The Maryland Transit Administration hopes expansion to its MARC system will have area developers looking at rail stations in a new light.
The three-decade, nearly $4 billion planned expansion to the MARC commuter rail system reported in The Examiner last week will add more trains, including late-night and weekend runs, and expand MARC?s capacity to 100,000 daily riders by 2035. It may also attract the attention of developers looking to build a parking garage for the station alongside commercial and residential uses.
“We expect interest in stations as development sites would increase,” said Henry Kay, MTA deputy administrator for planning and engineering. “We get back the parking so we?re whole, but [the site] is back on the tax rolls and the county gets that money. It?s a win-win.”
One such project is already under way at the Savage station. Petrie-Ross Ventures plans to break ground next year on a mixed-use development around the station including residential, commercial and parking elements.
“We?ve had a MARC and Metro system that has continued to improve on number of trains, cars and ridership,” said Philip Ross, president and founding partner of Petrie-Ross Ventures. “What it does is provide for the opportunity to create dense development where people can live, work and recreate in a pedestrian-friendly environment and still tap into the mass transit system.”
With new development at the stations and more trains on the rails, MARC will take on a new role in the regional picture ? one that might be much more appealing to developers, Kay said.
“When you start to have 15-minute [train intervals] on work days, and weekend trains,” he said, “you?re running a transit service, not just a commuter train.”
But transit-oriented development is a long process, said Ken Orski of Urban Mobility Corp., a Washington-based transportation management consultant, and the MARC system expansion is just one piece of the puzzle.
Orski said the addition of weekend trains might stimulate commercial development around MARC stations, but he added housing is influenced more by weekday traffic. In either case, he said, additional trains alone aren?t enough to spur immediate development ? but the MTA?s plan does span three decades.
“It takes time, it does not happen overnight,” he said. “It takes a number of years for these development deals to gel and create a viable center.”
