Shopping center planned for Capitol Heights

Facility will include space for new fire station

Mike Ogden of the Rockville and Wilmington, N.C.-based Zimmer Development Company LLC said they hope to begin construction in spring 2009.

There are also 1.48 acres for a new fire and EMS station which the Seat Pleasant Volunteer Fire Company, currently at 6305 Addison Road, will relocate to. Lt. Karl Granzow of the county’s fire and EMS department said the new station could cost about $4.5 million.

Granzow said area stations are stacked on top of each other and the move would even out response times since the Capitol Heights Volunteer Fire Department is less than one mile away and the Chapel Oaks Volunteer Fire Department is less than two miles away from the Addison Road location.

Granzow said the county’s fire and EMS have held meetings with residents at the Mission of Love Charities in Capitol Heights over the past year about what they would like to see in the new station. Granzow said the proposed station would have community rooms that will hold 30 to 40 people which residents can use for meetings. Granzow said the location is also a plus because the station would be centrally located within the county and is slightly less than one-and-a-half miles from I-495.

Granzow said once the 1.48 acres for the station is transferred from Zimmer Development to the county’s fire and EMS department, he expects six months of engineering and architectural drawings and another nine months required to build the facility. Granzow said he expects the process to last 16 to 18 months from start to finish but does not have an exact date for the land transfer. Granzow said the county has no control over what the Seat Pleasant volunteers do with the existing building on Addison Road.

Created by the Development Review Division of the county’s Planning Department, the preliminary plan for the shopping center states some improvements might be necessary along Central Avenue to boost pedestrian traffic, such as better lighting and wider sidewalks.

Renee Holliday, president of the Westhampton Association Inc., sent a letter April 17 to Zimmer Development Company requesting more communication between her homeowners association and developers. The Westhampton neighborhood is a community of more than 150 townhomes intersecting Walker Mill Drive which intersects Shady Glen Drive.

Holliday said hers is one of a dozen citizens’ associations and civic groups involved in the process which were adamant about not placing businesses she considers ‘‘very abundant” throughout the county at the new center, such as liquor stores, check cashing businesses and pawn shops. Holliday said developers were responsive to the requests.

‘‘They’ve agreed to put those conditions into the application, saying that they would not have those type of stores,” Holliday said. ‘‘And we’ve also reached out because we want to be good neighbors with them.”

Holliday said she and members of other neighboring groups, such as the Millwood-Waterford Citizens Association and the Peppermill Village Civic Association, have written letters to the corporate headquarters of businesses such as TJ Maxx, Panera Bread, GNC, Au Bon Pain and Commerce Bank asking them to consider coming to the future shopping center.

Holliday said it’s these types of businesses residents like her have to travel elsewhere to patronize.

‘‘We know those type of stores will definitely help our economy,” Holliday said. ‘‘It will bring more jobs. And it’s the type of family atmosphere that we want to promote because we do have the type of neighborhood that’s more family friendly.”

E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net