District is coming along nicely, but like Clarice, it is not quite in the city center to create vibrancy. 1 million sgft of office space in the downtown core would do wonders. But to get that number means you have to build UP. ANd given the NIMBY history about height restrictions including the airport restrictions, that will be hard to do.

[papichulo2]

i think college park already getting that way but still needs a lot of work. like yesterday i was in langley park and lot of umd students have to go there for some reason..

[RickyRoma]

Top 20 is a marketing campaign not a realistic target to be honest. There are some major structural problems thy will take decades to fix. The town is very linear with Balt avenue (a major thoroughfare) dominating. Just look at every economic dev report - 90% of all new businesses have a Baltimore Ave address. Top college towns have contiguous blocks of development-with small businessss like coffee shops, many bars,restaurants and music venues, other art venues, bookstores, etc. Plus they are significantly more walkable than Balt Ave.

Totally remaking Balt Ave is a must but also there needs to be connectivity to other streets with great places to go - would be great to replace the shopping center, and both CP towers with a robust mix of retail, office and residential. Plus improve the other side of Balt Ave back to the metro.

[Turnerbro]

I don't see it ever becoming one, it's main disadvantage being that it's absorbed by D.C

[lookingbutnotlost]

Originally Posted by Turnerbro

I don't see it ever becoming one, it's main disadvantage being that it's absorbed by D.C

Being close to D.C. is an advantage for college kids and grad students