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