The proposed Metropolitan development.
After about a decade of planning, a mixed-use project will soon break ground on a 4.22-acre site at 9091 Baltimore Ave.
The Metropolitan Development Group plans to begin construction in September on The Boulevard at 9091, a project that would bring residences and retail to the intersection of Route 1 and Cherokee Street by 2017. The developer is currently waiting on building and grading permits from Prince George’s County.
“There’s been a desire to see this project come to fruition for roughly a decade, so it will be great to see this property put back into a useful state,” Michael Stiefvater, College Park’s economic development coordinator, wrote in an email. “A major goal of the City and University is to increase homeownership in the community, so those units will be a positive step.”
The space has been vacant since 2004, when Mandalay Restaurant & Cafe, a Burmese restaurant, moved to Silver Spring. After the closure, JPI Development Services initially began developing a similar mixed-use property, but the slowing economy stalled the plan.
The Metropolitan Development Group later took over the project and sent a site plan to the College Park City Council in December 2013 after having the property for a few years, project manager Christian Cerria said.
The Prince George’s County Planning Board approved the plan in May 2014, said Miriam Bader, the city’s senior planner.
Provided the plans continue to receive support from the city and county, the development group intends to begin construction in September, Cerria said.
The project will include 4,133 square feet of retail space, 45 townhomes and 238 apartments, including studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units, Bader said.
The development also will incorporate amenities such as a central courtyard with an outdoor pool and grilling area.
Despite the “spring break” look that Bader said she observed when she saw the development plans, the housing is aimed at permanent residents and university faculty and staff.
“It will attract a different kind of caliber of people and revitalize the area,” said Cerria, who graduated from this university in 2012. “It will be interesting.”
The targeted audience of these homes and retail venues are millennials and young professionals, Stiefvater wrote.
“It’s in line with our sector plan and it’s also in line with our goal to provide a diversity of housing for new residents to have the opportunity to move to our city,” College Park District 2 Councilman P.J. Brennan said. “In the end, I think we’re going to have a nice project that blends well with the existing community.”
The plans passed easily through city and county boards, wrote Stiefvater, likely because the plans have been in the works since 2004.
But Kiersten Johnson, a city resident who lives on Cherokee Street, said she has opposed the plan since it was in the hands of the previous developer, and over the past decade, has gained support.
Johnson and others who reject the plan are mainly concerned about the parking and traffic situation that will come about as a result of this development, Johnson said.
Johnson described Cherokee Street as one on which people typically park on both sides and run stop signs — less-than-ideal conditions for families and children who want to walk and bike outside as they please.
The development has been amended to cater to these concerns, Brennan said.
To remedy the traffic situation, a light will be required at the intersection of Cherokee Street and Route 1 after the completion of the Boulevard project and the nearby Monument project, Cerria said.
Additionally, apartment residents will be required to pay for and use a parking spot in the garage that will be on the property.
“Our main concern [now] is how enforceable that’s going to be,” Johnson said.
