Rent Control Debate Fuels Uncertainty In Prince George’s County’s Multifamily Market

1. This month, Onelife Fitness opened a 55K SF location in a former Toys R Us, the first Prince George's County location for the expanding company, which is based in Tysons. The fitness center will join Aldi, Burlington, Ross and Marshalls at The Landing at Woodyard, a 221K SF shopping center in Clinton. OneLife in 2018 was purchased by a group including Josh Harris, now the owner of the Washington Commanders. 

2. A 4.4-acre site at 9113 and 9137 Baltimore Ave. in College Park that is home to the Days Inn, Howard Johnson and Red Roof Inn hotels will be converted into 300 affordable housing units. In August, Bisnow reported on plans for the site, which is not far from the University of Maryland's flagship campus. RST's Scott Copeland presented preliminary development plans to the College Park and Prince George's County governments, and the Prince George's County Planning Board approved the detailed site plan in March. 

3. Prince George’s County officials and residents alike are eagerly waiting for the federal government to announce where it intends to build a new FBI headquarters. Officials from Maryland and Virginia met with ​members of the General Services Administration in March to discuss the three sites that are being considered, two of which are in Prince George's County, with the third in Springfield, Virginia. In July, the GSA revised its search criteria in a way that appeared to benefit the Maryland sites. While a decision has yet to be made, officials expressed optimism at a Bisnow event last week, with Prince George's County Economic Development Corp. CEO David Ianncucci saying, "Greenbelt or Landover — one of them is going to be the new headquarters for the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

4. In September, PGCEDC celebrated 40 years of operation. Iannucci spoke with Bisnow and highlighted a particular success of the organization: the expansion of the educational technology company 2U, which brought 655 jobs to the area and was made possible in part by the PGCEDC economic development incentive fund. “Under EDC’s focus and the leadership of county officials, we’ve made significant progress creating thousands of new jobs and the percentage of commercial taxes relative to residential taxes has increased by almost 4% over the past decade, a huge milestone,” Iannucci told Bisnow. 

5. Curtis Investment Group, a real estate developer and investor with retail and commercial projects around the D.C. metro area, filed plans in May to raze its headquarters and two adjacent single-family homes in Camp Springs, Maryland, to make way for a 339K SF commercial, retail and multifamily development. Bisnow reported that the plans include a five-story building, with 104.6K SF of commercial and retail space on the first two floors and 105 multifamily units totaling 234K SF on the third through fifth floors.

6. Eight new schools have been approved to begin construction in Prince George’s County. These schools are part of a public-private partnership and have a project-labor agreement in place to provide additional protections to workers. The partnership includes Perkins Eastman, MCN Build Inc., Plenary US Holdings Inc., EllisDon Capital Inc. and Phoenix Infrastructure and Investment LLC, according to county school board documents. 

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