A local establishment and a powerhouse national chain are both moving into College Park over the next month with the long anticipated opening of the original Ledo’s Pizza in about two weeks and Best Buy slated to open in the College Park Market Place in early September.  I think both will help College Park in different ways.  The Original Ledo’s will give downtown College Park a destination location at last and will hopefully help increase the use of the downtown parking garage.  Best Buy will be taking the place of the closed down “Linens and Things” and hopefully will add a nice little boost to our city tax revenue.

These two new store openings remind me of the soon to be voted on College Park City Council Strategic Plan. One of the action items in this plan is to “Create a list of 10 most desired retail/restaurant businesses and actively pursue encouraging them to locate in College Park.”  So what retail/restaurant businesses locations do you think College Park should be pursuing?  What type of retail/restaurant businesses would help turn College Park into the vibrant college town we all know we can and should be?  Feel free to list one location or ten and feel free to say something general (a coffee house) or specific (Trader Joe’s).  You can list one retail/restaurant business or ten – but also think about WHERE you think you’d like to see such a business open.

If you have a cool $5 3/4 Million available consider picking up this gem in downtown College Park. There has been intense interest in this property from developers. Even the University is considering purchasing this 2.6 acre plot. The location connects directly to the southern end of the East Campus development.

7501 Flier

Future home of Ledo Restaurant

At the opening ceromony yesterday for the new downtown parking garage amid the usual pomp and circumstance a big announcement was made regarding the 5800 square feet of ground floor retail.

The original Ledo’s will be moving from their long time location in Adelphi to downtown College Park. This is the mothership of all Ledo’s pizza places. The franchise location you see all over were born from this one location. I do not know the full history but I do know there was a split and the Ledo Franchise is NOT the same thing as the original Tommy Marcos resaurant. All I know is those awesome square boxes of joy are coming to downtown college park.  This is just the kind of local business we are dying to have. And did I mention there will be plenty of places to park?

New City Parking Garage (KNOX RD VIEW)

Finally those circling in front of Chipotle’s looking for a parking space will have a new option. The Grand opening for the new Parking Garage will be on Wednesday, August 5, 2009, at 4:00 p.m. The garage provides 288 parking spaces plus 5,800 square feet of ground floor retail space. No word on if there will be free burritos.

Prince George’s County Councilmember Eric Olson…. “The parking garage with retail space was envisioned many years ago and has been in the works for nearly a decade,” says Olson. “It will contribute greatly to strengthening College Park’s downtown and redevelopment efforts.”

Mayor Brayman and the College Park City Council will host a dedication ceremony and reception on the fourth floor of the parking garage. The City’s new public parking garage is located in the heart of downtown at the corner of Knox Road and Yale Avenue, across from City Hall.

We know as well as any the difficulty of keeping track of all the development occurring and proposed in College Park, as well as how hard it is to separate truth from fiction when it comes to the economics of real estate. That’s why we decided to post these slides, presented by the city’s economic development planner Chris Warren at the February 12th Real Estate Roundtable. They present a concise snapshot of new developments on Route 1, and the College Park Retail and Office markets. Notably they show retail space in downtown College Park commands very high rent, as the number of residents has grown but effective space remained largely unchanged. Also, vacancy rates are generally low, despite the high-profile vacancies downtown. (Paperworks and Wawa)

Route 1 Projects

Retail

Office

The full presentation is here.