[RP TownTalk] Town Center of Dreams

[Alan K. Thompson]

Dear Marc,

> I have not gone back and read over all the agreements
> pertaining to that event, but it seems to me that we, the Town,
> missed a few key legal points in binding the sale to certain
> performance criteria on the part of the new owner.  For instance, not
> only do the buildings need to be rehabbed and brought up to code
> within a certain timeframe, but that they must be leased up and
> activated within a certain period of time as well.

I agree completely that the Town should be a little more aggressive on
their agreements with developers -- an MOU ("Memorandum of
Understanding" for those of you new to town politics) that says
"Developer agrees to pay taxes on property as if proposed building
were actually built and occupied 3 years after date of this agreement"
would be a good one!  That wouldn't actually make up for the loss
(empty buildings drag down values on all surrounding properties,
commercial or not) but it would be motivating, at least at some level.

> Regarding the latent development of EYA, MSquare, Cafritz, East
> Campus, and University Town Center; my concern is that if our Town
> (Town Center and the Rt. 1 and Kenilworth) cannot move ahead quickly
> and establish a reason / need for people to come here, these new
> mixed-use developments by very well-resourced and sophisticated
> developers will put the final nail in the coffin of any possible
> vitality to the existing Town Center area.

That may be, but I'm more of the mind that there will be much more
demand than the commercial parts, at least of EYA, will be able to
meet (the EYA development has total commercial space only 3-4x times
what Franklin's has now), and the excess demand will spur development
in Town Center.  People going from the condos in Hyattsville will find
Town Center before they get to Cafritz (assuming the plans will look
like I expect them to, with no advance knowledge on my part) and
vice-versa.  MSquare will have a lot of dollars to spend, at lunch
even if not other times.  I just hope the cut-through traffic is more
pedestrian/scooter/bike than car.

> Regarding my view of the lack of economic analysis put into the MUTC
> guidelines at the time of their creation, I'd agree that some
> economic considerations were made, but in my view they were pretty
> circumscribed and did not, perhaps could not, analyze larger economic
> impacts and consequences that the regulations would create.  For
> example, one of the the beneficial outcomes of Pete and Sons
> application to the Town for their development proposal was their
> offering a very well-reasoned argument for why the building story
> limit was an economic hindrance to a successful development project.
> I think they were very courageous to actually talk openly about the
> economic implications of various scenarios they had considered and
> state bluntly that most lower height / lower density concepts were
> not economically viable. At the time the MUTC guidelines were
> created, the type of 5-story project they offered up was already a
> pretty standard building model for their kind of project.  It has had
> a proven economic viability for developers because of, among other
> factors, its scale and method of construction.

I have a few comments on this:

(0) I tried to edit down your statements to make them shorter, but
they just hung together too well to take them apart.  Nice writing!
(True below as well.)

(1) The MUTC committee recommended approval with conditions (basically
listing the items that needed to be specified in the special permit
application); this was in contrast with other developments in which we
recommended denial of the project.  The flexibility to deal with
unexpected changes (more on this below) like that was built into the
zoning because the people who created the MUTC guidelines knew they
weren't doing a perfect job.

(2) When the MUTC guidelines first came into effect, I think that
nothing close to what the Patriot Group / Spiropoulos could have been
built.  Prices for real estate have risen by 2-3x, and I doubt that
construction costs have gone up by that amount.  Nevertheless, there
was a strong sentiment among those drafting the guidelines that the
height of buildings in the historic core should be limited -- the high
buildings that economics might dictate are allowed almost everywhere
else.  (I had a conversation with someone recently who found it
frustrating that EYA is limiting its heights to three stories, where
they would prefer five, along Baltimore Avenue, while everyone who
wants to build in our town center wants to put five stories, where the
majority thought the height should be limited to 2-3)

> I agree completely with your view that we residents need to encourage
> the Council to stand firm, follow the considered recommendations of
> the MUTC committee, and not accept projects that do not fulfill the
> stated and codified wishes of the Town (as drafted in the MUTC
> guidelines).   I'm all for that and hope we can get more voices in
> support of the Town sticking to its guns.  Yet, if we just owned the
> damn sites again we wouldn't have to stick to our guns and wait and
> wait and wait, we'd just have to dig in and make it work ourselves.

We *would* have to get people to agree to what they wanted, first.
It's important to note that the people who created the MUTC
guildelines included town residents, property and business owners, as
well as elected officials. People who've been posting to Town Talk on
this issue who participated in that process include myself, Bruce
Wernek, Alice Ewen Walker, Audrey Bragg, and Gerry Kiernan, though
there were many others. The MUTC guidelines were produced as a
consensus document of what the "town" wanted, yet many people in town
now strongly object to their implementation.

I think at this point that getting a consensus out of the town and
start moving in that direction, any direction, might be easier than
getting motion out of some of the current owners, but it isn't a slam
dunk, and we need to recognize that it will require a long,
consistent, and high level of committment.

Regards,

Alan