News

Monday Map: P.G. Council district seat primary results

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If you want to make sense of how Prince George’s County Council’s primary election shook out for district seats, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve created a choropleth map, embedded below, that charts out the relative performance of the winners of Prince George’s County Council district seats (but, importantly, not the two at-large County Council races) in each of the county’s voting precincts. Each County Council district seat is shaded along an individual gradient of color indicating how the overall winners performed in each precinct. Darker colors indicate a larger share of the precinct-level vote totals. Clicking within a given precinct reveals an infobox breaking down the election result in that precinct.

College Park

College Park commercial rent gap widens

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A gap in commercial leasing rates expanded in College Park from 2016 to 2017 as the city’s most-expensive areas saw rates rise while rates the city’s least-expensive areas fell. Pictured Above: A commercial strip in Hollywood. Commercial leasing rates there and in two other College Park neighborhoods dropped in 2017. According to data presented recently to College Park City Council by Ryan Chelton, the city’s economic development coordinator, commercial leasing rates along Baltimore Avenue south of Greenbelt Road – with the exception of the Berwyn neighborhood – rose from 2016 to 2017. In the downtown area, commercial rates rose from $27.78 in 2016 to $28.44 in 2017.

Brentwood

Brentwood liquor license hearing delayed

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The Prince George’s County Board of License Commissioners has postponed consideration of a liquor license application for a planned bar and restaurant in Brentwood. Pictured above: Hyattsville bakery owner and restaurateur April Richardson speaks before Brentwood Town Council at a June 2018 meeting. The restaurant is called Savor (though on its liquor license application it is identified by the venture’s preliminary name “The Eats at 3807”). April Richardson, principal of Hyattsville-based bakery Food Opportunities LLC and its DC Sweet Potato Cake subsidiary brand, plans to open Savor for business by October in a roughly 6,500-square-foot restaurant space built into the soon-to-be completed Studio 3807 mixed-use apartment complex at 3807 Rhode Island Ave. in Brentwood.

News

Alsobrooks rises; Hollingsworth loses nail-biter; Baker ‘Jealous’ in Gov. Race

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Barring a major upset, former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks will be Prince George’s County’s next chief executive. Pictured above: Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker at a 2018 Memorial Day event in Bladensburg. Alsobrooks ran away with the Democratic primary election for Prince George’s County Executive, securing nearly 62 percent of the vote in a nine-way campaign. Her only real serious contender throughout the campaign was Donna Edwards, former congressional representative for Maryland’s Fourth District. Edwards could only muster 24 percent of County primary voters to her cause by the time polls closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday evening, one-hour later than normal due to extended voting hours imposed after several Baltimore polling places opened later than expected.

Hyattsville
Photo by Michael Theis/Route 1 Reporter

Renovations begin for Hyattsville affordable housing complex

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A recently-completed refinancing of a Hyattsville affordable housing complex now paves the way for significant renovations to the property. The property in question is the Parkview Manor apartment complex next to Magruder Park at 5042 38th Ave. in southern Hyattsville. The property is owned by the Silver Spring-based Montgomery Housing Partnership. As part of $3.4 million refinancing deal to fund renovations to the property, MHP formed a subsidiary, MHP Parkview Manor LLC to manage the property.

Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier plans to annex Queens Chapel commercial area

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Mount Rainier officials soon plan to launch an annexation campaign to bring large swath of commercial properties – no residential – west of Queens Chapel Road inside its borders. Pictured above: Samantha Olatunji, Mount Rainier’s director of economic development. The move has been more than a year in planning. If successful, it could bring in a projected $416,300 in annual tax revenue. It would also help diversify the city’s tax base, which is heavily dependent upon revenue from property taxes on private homes.

Hyattsville

Monday Map: Explore population, housing density in Prince George’s County

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See correction notice below article. Density is a hot topic in local politics. Consider the city of Hyattsville. Residents there are in the midst of a contentious and ongoing debate over the future of the long-abandoned Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission offices next to Magruder Park. Developer Werrlein Properties has proposed to build as much as 71 townhomes and 14 single-family homes on the site, which measures 0.01175 square miles.

Hyattsville

Fed up with Hyattsville, WSSC property-owner closes parking lot

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Reacting to local opposition to redevelopment plans for his property, the owner of a long-abandoned Hyattsville office complex will close public access to a large parking lot next to Magruder Park. Pictured above: A rendering of a residential redevelopment proposal for the long-abandoned WSSC offices in Hyattsville. This parking lot has been the focus of a contentious debate in Hyattsville over a proposed demolition and redevelopment of the abandoned headquarters of the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, which has sat dormant since the early 1990s. The property is owned by Douglas Development Corp. In 2017, Douglas Development partnered with Crownsville-based Werrlein Properties to propose a redevelopment of the property into a mix of detached- and single-family homes.

College Park

College Park retail strip bought for $1.6 million

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A small retail shopping center has traded hands in northern College Park. According to state property records, 9913 Rhode Island Ave. was bought by an individual named Harry Lan for $1.6 million in a fee simple sale recorded May 31. The previous owners were Raj Paul Wahi and Neena Wahi, who first acquired the property in 2001 for a price of $525,000. Attempts to reach Lan for comment were not successful.