Demolition for new apartment, retail complex near UMD begins

Berwyn Demolition

Demolition of the University Professional Center began Monday, making way for a multifamily apartment building to be built in the next two to three years.

Alta at Berwyn House is expected to be a seven-story, 275-unit apartment building with 1,000 square feet of retail space and a two-level, 318-space parking garage, said Miriam Bader, the city’s senior planner. The Wood Partners are developing the property.

Located at 4700 Berwyn House Road and adjacent to University Club, the property is about half a mile from the entrance to the University of Maryland’s campus. It will be District 2’s first market-rate, multifamily development if it is finished before the Metropolitan apartment and retail complex project, said District 2 Councilman P.J. Brennan.

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The property will be marketed similarly to Domain College Park, which is geared more toward adults and graduate students, Brennan said.

Bader said they are marketing the building toward young professionals, rather than students, because that market is “underserved.”

“We are trying to encourage faculty and staff [to live here] rather than commuting, because we are hoping to reduce the traffic on Route 1,” Bader said. “We are trying to encourage a walkable community.”

Brennan said he hopes this development will “exercise the property’s best use.” 

“In terms of combining places to live and commercial places in areas, it will attract the diverse populations, such as the young and older professionals, which will hopefully attract new amenities to our city that will attract broader audiences,” Brennan said. “We hope people who move into those apartments will patronize those amenities and take advantage of things like the pedestrian trails.”

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Sophomore Anja Aniere said this project is “taking away space from students” during a time when the university is “expanding.”

 “College Park is definitely building up, so it makes sense that they want to build up the area before those people come,” said Aniere, who is enrolled in letters and sciences. “But it’d be nice to have various price points for off-campus living, and it would be great to have more options that are cost-affordable, rather than something that’s not really geared towards students, which I guess is a little selfish since we already have so much.”

But Bader justified the apartment’s marketability and said the city has made a “dent” on students’ housing needs.

Another apartment and retail complex will be built about a two-minute walk from Alta at Berwyn House. The site of the Koons Ford showroom at 8315 Baltimore Ave. will be transformed into a 156-room Cambria Hotel, along with a CVS, parking garage and restaurant. 

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Both the Landmark, which opened this fall, and Terrapin Row, which will open next fall, provide beds for students, Bader said. 

“The university has finished a number of student housing projects,” Bader said. “Now we feel we need to focus on nonstudent housing as well.”