January 7, 2008
College Park to be More Attractive, More Crowded
It'd be hard to argue with anyone who called College Park the lamest college town in the country. With no more than three bars catering to students and a dearth of other services or any real main street at all, online campaigns like RethinkCollegePark.net have popped up in recent years to try to convince county planners that the University of Maryland deserved a real town center. Today, both the Associated Press and the Washington Post have stories announcing a $700 million redevelopment plan in the works to turn College Park into a more attractive retail destination for potential students and faculty.
The so-called East Campus Redevelopment Initiative has been in the early development stage for some time now, and proposes to raze 38-acres to make way for a planned town center with several restaurants, graduate student housing, a grocery store, a hotel, movie theater, bookstore and more. The redevelopment, which would be nearly twice the size of downtown Silver Spring, would complete its first phase in 2011 and hopes to be part of the plans for Metro's Purple Line.
At the same time that the university is embarking on real estate development to attract students, the Examiner reports that once again, the new school year could find students forced off campus due to heavy demand for on-campus housing among undergraduates. Last April a group of students held a week-long campout on McKeldin Mall to protest a Board of Regents decision to deny the university money for a new dorm.
Photo by mindgutter
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Anyone whose called College Park the lamest college town in the country has never been to ISU in Ames, Iowa. Yikes!
Sorry, but College Park is intrinsically flawed thanks to the presence of Route 1.
A large proportion of UM students are commuters, so it's not like they're trapped there. They want something decent to eat or go shopping, they split. There's no reason to hang around campus after hours except maybe to play duckpins or hit on the gumsnapping hair trees at the Oy Vey Cafe.
Does this mean more riots? Less? Maybe a dedicated gathering place for rioters? What's the bottom line?
i think the relatively large number of WM alums in DC will agree that for lameness, williamsburg has college park beat hands down.
although i will concede that on a per-capita basis, they have even fewer student bars than WM does.
i think the relatively large number of WM alums in DC will agree that for lameness, williamsburg has college park beat hands down.
although i will concede that on a per-capita basis, they have even fewer student bars than WM does.
I wouldn't call CP the lamest college town in the country, but it definitely needs improvement. RethinkCollegePark is a great blog with some great ideas. Also, I wouldn't say a large portion of the the student body is made up of commuters. The community of students living on campus and off campus (but still in CP) is quite a large population. I'm sure most of the food establishments do great business, especially those close to campus.
There were around 25k students commuting in College Park in 2005. Including University College, the total school population was a little under 50k, so over half are commuters.
I dunno about the comment of having no main street at all. Route 1 is a pretty safe contender for de facto main street.
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