Prince George’s County soon will be the new home of Maryland’s housing department, becoming the first state agency to set up shop in the county. Gov. Martin O’Malley announced the state Department of Housing and Community Development is relocating from Anne Arundel County to New Carrollton, where it will occupy four floors of a new 27-story office, residential and retail building.
The new development at the New Carrollton Metro station, which should be ready in the late summer or early fall of 2013, is projected to draw more than $11 million in tax revenue to the state and Prince George’s County combined over the course of the 15-year, $48 million lease the state will sign.
| Special election on Tuesday |
| Voters in Upper Marlboro, Capitol Heights and Forestville head to the polls Tuesday for a special primary election to replace the County Council seat vacated by Leslie Johnson. |
| Polls will be open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. |
| Democratic voters must choose from a field of 14 candidates, including Derrick Leon Davis and Arthur Turner, who both picked up endorsement from a bevy of county and state officials. Each ran unsuccessfully against Johnson last fall. |
| Mark Polk and Venus Bethea also have renewed their campaigns from last year’s primary. |
| One Republican, Day Gardner, has entered the race, a rarity in Prince George’s County elections. The winner of the Democratic primary will run against her in the Oct. 18 general election. |
| Johnson resigned in July after pleading guilty to conspiring to tamper with witnesses and evidence in an FBI investigation of pay-to-play schemes in the county. She admitted to stuffing $79,600 in cash in her bra and underwear and flushing a $100,000 check down the toilet at the instruction of her husband, then-County Executive Jack Johnson. – Ben Giles |
The move fulfills O’Malley’s promise to bring a state agency to the county for the first time in over 300 years. The governor first announced plans to relocate the housing department to the county in June 2010.
“I hope that we’re able to make New Carrollton an example of the way important missions government needs to carry out can be used as anchors for these public-private developments, especially near Metro stations,” O’Malley said.
The project needs final approval from the state’s three-member Board of Public Works, of which O’Malley is a member.
Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold objected to the move in a letter sent to the board on Monday.
“This action is an egregious example of politics driving policy at the taxpayers’ expense,” he said. “The state of Maryland should not be undertaking agency relocations that would involve new lease payments.”
Called Metroview, the new development would join the 39-acre Forest City and Urban Atlantic development on the other side of the Metro tracks at New Carrollton.
Metroview is expected to create 300 construction jobs and 80 new retail positions once finished, with more than 400 housing units, according to officials with the site’s developer, Grand Central Development.
Together, the developments accomplish County Executive Rushern Baker’s goal of attracting transit-oriented development to the county’s 15 Metro stations. New Carrollton offers access to Metro, MARC and Amtrak trains,
and is the beginning of the proposed Purple Line light rail to Bethesda.
The station is the first of many that Baker hopes will become more attractive to developers and the federal government, which county officials have unsuccessfully wooed in the past. The county recently lost a bid for a $450 million lease for the Department of Health and Human Services to Montgomery County, which currently houses the agency near the Twinbrook Metro station in Rockville.
Prince George’s officials say there will be a domino effect thanks to the state’s announcement, with sites ready for development at Metro stations in Suitland, Largo and elsewhere.
“We’ve got some exciting stuff that’s going to happen,” Baker said. “We’re going to be the economic engine for the state and the region.”
