Landover revival pushes ahead

County wants to give area near Landover Mall site a makeover

The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission has been working with residents on a new vision for the area for a year. It collected more responses Saturday during a presentation for more than 80 residents at the county’s Sports and Learning Complex. Next step: drafting the Landover Gateway Sector Plan this week.

The goal is to have a more complete document back to the public by early 2008, and to start implementing it even before zoning issues comes up for a vote in late 2008 before the County Council.

The plan is Prince George’s County’s latest attempt to lift a struggling inner Beltway community, as part of a larger effort to attract the kind of investment that can generate jobs and give residents and visitors an upscale center for shopping and entertainment.

‘‘Our area’s long overdue for this ... you really make it a destination,” said County Councilman David Harrington (D-Dist. 5) of Cheverly, one of the officials leading the effort. ‘‘It’s right off the Beltway, it’s right off of Landover Road ... now you have three Metro stations in less than a mile proximity.”

The forlorn land lies at a critical, visible crossroads – off the Beltway, in the shadow of FedEx Field, the NFL’s largest stadium. Officials say that choice location makes the vision a possibility.

Residents who have watched that crossroads decay over the years are skeptical, but hopeful that their first instincts are wrong.

‘‘It looks like beautiful downtown Beirut (now)... We want to create a reason to come to Prince George’s County,” said activist Arthur Turner. ‘‘I have been fighting for Landover Mall in excess of 12 years, and I will continue to fight for that property.”

The area encompasses the site of the former Landover Mall, which closed in 2002 and was recently torn down, and land within a one-mile radius. This includes the Landover Crossings shopping center and two apartment complexes.

Graphic renderings of the eventual transformation show tall, glistening office buildings rising off the Landover Beltway exit, similar to a toned-down version of Crystal City in Virginia. They show people sitting and relaxing outside street-side cafes.

‘‘The residents want to create a cultural identity,” said project manager Christine Osei. ‘‘It’s a full scope look at the area.”

She said planners are looking at potentially establishing a cultural community center, a government center for state and federal agencies, and an educational section where local colleges and universities can locate satellite campuses.

Harrington wants a medical center to locate there. Turner wants a world-class aquarium.

All ideas are on the table, and ambitions are running high.

‘‘I think you can do at least as good as downtown D.C.,” said planning consultant R. Geoffrey Ferrell, of Ferrell Madden Associates, as the team showed slides of a projected streetscape that resembled Chinatown in the District.

Planners are hoping the redesigned area will connect with and complement the surrounding attractions like Largo’s Boulevard at the Cap Centre and Woodmore Towne Centre. The 245-acre Woodmore center, on the other side of the Beltway, is expected to open with the upscale grocery store Wegmans in 2008.

The redevelopment of Landover would coincide with investment in other high-density areas like Hyattsville and Suitland.

But Glenarden Mayor John Anderson said planners need to be sure not to exclude the current Landover residents, as they plan for new condos and town homes in the area.

Under the redevelopment plan, the Maple Ridge and Glenarden apartments, which together have nearly 1,000 residents, would probably be torn down.

‘‘I don’t think [the residents] really know,” Anderson said, urging officials to better notify apartment renters of their intentions.

The Landover plan also rests heavily on the cooperation of the developer of the Landover Mall, Lerner Enterprises. Not all the land is owned by Lerner. Sears operates a location by the empty mall lot, and Landover Crossings is operated by Rivercrest Realty. But the Landover Mall site is the focal point.

A representative from Lerner could not be reached for comment, but Harrington said Lerner was on board and at the table.

Residents in the area are hesitant to believe the developer who let the mall sit unused for years has a reason to jump back into Prince George’s County and invest.

‘‘Because of their track record, I think they’d be better out of it, but that’s not gonna happen,” said Landover resident Earl Jones, 67, who has been participating in the planning process for a year.

He said he’s hopeful Lerner will cooperate. Jones, who has lived in the county for 47 years, envisions a marketplace in Landover similar to the old markets in Baltimore.

‘‘Meats, fruits, vegetable, the whole darn thing,” Jones said. ‘‘It’s gonna be the bomb.”

For more information, see www.mncppc.org⁄pgco.

E-mail Judson Berger at jberger@gazette.net.