Massive Whole Foods Price Cuts and Purple Line

Two pieces of good news for Riverdale Park Station:

1.  The Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods has led to massive price cuts there:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/amazon-cuts-prices-at-whole-foods-as-much-as-50-on-first-day

2.  The Purple Line was finally approved:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/chao-and-hogan-sign-purple-line-agreement/2017/08/28/117b9eae-8c06-11e7-9c53-6a169beb0953_story.html


Although if you look at the map of where the Purple Line stops are I do not see it helping Riverdale Park Station very much.

http://www.purplelinemd.com/images/about_the_project/preferred_alternative/purple_line_preferred_alternative_map.pdf


The "Riverdale Park" stop is all the way down at Kenilworth and East West Highway which would be the same walk as the College Park metro is right now if not further.

The stop they plan to put at M Square will probably be the closest to Riverdale Park Station once the bridge to M square is done.   They are saying 2022 at the earliest for the Purple Line which means it won't be done till 2024 at the earliest...    Still it's good that they have begun.

Construction Update + Tot Lot:

I am still updating the timeline on the second tab of this blog and located here:
http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/p/timeline.html

I am just noting when buildings go vertical, finish(when folks move in) and when businesses open.

Early last week (on 8/15) they went vertical on building 5.

This is what building 5 looks like as of today about 2 weeks in:




Building 4 is still coming along well and looks like it will be ready in October.... as you can see below they are already adding brick on some units.



Here are both building 4 and building 5 in the same shot... this is standing in front of what will eventually be the parking deck:




They just started on a tot lot/playground just past where building 4 is being built.... although only a few items have been installed you can see they have a bunch more playground equipment sitting in the road.   It is going to be nice to have this so close to where I live.  I will get another shot of this when it is done, I think it is going to be better than I expected.




The Golds Gym building is finally done from the outside and looks great:



Here is a shot of the same building from down the hill standing in front of building 5.



Looking like building 4 will open in October and building 5 in December and a few more of the businesses will start opening in the fall.   They still have those same 3 completed units for sale.  (2 Dawson's and 1 Parker).  More updates soon.

Retail update:

A few retail updates for Riverdale Park Station.

Unfortunately H&R Retail has not updated their website for this community this entire year.

This leaves searching the web and asking the businesses about retail commitments.

The Comcast/Xfinity building opened to customers yesterday…  They still do not have permanent signage up but they are now open.

Space 4I which is on the lower level of the Golds Gym building was just leased to FedEX and is going to be a FedEX Office store.   Not super exciting stuff there but could be worse.

 http://citybizlist.com/article/425369/hr-retail-completes-four-retail-leases-in-maryland

The MOD Pizza had a job fair on site last weekend so I am thinking they may be the next thing to open sometime this fall  They added some coming soon signs.  The Burton’s had said they planned to open in early November and I am thinking MOD pizza will be opening before that in October or so.

Now for the rumor mill section:   The space in 1A which is the retail space in the upper left hand corner of Riverdale Park Station…. I heard is going to be a “Farm to Table” restaurant.  Although they still have not announced who this is I can see that they are already building out the inside of this building.  I will try to find out which restaurant is coming here and let the blog know.

I have also heard from multiple sources that an Apple Store is coming to Riverdale Park Station.   Although I own a lot of Apple products I’m not super excited about this one as I would only go there once every 2 years. 

Even so getting an Apple Store would really add to the ‘cachet’ of Riverdale Park Station so I am pulling for it to happen.  There are only 6 Apple Stores in the entire greater Washington area and only one location in DC.  (Georgetown).   In Maryland there is a gap from Bethesda all the way up to Columbia Maryland…   It would make Riverdale Park Station much busier but also do a lot to put it on the map.

Riverdale Park Station has another resident...

Have not had much time for blogging this past week as our life has changed quite a bit: