University of Maryland students who moved into the new Terrapin Row apartments on Knox and Hartwick roads may have thought they were going to have it all — a sauna, pool, gym, outdoor courtyards and more.
But the lack of retail development beneath the complex this semester has proved disappointing for some.
“It’s just been kind of annoying because that’s supposed to be one of the major benefits of, like, paying so much to live here,” said Audrey McMaster, a Terrapin Row Building 2 resident and sophomore public health science major.
Real estate developer Toll Brothers, which owns Terrapin Row, expects retail spaces to open in spring 2017, wrote John Piedrahita, the company’s marketing director, in an email. Specific retailers cannot be named because of confidentiality requirements, but Piedrahita noted that students can expect recognizable brands to inhabit the retail spaces, which will be a mix of restaurants and services.
“We are being very selective in the retailers joining Terrapin Row,” Piedrahita wrote.
Only residents can park in the Terrapin Row parking garage right now, but metered parking on the first floor of the garage will be open by the end of 2016, Piedrahita said Wednesday. Spaces that were once reserved for College Park residents with permits on Guilford Drive and Hartwick and Knox roads have already been converted to metered parking for the public as part of the initiative to accommodate retail.
The anticipated cost of adding the metered parking would be nearly $100,000, according to College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn’s online bulletin. Piedrahita said the metered parking is funded completely by the city.
“We’re thrilled, we are very excited about the project … the last piece is really to open up the retail,” Piedrahita said. “We’re there primarily to serve the University of Maryland.”
While Piedrahita said opening retail spaces in spring 2017 is on target with Terrapin Row’s initial plan, a few residents who live in Building 1 said the complex advertised retail space before they moved in but “haven’t had anything done yet,” said Rachel Futterman, a junior sociology major. Futterman added that the complex is far from restaurants, Target Express and CVS on Route 1.
Nolan Trouve, a junior mechanical engineering major who also lives in Building 1, said the empty retail spaces are not what he and his roommates expected.
“We thought that it would all be ready when we moved in, and it’s not,” Trouve said.
But Building 1 resident Ethan Fink said he doesn’t find the lack of retail spaces to be too much of a problem.
“Luckily the rest of the building is so nice that [the empty retail space] doesn’t really bother me that much,” the sophomore economics major said. “But if like, other things had gone wrong, this would’ve been … kind of annoying.”
Terrapin Row management declined to comment on the record and referred The Diamondback to Toll Brothers.
