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Prince George’s NEWSLETTER
An Independent, Bi-Weekly Newsletter on Real Estate Development
Volume 26, Number 12
June 10, 2013 Coming up Roses
Retailer Signs Lease in Forestville Plaza
Roses Department store isn’t just leasing 78,000 square feet at Forestville Plaza. It’s changing the entire approach at the District Heights shopping center.
Owner Commerce Properties Inc. signed the department store, which operates 400 outlets nationwide but is primarily a southeastern U.S. fixture, to the anchor position in the 218,000 square foot center, in a store that last served as an Ames.
The deal is, to resort to an over-used cliché, a game changer, because Commerce had planned to repopulate the center, located at Marlboro Pike and Forestville Road, with quasi-retail tenants that wanted large parking requirements. Before the Roses deal, Commerce had filled about 60,000 feet of the center. With Roses in place, Commerce will now work to stock the rest of the center with upscale traditional inline retail. Commerce’s Mike Amann said the company hopes to have Roses in place for Christmas.
Commerce, based in Alexandria, Va., bought the dilapidated center last September for $4.1 million without a clear redevelopment plan in mind. “We knew there was value there, but we didn’t know exactly what for,” said Amann.
A Change. Though the firm settled on the quasi-retail approach, it hadn’t anticipated a major traditional retailer looking to anchor the center. When Rose materialized, Amann decided to rethink its approach and knock the ‘quasi’ out of ‘quasi-retail.’
Amann, meanwhile, was effusive in his praise for the county administration’s support in bringing Roses to Forestville. “These folks are serious about making things happen,” he said.
To that end, David Iannucci, assistant deputy CAO for economic development, said interest in the county’s booth at the recent ICSC conference in Las Vegas tripled that of the year before, reflecting, he said, not only an improved economic climate, but changes in the perception of the county’s business attitude.
Toll Again Controls Willowbrook, Locust
Toll Brothers has a huge project on its plate. So big in fact, that it will probably need a bigger plate.
The company has put under contract both the Willowbrook and Locust Hill tracts in Upper Marlboro, providing it with a pipeline of almost 1300 lots.
According to a letter submitted to the Planning Department seeking an extension to the existing plans, Toll is looking to close in the near term on both properties. Both are located along Leeland Road west of Route 301, north of BeechTree. Willowbrook consists of 732 lots, while Locust Hill is another 554 lots. Toll is seeking a two-year extension for the Preliminary Plans on the pair.
In a sense, Toll is just picking up where it left off in 2007. It had both properties under contract before the market tumbled off the cliff, and had expended considerable dollars on planning and pre-development costs. But it allowed the contract to lapse, and both properties went into mothballs.
Totaling 934 acres, the pair are owned by Mercantile Bank, which controls the land in a trust for several beneficiaries, including the St. Barnabas Church. They once belonged to landowner W. Seton Belt.
The double acquisition will give Toll a project comparable in size to its Marlboro Riding community, but without the horses (well, so far at least). There, Toll has staked out a corner of the upper end market, with both towns and singles.
MARYLAND NEWSLETTERS
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