When I heard the news Monday of Wawa’s impending demise, I heard the shock reverberating throughout the campus as students lamented the loss of a late-night staple and an endearing symbol of College Park’s main shopping center. So you could imagine the shock on my friends’ faces when I greeted the story with a smile and guarded optimism. Wawa embodied everything wrong with the image and reality of College Park’s wretched downtown.
From the reports of frequent drunken vandalism on weekends to the hoagies you could order at 3 a.m. when starved for food, Wawa has meant something to many students. But what it has meant to me the most is the trashiness it conveys to all who visit the university. The blame doesn’t solely rest at Wawa’s feet, however. A glutton of sandwich shops, a smattering of bars and generally hazardous conditions for pedestrians make up our college town as it is presently. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, downtown College Park is broken.
The College Park Shopping Center is a decrepit, outmoded strip mall that hearkens back to an era where the country’s obsession with the automobile encouraged vast expanses of asphalt for parking that came at the expense of the walkability of the neighborhood, which leads to close calls between cars and errant pedestrians in the street and parking lot.
While students carp about the undesirable conditions and lack of retail and dining options in downtown College Park, few care enough to take the time to be more involved in the process, such as in the ongoing East Campus development meetings that are taking place. Perhaps students don’t believe being an activist in local issues carries as much weight as organizing endless protests to end the war in Iraq and to save the polar bears. And that’s a shame, because while those problems are very significant, they don’t affect the day-to-day life of the average university student as much as the safety and upkeep of our college town does.
JBG Rosenfeld Retail, which owns the College Park Shopping Center grounds that stretches from Applebee’s to Wawa, should follow Foulger-Pratt/Argo Investment Company’s lead and see a ripe opportunity in the city for new commercial/mixed-use opportunities downtown. What better way to start than to redevelop their stretch of property from the ground up? Demolish the existing structure and push the storefronts out to the sidewalks to foster a more intimate, urban environment. Allow for the upper floors of the new development to be devoted to office space or residential properties to increase the amount of space for rent in College Park. Erect a modest parking structure and put it behind the new shopping center, shielding it from view on the street. Attract higher-quality tenants, with a mix of chains and local fare that can give the university something to be proud about in its fledgling college town.
Frightened by the recent spike in crime in the campus community? (Or maybe you were initially frightened when you were a freshman three years ago) Redeveloping the city would have a dual-pronged effect of increasing pedestrian traffic, which would reduce incidents of criminal activity such as robberies. Brightly-lit sidewalks and eliminating dark corners can do wonders to increase peace of mind in a neighborhood starved for it.
It’s an investor’s dilemma, as none of the property owners of the dilapidated structures in the city have had the initiative to renovate their property because the rest of the property owners retain the status quo and continue to profit from their businesses. Renovating the College Park Shopping Center would be a giant first step in what would hopefully lead to a domino effect with other property owners deciding to upgrade their facilities as well in order to stay competitive.
With reports of a small mom-and-pop grocer coming in Wawa’s place, I doubt that the situation in College Park will improve markedly anytime soon, but it will be a welcome respite from the late-night inebriated gatherings and the symbol of utter failure in community planning that Wawa had become. We can do better.
Reza Michael Farhoodi is a junior psychology major and former photographer for The Diamondback. He can be reached at rmichael87@gmail.com.
