More than 500 new housing units, plus a massive stormwater management pond, are planned for what is today a large parking lot in Hyattsville near Prince George’s Plaza and University Town Center.
The property in question is a horseshoe-shaped tract of land in the block bound by Belcrest, Toledo and Adelphi roads.
The 17.3-acre property is currently owned by a holding company Dewey LC, which is itself linked to Prince George’s Metro Center Inc., the company that has been developing the area around the Mall since the mid-1950s.
Currently, the property owners seek Planning Board approval of a preliminary plan of subdivision to divide the property into four parcels. Hyattsville City Council voted unanimously at its June 3, 2019, meeting to recommend the Prince George’s County Planning Board approve the preliminary plan of subdivision application with conditions.
Three of those parcels are planned to be redeveloped into 520 new residential units. The fourth parcel would be dedicated to Prince George’s County and be redeveloped as a large stormwater drainage pond, dubbed the “Nine Pond Stormwater Management Project.”
The name harkens back to the low-lying property’s agricultural days days, when it held an agricultural pond shaped like the number nine on the northern banks of Wells Run before it enters what is now University Park. Subsequent development of the area now generates tremendous runoff from impervious surfaces nearby, swelling Wells Run to its banks during times of heavy rain. The new pond would be designed as wet pond, approximately 30 feet deep, filled with water during all but the longest droughts.
If built, the developers say it would slow the release of stormwater runoff downstream into Wells Run. A 2011 report commissioned by Hyattsville, Mount Rainier and University Park recommended the construction of such a facility.
Preliminary plans call for 520 units to be built in three sections of the property. Plans call for one large 360-unit multifamily building and two neighborhoods of 120 and 40 larger two-over-two condo units. Groundbreaking on the project is still a ways off. The property owners have not yet secured a developer for the multifamily portion, and detailed site plans for the property have not been created.
There is no such place as Prince George’s Plaza any more. It is called the Mall at Prince George’s.
Pingback: 850 apartments, townhomes approved in Hyattsville | Route 1 Reporter