New Kids On The Block: The Biggest New Tenants In Prince George's County
3D Car Printers Headed To Prince George's County
Local Motors looks to be the first company ever to manufacture a road-ready, 3D-printed car in its new facility at the National Harbor.
The firm has partnered with the construction company L.F. Jennings and the architects at Bignell Watkins Hasser to create a 20k SF space that will feature not only a lab for research and development, but also a showroom and a drift track from the second to first floor that customers can use to test the Verrado, a drift trike.
No word yet on how they plan to keep employees productive with a two-story drift trike racetrack in the building.
The Maryland DHCD HQ Helps Fill In New Carrolton
There remains a lot of unfilled acreage around the ambitious New Carrollton project, but the recent delivery of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development headquarters is a promising start.
The 108k SF office building, developed by Berman Enterprises, was delivered in 2015. Prince George’s had fast-tracked the project with a $2.5M conditional loan and a subsidy roughly equivalent to a 75% tax break.
But county leaders are confident the incentives will pay off. The county's head of economic development, David Iannucci, told the Washington Business Journal in late 2014 that Berman would invest $165M in New Carrollton, generating 450 full-time jobs.
A Promising Prince George's Tech Firm Will Double In Size
Educational technology firm 2U plans to relocate its HQ not too far away from its current digs.
The interactive online course provider has agreed to an incentives package of state and county funds worth an estimated $3.5M to remain in Prince George’s County. The company will stay in New Carrollton and relocate to a larger building at 7900 Harkins Rd, the Washington Post reports.
By 2019, 2U plans to double its number of employees from 650 to 1,315, and by 2020 the firm will have added another 300 people. For now, the company is signed on for 168k SF at 7900 Harkins, but that figure will jump to 252k SF by 2020.
Founded as 2tor Inc in 2008, the company went public in 2014. The company partners with colleges and universities to provide interactive online courses and boasts a current market valuation of around $870M. That its partners include the likes of Georgetown, NYU and Yale seems to support the new company's claim to offering high-quality degrees.
The funding to bring both 2U and the DHCD to New Carrollton came from the county's $50M Economic Development Incentive Fund, whose establishment Jon Peterson, a principal of Peterson Cos, called a "pivotal moment for the county in its effort to attract new businesses and create new jobs."
