[RP TownTalk] Post Editorial Board In Favor of Cafritz plan

[Jeffrey Yorke]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/prince-georges-needs-to-back-high-end-project/2011/08/08/gIQApWRrHJ_story.html

Editorial Board Opinion
Prince George’s needs to back high-end project

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By Editorial, Published: August 15

FOR YEARS, residents of Prince George’s County have lamented the shortage of
high-end local shopping and dining venues, complaining that developers and
investors favored swankier precincts in the District and Montgomery and
Fairfax counties. Now a reputable developer has proposed exactly the kind of
project that much of Prince George’s has lacked — upscale stores,
restaurants, townhouses, apartments, offices, a hotel, and a gigantic
fitness center, all anchored by what would be the first Whole Foods grocery
store in the county of 870,000 people.

The 36-acre project, proposed by the Cafritz
Company<http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2011/07/whole-foods-eyeing-riverdale-first-store-prince-georges>,
would bring huge benefits to the urbanizing Route 1 corridor near the
University of Maryland at College Park, where it would be located on a site
that housed factory workers during World War II. It would represent a major
gain for the county, which needs to broaden its tax base and burnish its
scandal-marred reputation. And it would be a magnet for thousands of Prince
Georgians wanting to shop, eat and recreate much closer to home, saving them
long drives to neighboring jurisdictions.

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So far, though, the loudest community voices are rising in opposition to the
project, warning of traffic, overcrowding and the risk to existing shops and
businesses.

The objections are predictable; they’re also wrongheaded. They ignore the
experience of other close-in suburbs in the region — think of Arlington and
Bethesda — that have added dynamic commercial centers without adverse impact
on established residential neighborhoods. They disregard the fact that the
location of the proposed project — inside the Beltway, close to a Metro
station and barely eight miles from Capitol Hill — would attract just the
sort of well-educated and relatively affluent residents who can support
businesses and amenities such as those Cafritz envisions. And they are
heedless of what has become known nationally as the Whole Foods Effect — the
grocery chain’s potential as a catalyst for redevelopment and higher
property values.

Most of all, the doubters forget that Cafritz, which has owned the land for
decades, already has zoning approval to build at least 250 single-family
homes there. Doing so would only weigh on Prince George’s County’s finances
— since schoolchildren living in houses cost more to educate than their
parents pay in taxes — while adding no community amenities and nothing to
the county’s commercial tax base.

True, the Cafritz project is likely to generate traffic in the immediate
area, although many drivers may be able to reduce their overall travel for
shopping. But steps could be taken to ease the traffic impact, including
adding turning lanes and building an overpass above an adjacent rail line so
cars can come and go without clogging Route 1. Yes, the proposal for nearly
1,000 housing units at the site may be more than the area can absorb, but
Cafritz has signaled that the number is negotiable.

The proposal has divided neighbors and local elected officials, but even
opponents acknowledge that there would be a tremendous demand for Whole
Foods and other new businesses. That is confirmation that as things stand
now, the area’s residents and shoppers are badly underserved by existing
local businesses.

It’s a cop-out to say, as some opponents have, that the Cafritz proposal is
the right development in the wrong place — as if by killing the plan at this
location, it might be magically reinvented somewhere else. Local officials
should negotiate, push for modifications and take community concerns into
account. In the end, it would be a grave mistake for the county to turn its
back on precisely the sort of progress so many county residents say they
want.


-- 
Jeffrey Yorke
Yorke Property Management, Inc.
Yorke Partners
Jeffrey at YorkeRents.com
301-502-1243
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