Apartment in Building 5 - Ground Breaking on June 19th

I reported back on May 15th 2019 that the 229 unit apartment in building 5 was confirmed to be breaking ground in June of 2019 in the post linked here

I still have not seen that reported anywhere, only the fact that the financing finally went through being reported by the Washington Business Journal in May.

I now have confirmation on a solid date in June.   The ground breaking is Wednesday, June 19th 2019.

Also good news is they plan to NOT have the hiker/biker trail blocked during the entire 18 month construction process of this apartment.  Goal is to get that opened very early in the construction process.

For the other two apartment buildings coming after the first apartment is completed  (building 8 and 9) surprisingly there was no change at all between the documents they submitted and my 2017 blog post about these apartments here.   The exact same number of units but two buildings instead of three.

Since those will not even begin construction for over two years from now they almost are not worth talking about yet as there is a possibility at that time it won't make economic sense to add another 630 apartments to this area.  I think a lot will depend on the occupancy rate of the first 229 units in building 5 on if the later apartment plans go forward.

Hair Cuttery coming to Riverdale Park Station.

It's not the most exciting retailer in the world but it is good that one of these empty retail spots is filling in.

Hair Cuttery is coming to Riverdale Park Station.  It will be next to the Jersey Mikes.  See the diagram below:

As I have been writing I have believed that as soon as the apartment building construction began these remaining retail locations would start to fill in. 

I reported here back on May 15th that construction for the 229 unit Apartment in building 5 has been confirmed to break ground in June 2019 (this month). 

As this apartment gets closer to being ready for leasing expect more retail to fill in.  Foot traffic is key and it is coming.

Victory for the community on the WMATA Albion Road Property

The story about the 6 acres behind the townhomes at Riverdale Park Station has a happy ending!

I found out the land was for sale back in November 2018 and posted about it here:

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2018/11/is-land-behind-woodberry-townhomes-for.html

The entire surrounding community all worked together to get the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) bid done and I posted about it February 2019 here and thought this was the end of the story:

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2019/02/parks-and-recreation-bid-submitted-for.html

Then in April 2019 we found out that WMATA selected a developer bid OVER the M-NCPPC bid, I posted about that here:

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2019/04/wmata-property-at-albion-road-important.html

This was even though rezoning the property was a complete non-starter from all neighboring jurisdictions.

I am happy to say that the entire community pulled together yet again with all of the leaders from various levels of government along with community involvement were able to persuade the WMATA to change their mind and select the parks bid after all.

So much noise was made that even the Diamondback recently picked up the story on 5/19/19:

https://dbknews.com/2019/05/19/college-park-wmata-route-1-land-sale-community-garden/

This afternoon Prince George's County received a letter from Paul Wiedefeld (the CEO of WMATA) stating that in response from "numerous requests from local and state officials" that the WMATA has removed the Albion Road property from the market and is offering the land to the M-NCPPC at their bid price.

WMATA expects that M-NCPPC will be able to close on the sale of the property within the next 90 days and M-NCPPC plans to leave the land as green space.

Special thanks to Dannielle Glaros (PG county District 3 representative), Alan Thompson (Riverdale Park Mayor), Stuart Adams (president of the Calvert Hills Citizens Association), John Rigg (College Park City Councilmember), Patrick Wojahn (College Park Mayor) and Len Carey (University Park Mayor).  Additional thanks to all of the people who joined the Facebook group posted here and everyone in that group who wrote a letter.

Denizens Featured in Eater

Great article with lots of high quality pictures inside of Denizens featured in Eater DC yesterday morning. 

Check it out:

https://dc.eater.com/2019/5/20/18632559/inside-denizens-modern-new-maryland-brewery-and-taproom

Here is just one from their Facebook page which is probably the best shot:

Apartment in Building 5 - Construction starts in June 2019

I have been blogging about the first apartment that is coming for Riverdale Park station for over 2 years now, here is one of my earlier (and the most detailed post) about it from 2017.

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-apartments-of-riverdale-park-station.html

Sometime in late 2017 the developer decided to split construction of the apartment building and the parking garage.   I am unsure why this decision was made.

So the parking garage was built from December 2017 till it was opened to the public back in November of 2018.  For the past 7 months there has been a giant cinder block parking garage that was supposed to be surrounded by a brick apartment building that did not yet exist.

The Washington Business Journal reported today (5/15/19) that the developer finally has the financing in place for the project.

The apartment reportedly will have the exact same specs laid out in my 2017 post with 229 residential units 8,000 square feet of amenity space, 10,000 square feet of retail space. 

Slated completion date is the second quarter of 2020. (the original estimate was 2 years so I think early 2021 for leasing is a better bet) 

Sometime in 2018 they were considering doing away with that retail space and going all residential but it's good for the community that they are sticking the the original plan.

I am glad that they were able to get the financing and that construction will finally be moving forward for this apartment.  I saw some planners on site yesterday mapping things out and was told construction would start in June. 

I believe this along with the Denizens opening next week could help reinvigorate Riverdale Park Station as a whole.

Denizens opening on May 25th

18 days until Denizens opens!

I posted back in March they were expecting a late May open but they did not provide an official opening date to anyone.

Looks like Washington City Paper broke the news at 6:00 AM today on the May 25th opening date.

https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/food/beer/article/21066921/denizens-riverdale-park-taproom-and-brewery-welcomes-all-beer-drinkers-may-25

The article above has an in-depth write up about the restaurant which was interesting and worth the read... but even more interesting to me was there was a link to a .PDF for the menu, which I posted below

Looks like there will now be three solid burger options in Riverdale Park Station.  (Burtons, Habit and Denizens)

WMATA Property at Albion Road - Important Update

When the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC) submitted a bid for the WMATA Property at Albion Road back on 2/22/19.  I posted about it here:

http://riverdaleparkstation.blogspot.com/2019/02/parks-and-recreation-bid-submitted-for.html

Even though the MNCPPC submitted a very competitive bid for the property another bid was selected on April 10th 2019.  As far as we can tell there was no public input to the selection of this bid.

The bidder that is currently selected is now in a 90 day "Due Diligence" period for the property.

Common sense says that if the selected bidder beat out a strong MNCPPC bid and the asking price is 2.1 million dollars for only 6 acres of a thin strip of hard to build land that upzoning is the only thing that would make sense to this bidder.  The current R-55 zoning that would only allow for single family homes to be built.

This land is a publicly-owned green-space and a valuable environmental area that has been identified by the county as a top area to preserve. Additional density is coming to the area and preserving this property is critical to quality of life - a reason why the communities, cities, county council, and MNCPPC worked together to place a competitive bid on the property.

The leadership of College Park, Riverdale Park have no plans for rezoning this property and this land sits within both jurisdictions.

It is important during this period that the same teamwork that pulled together all of the surrounding communities homeowners and city government officials to make that large financial commitment continues now.

Although there are already countless email chains between all the players involved we thought it would be a good idea to also have a Facebook page to coordinate efforts from people interested in the community.

That page is here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/728160610912866/

I will update this blog with what the final outcome for this land is.  But if you are interested in assisting, are one of the town officials that have been helping us or you are personally affected living in Calvert Hills, Riverdale Park Station or University Park you should join the Facebook group for better communication/coordination of preservation efforts.

Massive news for Hyattsville. Federalist Pig!

As far as Riverdale Park Station retail news, the only thing still coming here is Denizens in May.   (which was in my last post in March)

Back in March I contacted Denizens and they told me they were opening in May.  I recently saw a story on Hyattsville Wire where they also just reached out to Denizens last week and they were also told they would open in May.  Still no actual date was given to Hyattsville Wire even last week which is surprising since May is now right around the corner but I still believe they will hit the May date, even if it is late May.

The reason for this post is even bigger news for this area.  Federalist Pig is coming to Hyattsville!

If you have not heard of Federalist Pig, it is the most popular barbecue joint in all of DC and they are opening less than 1 mile away from Riverdale Park Station down in Hyattsville.

This is across the street from Busboys and Poets in the current "Tire Place" location which is just a quick walk down the Hiker Biker trail from my house.

This is some of the biggest news in the Hyattsville restaurant scene maybe since Busboys and Poets in 2011.

This story was just featured in the Washingtonian which is where I got this information.

That article is here, check it out!

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/04/23/federalist-pig-is-opening-a-second-bigger-barbecue-joint-in-hyattsville/

Bella Lifestyle Nail Salon and Spa is now open, Denizens in May

As first reported here back on Friday 3/15/19, Bella Lifestyle Nail Salon and Spa opened today.  (thanks to the homeowner in RPS who got me this information so early)

Of course I also reported the first two opening dates that the developer reported, so negative points for that.  To be honest even though they said they were definitely opening today I still was not fully convinced it would happen until I saw the open sign on and could actually walk in.   😀 

I stopped by today and the thing I found that was interesting was that they offer massage.

When I first posted about Bella in early 2018 I was going off of what the only other existing Bella location in Ashburn was offering, which was just manicures and pedicures.  Since the owners of this location were not responding I assumed this location would just have the same offerings as the other location.

It is great that they offer massage as the only other high end spa around here is Red Door and I went to book a massage for my wife there and they did not have anything for over 3 months that could be booked.  In fact they could not even take a future reservation for massage at that location. 

Here are the massage offerings at Bella:

So now the only thing remaining to open at Riverdale Park Station is Denizens Brewing Company.   I checked in with them just recently and was told May was the latest target opening date and was a more firm date.

Hope we get some more locations leased soon or this blog will be a boring place. 

Construction, Sales and Retail updates

As you can see Building 9 and 10 are selling pretty quickly:

Total of 16 units remain for sale and only one completed unit for sale.   The second aftermarket resale on Woodberry is also under contract.  (Asking price was $495,000 and it was a Parker).

The first resale (in 2018) was also a Parker in building 1 and it sold for $505,000.

I am very happy with the resale prices of the Parker's.  Will be interesting to see more resales for different floor plans and to see more data.

As I posted earlier building 10 started on 12/29/18... building 9 just went vertical on 3/8/19.  Normally on these connected buildings there was only a 1 month gap between when they went vertical, but for 9 and 10 that gap was 2.5 months.   Based on previous buildings this would mean closings for the final building in Riverdale Park Station (Building 9) would be in June 2019.   Since building 10 is already getting it's brick facade it is possible they will have closings in that building earlier.

Here is building 9 as of today (3/15/19), you can see building 10 in the background:

Only price change was at the end of 2018 when they bumped the Cassidy another 10k, which is almost moot at this point since only one more of those units remain.

In other Riverdale Park Station news, Bella Lifestyle Nail Salon and Spa has their 4th opening date now set at March 24th.

All of the other opening dates only came from the developer but this one has some more confirmation so lets see if it finally happens.

More exciting for Riverdale Park Station is Denizens Brewing Company which is still pushing for an April opening and seems to be making good progress.    Getting Denizens opened will be a big step for RPS and is not far away now.

Another big step is when the apartment in building 5 finally starts construction.  This was supposed to happen in January but has also slipped to April 2019. 

There are still 15 retail/office spots remaining for lease but the largest location left is only 7000 square feet with the average being around 3000 square feet.  This limits the options of what can fill these remaining spaces but at least the anchors (Whole Foods, Burtons, Denizens) are strong which makes me think they will fill in eventually.   The continued apartment delays are not helping.

I think once they begin building the apartments and the brewery opens we may finally start to see some more retail commitments for these smaller remaining retail locations.