Changes Slow and Steady in Mount Rainier

About 18 months ago, Prince George's County approved the amended Mount Rainier Mixed-Use Town Center Zone Development Plan to guide the city toward greater development and prosperity focused on the area of Rhode Island Avenue and 34th Street, a bid to reshape the city's urban heart and stimulate economic expansion in the historic commercial core.

"We haven’t seen a lot of changes yet," Mount Rainier City Manager Jeannelle Wallace said. "But we will, probably, in the next few months."

The City purchased land for re- development, continued a grant program, repurposed a vacant lot and will support the upcoming Citizen Paint Project.

Wallace said the City understood its importance as a gateway between the District and Maryland and purchased the former funeral home and a former liquor store in an effort to generate a new development.

"We wanted to have an impact," she said. "And you can’t do that when you have other people who own the property and control the development. So now we do."

The old funeral home sits empty at the intersection of Eastern and Rhode Island avenues, greeting traffic into and out of the District. The City put it out to bid for redevelopment with at least eight companies expressing interest in the project. Proposals now are due by May 30.

Wallace said the City would like to see a 3- or 4-story mixed-use building with retail on the ground floor, residences and office space on upper levels, and some form of onsite parking. But other plans for the site also will be considered -- the height and uses are not set in stone.

"Primarily we’re looking for something that will increase pedestrian traffic along that corridor," Wallace said, adding that contributing to the arts district and incorporating green features also would be nice.

Nisey Baylor, president of the Mount Rainier Business Association and owner of Nisey’s Boutique, said the group has not formally pushed for any one use at the site. But she said there is a real interest in bringing more retail to the city.

“People are always going to spend money,” she said. “It’s never going to stop. I see that. I feel that. I know that. We want businesses in Mount Rainier. We welcome and try very hard to work with businesses … to help them succeed.”

An RFP for the former liquor store has not yet been issued. But another vacant property already has a new life as a “kiss and ride” lot near City Hall. Wallace said the City purchased the lot for about $145,000 from a hopeful owner who was unable to acquire enough adjacent property for development. The new lot contributes to the bigger plan to improve public transportation, bicycle use and pedestrian traffic in the area.

While the city’s efforts are a step in the right direction, and the business association is working to attract new businesses, it has not been enough to realize the full vision of the development plan.  “The vision is beautiful,” Wallace said. “But whether or not it’s cost effective or even feasible at this point is another thing.”

The plan talks about widening sidewalks, increasing bicycle access, burying utility lines … – all things that require money and work. Wallace said some of the bigger changes will only come with significant development. With the real estate market still in recovery, big development has been hard to find.

But the city and residents seem committed to making the smaller steps toward change.

Wallace said the city recently received paperwork with a new agreement and funding extension that allots $125,000 to the Facade Improvement Program. Gateway Community Development Corporation (Gateway CDC) previously managed the program, funded by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, but the city took over last summer. Initial funding expired in December, prompting the extension request.

And based on Baylor’s experience, changing the façade can make a huge difference. She recently utilized available grant funds to help offset costs for redoing her storefront. Simply updating her storefront, she said, encouraged people passing through to stop and look around. She encourages other businesses to do the same.  "When one customer stops in they see everybody,” she said. “That’s why everybody needs to do something.”

The community will join forces to liven-up one key property. The funeral home destined for redevelopment is the site of the April 28 Citizen Paint Project led by Gateway CDC and Joe's Movement Emporium.

"In the interim between it being demolished and now, since we are an arts district, the community has gotten together and we're going to paint the entire building," said Michael Gumpert, Executive Director of Gateway CDC. "First we’re going to clean it, then we’re going to white wash it, then an artist is going to design a mural and the community will paint it in."

The paint will be temporary, but organizers and community leaders hope the enthusiasm for improving the City will help push them closer to the vision in the Town Center Development Plan.

“I am hoping that with each year, something more and more has happened,” Baylor said. “I really believe in the very near future that we’ll see lots more of the architectural change. I really believe all these plans will come in the next 3 to 4 years.

“But we just gotta wait it out. And you gotta be a part of it.”

Mount Rainier, Maryland, real estate development news

Mt. Rainier - A Whole New Town

Call it Mt. Rainier 4g. The small Maryland hamlet on the Washington D.C. border is reflecting on being a great place to live - which it most certainly is(!) - with its cute little bungalows, cultural diversity, a small-town feel, proximity to downtown DC and, by golly, a historic little town center that even once had a streetcar line. But while the rest of the DC area has been consecrated with mixed-use projects, trendy lofts and retail development, approximately none of that occurs in Mt. Rainier, and the town needs a reinvention. Enter the urban planners.

Most Washington DC denizens go to Mt. Rainier about as often as they go to NASCAR or the Woodrow Wilson museum, but the town is only a good jog away from the Metro (red line, at that), on Rhode Island Avenue where it exits the District, and has the visual hallmarks of a once self-sustained community. But its apogee was in the '40's, when a rail line still connected it to DC, population was rising, and local retail boomed. But the automobile superceded the small town, and in 1958 the town began its decline, dropping from 11,000 to 7361 at its nadir. Conditions remain bleak: population is static, the working town center storefronts were torn down, leaving gaps in the once contiguous retail now filled by parking lots. One in 5 buildings in the commercial district are unoccupied. Average household income is $49,000 (to the District's $86,000), only one in four homes are owner occupied, and the median home price is $246,000 to DC's $358,000. And no one seems to go there.

That, planners (cautiously) assert, is about to change. In 1994, the county founded the Gateway Community Development Corporation, which dwindled, despite the boom, but is now being dusted off and reinvented. Seeking "economic revitalization" that the plan promised, on June 4, 2009, the Prince George's County District Council began the process of creating the Mt. Rainier mixed-use Town Center (with the ungainly M-U-TC acronym) to create a first class commercial district on the axis of Rhode Island Avenue and 34th Street. With the hope of a potential MARC station and trolley line in its future, planners see destination retail, thriving commerce, better architecture and statuary, and a streetscape that tilts design more toward pedestrians and visual appeal than prostration to the automobile. In short, a boulevard suitable for strolling, relaxing, eating and shopping.

Despite the fact that Mt. Rainier "boasts one of the largest and most vibrant artist communities in the Washington Metropolitan area," the problems are dire, but largely a function of design. As its own report notes, sidewalks are "extremely narrow" and not wheelchair - bike - stroller accessible, land is "underutilized," curbs have deteriorated, retail space is occupied as office space or less stable local proprietors like overabundant beauty salons. Perhaps most humiliatingly, cars passing through Mt. Rainier "tend to speed up rather than slow down."

But a lemons-to-lemonade approach could transform outdated buildings into showcased features, extending building fronts up to the municipal line, adding curb extensions and alternate paving at crosswalks on Rhode Island, turning a pre-war gas station into a cafe, with sycamore-lined bike lanes claimed from unnecessarily wide parking lanes. The new MARC station would be added on the existing rail line 4 blocks south of Rhode Island Avenue, and PG County would link to the District's streetcar line, already planned (in later phases) to run the length of Rhode Island Avenue.

To develop its updated, strollable urbanity, the county turned to Cunningham | Quill as the prime consultant to direct, inspire and build a consensus among Mt. Rainierians about what to achieve and how to accomplish it. The DC based architecture and design firm and hired others to collaberate, with R. McGhee & Associates on historic preservation as well as economic consultants, market analysts and transportation experts to help inform the process. "This is very collaberative, a plan that could become a model for other revitalization areas throughout the region" said Lee Quill, principal of the architecture firm. At the very least it was speedy; CQ was brought on in July 2009, and went through the entire consultative process with an "extensive community engagement process," followed by design, coming up with a plan it submitted to MNCPPC in April 2010. The plan was distributed to the public in July and is now in the public comment period. Quill says the plan is a significant improvement over the '94 plan, and more likely to succeed, since the '94 plan "did not have a vision component, only guidelines to help the community in shaping future desired development."

Despite the "very aggressive" schedule, Quill is guardedly optimistic. "As the economy comes back, those communities that have take the time to develop a vision, or level of development, walkability and sustainability...it provides a better assurance that development will move forward." Robert Duffy, Planning Supervisor at Prince George's County Planning Department, is optimistic that planners have gotten it right, but not ready to predict immediate results. "Its an incremental process that can take a number of years, but the plan is based on sound opportunities given the current economic climate." Duffy stresses that whatever the outcome, the updated plans can only be a good thing. "The plan attempts to adjust guidelines to reflect current conditions...No matter what, we still need to revise strategies and plans. Its difficult to say 'how soon,' but some goals can be very short term."

As for the inevitable question about financing, county officials hope that as interested parties see the wisdom of the plan and opportunity for growth, funding will happen. PG's Duffy says that "the plan makes a number of recommendations for redevelopment, and for capital improvements, which can be paid for through future development activity, or by a developer, or through various requests through WMATA and state of Maryland...Each project could have a different blend of financing." In other words, no dedicated funding exists, but the goal is fund-worthy. But success of the project will undoubtedly be tied to mass transit, and neither the trolley line, which is dependent upon DC's own back shelf development, nor the MARC station addition, appears to have anything like a hopeful timeline. Says Duffy, "there's been discussion with MARC, but given the state budget its important that businesses and residences work with and advocate for this to take place, and the trolley too. They are long term, they are very expensive, but rail transit is truly the great benefit here."

Quill says the plans are worth waiting for, noting that AIA Maryland gave it an award for urban design and planning. The plan will break the town center into Rhode Island Avenue ("the boulevard"), upper 34th ("Main Street"), and the civic center at the traffic circle. "We developed a vision collectively with the community and worked with committees on specific issues. We put together guidelines to help facilitate everything from window painting to signage, to converting the bus turnaround to a true civic green, and are working with WMATA. The city purchased the Eastern Star building in effort to make this a true civic core." Quill, who also planned part of Potomac Yards, stresses that with the community being an integral part of a design that aims for a true town center, the plan has a high chance of success. "The reinforcement and definition of the public realm, that's probably the real strength of this that can come back to everyone in the city. That's part of the strength of the plan. And now there's a clarity of vision of how to get there." Developers take note. And bring money.