Suburbs lose in two headquarter moves

NPR staying in D.C.; paper firm leaving Landover

Meanwhile, Frank Parsons Paper Co. plans to move its headquarters from Landover to the Baltimore Commons Business Park in Hanover in October.

‘‘We appreciate the interest and enthusiasm of the Silver Spring community and the Montgomery County officials who worked hard to bring NPR there,” said Ken Stern, NPR’s CEO, in a statement. ‘‘Silver Spring is justly recognized as a welcoming location for media companies. ‘‘

But he added that as a news organization that provides significant coverage of national news, NPR concluded that it needed to have a single location for its staff, ‘‘rather than creating a satellite office downtown for news staff requiring duplicate costs and systems.”

The District site, at 1111 N. Capitol St. NE, will put NPR barely a mile away from Capitol Hill, which is the focus of much of the network’s coverage and the source of its public funding. The building is in the rapidly developing NoMA — North of Massachusetts Avenue — corridor, where the New York Avenue Metro is only one stop from Union Station.

That location will allow NPR to save costs by giving up leased newsroom space, said Andi Sporkin, the network’s vice president for communications.

‘‘For the past several years, we have had to lease space in an office building a few blocks away and we are taking space shortly in yet another building in the area, and the arrangement is difficult at best,” she said. ‘‘Our longtime corporate culture is creative and collaborative and this requirement ultimately became an important part of the decision-making.

NPR acquired the four-story NoMA building, where it plans to add a 10-story tower with occupancy planned for 2012. This will include a 60,000-square-foot space for NPR News, as well as room for its 600 employees.

Developers plan 20 million square feet of new office, retail and residential space in NoMA, which already is home to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and XM Satellite Radio.

What’s next for the south Silver Spring Ripley District is unknown. The Montgomery County Council in November approved a zoning change there to allow developers to construct taller buildings but whether another employer could win a public subsidy package as generous as that offered to NPR is not certain.

‘‘Everything is tied up in who you want to get and for what purpose,” said Patrick Lacefield, a spokesman for County Executive Isiah Leggett (D). ‘‘It’s not like NPR didn’t take the deal so that’s available to anybody else who might be interested.”

Paper company goingto Anne Arundel

Frank Parsons Paper’s move — with 200 jobs — from Landover to a 185,000-square-foot Hanover building formerly used by Merdedes Benz was aided by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development and the Anne Arundel Economic Development Corp., which are negotiating a subsidy package to keep the firm in the state.

‘‘In today’s global economy where companies can locate anywhere, Parsons’ decision to remain in Maryland and expand operations shows that our efforts to grow economic opportunities in the state are really paying off,” said Gov. Martin O’Malley (D).

The new site in Anne Arundel County has 5 acres that could be available for this growth.

‘‘We were careful to select a location where we could consolidate our local operations, improve efficiencies and enhance the environment where our employees work,” said Parsons CEO Mike Lane.

The company is the largest 100 percent employee-owned business products distributor and the largest independent fine paper distributor in the United States. It has warehouse distribution facilities, sales offices and retail stores in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

The former Mercedes facility is being redeveloped for Parsons by the owners, a joint venture of Chesapeake Real Estate Group LLC and Holland Properties. The work will revitalize the property into a headquarters-quality office paired with a state-of-the-art distribution facility.

Scaled-back plansOK’d in Bethesda

Developers of the Woodmont East mixed-use project in downtown Bethesda won preliminary plan approval Thursday from the Montgomery County Planning Board after scaling back the design of an overhead link between two buildings and ensuring continued access to the Capital Crescent Trail during and after construction.

The vote came despite reservations by board members that there is not enough open space in the hotel, retail and residential complex to allow safe use by shoppers, bikers and pedestrians. The project will occupy the green space that sits across from the Bethesda Row movie theater.

Progress on Woodmont East had been stalled since November, when the board asked the developer, JGB Associates, to revamp open space plans and expressed concerns about the overhead building bridge. The result is an open plaza that will link a 225-room hotel, 250 apartments or condominiums, and 118,650 square feet of office and retail space. A planned eight-story bridge between the hotel and retail buildings has been reduced to three levels that might include a food services area, gym and meeting space.

Oehme van Sweden landscape architect Lisa Delplace, working for the developer, said that the open space would be like a ‘‘campus quad,” designed to allow pedestrian flow between the buildings and around the public green’s perimeter.

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