At the city of College Park’s northern edge and in the shadow of IKEA, developers are planning a shopping center with two stand-alone restaurants, a bank, offices and retail space just off Route 1.
Roadside Development, LLC representatives presented the College Park City Council with its plans for a project tentatively titled “The Village at North College Park” that will fill the last 4.75 acres of land neighboring the Swedish megastore.
Two restaurants will sit behind hedges along Route 1, flanking a BB&T bank. The developer also plans to build 39,000 square feet of strip mall and a two-level parking lot.
On the back side of the retail strip, 12 townhouses will face a landscaped “main street” radiating from the IKEA traffic circle, architect David VanDuzer said.
The second level of parking will be underground, with spaces reserved for the townhouses and the 21,000 square feet of office space above the retail, VanDuzer said.
To satisfy the city’s wishes and make the development pedestrian-friendly, a “spine” of marked asphalt and landscaped islands will provide a pedestrian path across the parking lot. A plaza cutting through the retail and townhouses will provide access to the main street.
A city-owned marker at the site of a historical tavern will be incorporated into a small park next to one of the restaurants — one of the city’s conditions for approving the development, City Planning Director Terry Schum said.
Because the property lies north of the Capital Beltway near the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, it does not fall under the Route 1 Sector Plan guidelines for development. District 3 Councilman Eric Olson said he is concerned the development is too similar to suburban strip malls.
“I see a lot of surface parking, I see a lot of one-story buildings … that’s not what the future of urban development is,” Olson said.
VanDuzer and Roadside representative Richard Lake assured Olson the retail is as large and dense as county law will allow and is one part of a larger, mixed-use project.
Roadside is splitting the remainder of the IKEA site with Summit Properties, which will develop the other side of the “main street” with 508 apartments and two parking garages.
District 1 Councilman John Krouse feared if the pedestrian walkway ends along Route 1, it will encourage people to cross the highway away from the traffic signal and without a crosswalk.
Other council members were skeptical there would be many pedestrians coming from Route 1 at all, considering the development’s location too far north of most residential neighborhoods. One suggestion is to provide a pedestrian link to the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, encouraging employees to use the restaurants and retail.
The council asked the developer to work with Schum and city planning staff to refine the proposal; members will formally vote on its approval in the next two weeks.
