College for sale

Development

College for sale

by Dan Reed • April 17, 2012 10:12 am

Are you looking to buy a college? After four decades in the Hillandale section of Montgomery County, the National Labor College announced that they will sell its campus this summer, reports the Gazette.

Image from NLC.

The college, located at New Hampshire Avenue and the Beltway, was previously a Catholic school before the AFL-CIO bought the property in 1974, seeking a permanent place to educate union workers. With just 1,300 students, all of whom can now study online, the college no longer needs a large campus and plans to relocate to an office building somewhere in the area.

The National Labor College leaves behind a 47 acre campus with four residence halls, two classroom buildings, a library, an auditorium and the recently-built Lane Kirkland Conference Center, all of which surround a small quad.

There's also what appears to be a basketball court and baseball diamond. (In case you're as unfamiliar with the site as I was, the campus does not include Holly Hall, a retirement community whose red-brick buildings make it look like part of the college.)

National Labor College. Aerial photo from Bing Maps.

What can one do with a former college? Naturally, the campus would lend itself to another school, but we shouldn't be limited by that. The campus might be a nice place for a security-minded government tenant to locate, but judging from the stalled progress at St. Elizabeth's in the District, it's unlikely that any federal agencies will be poking around here.

Besides, we probably don't want that anyway. When the Food and Drug Administration relocated their headquarters to the former Naval Ordnance Laboratory farther up New Hampshire Avenue, there was an opportunity to use its 710-acre property for a mix of uses, including retail, housing or parkland.

But neighbors in Hillandale "[were] going to have none of that," as one resident told the Washington Post. Instead, we got an isolated office campus whose 7,000 workers barely venture out for lunch, much to the chagrin of local restaurants.

The National Labor College land is far too valuable to make that mistake again. It's next to the Beltway and just one exit away from I-95. It's also part of the White Oak Science Gateway, which is what county planners call the research and development center they'd like to create in the area. There are a lot of possibilities here, and we shouldn't be so quick to shut them off.

It's not every day that 47 acres suddenly appears in the middle of an established community. This is a great opportunity and we'd do well to seize it.

17 comments

Tags: campuses, Hillandale, Maryland, Montgomery, National Labor College

Montgomery College Metro station? (Dec 26, 2008)
Silver Spring school leaving, could become 75 homes (May 3, 2010)
Eastern Montgomery discusses White Oak's future (Jul 7, 2010)
Olson may scuttle new housing in College Park (Sep 13, 2010)
Different housing types can mix if designed propertly (Nov 7, 2011)

A planner and architect by training, Dan Reed is interested in suburban retrofits. Dan works for the Friends of White Flint, writes his own blog, Just Up the Pike, and serves as the Land Use Chair for the Action Committee for Transit. Dan lives in Silver Spring.

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"It's not every day that 47 acres suddenly appears in the middle of an established community. This is a great opportunity and we'd do well to seize it."

We'd do well to seize it? That makes no sense. Are you suggesting that the government take this land to build what you want on it? What "we'd do well" to do would be butting out and letting a private developer maximize return on investment.

by Annon on Apr 17, 2012 10:18 am • link • report

I'm saying that the community (the "we" I'm referring to) shouldn't try to stop development from happening on the site as they did at the FDA.

by dan reed! on Apr 17, 2012 10:28 am • link • report

It would be great to see some sort of medium-high density mixed use town center built there. Something similar to the Mosaic District that is currently being built in Farifax. But most likely it will be sold to housing developers where they will put a build single family homes on large lots like what happened up at popular run.

by mike on Apr 17, 2012 10:45 am • link • report

I was just there last summer. The conference center is a pretty great building - HUGE conference room and cool atrium area.

Unfortunately this site is pretty far from rail transit in a non-dense area. Any residential development would be totally car dependent - and I don't think this area of MontCo needs more residential development, as it already has some of the cheapest housing prices in the county.

The location will hopefully attract some sort of large company and bring higher paying jobs to the east side of the county.

by Nick on Apr 17, 2012 11:02 am • link • report

Nick wrote [and I added emphasis]:

The location will hopefully attract some sort of large company and bring higher paying jobs to the east side of the county.

Hear, hear!

Nick has the right idea!

This site needs to be about employment and absolutely not more residential development (of which the White Oak/Fairland Policy Area has plenty right now).

I just hope that Montgomery County's planning and approval processes do not scare-away potential employers that might want to locate here.

Possible users might include:

A life sciences employer that wants to be near the Food and Drug Administration; or

Some sort of off-campus annex for a part of the University of Maryland?

by C. P. Zilliacus on Apr 17, 2012 11:27 am • link • report

Yes, Annon, we should all get out of the way for the Masters of the Universe to enrich themselves through enlightened self-interest. Who is John Galt?

by Alec. S. on Apr 17, 2012 11:27 am • link • report

Houses aren't interchangeable. Just because there are cheap houses or a lot of houses in East County doesn't mean that they're necessarily in demand. The market may want a kind of housing that isn't available in East County - for instance, townhouses in a walkable neighborhood - and thus if they were built, people would eagerly buy them.

That's not to say housing is the best use for the NLC site, but we should keep an open mind. A single-use development, whether it's an office park or a single-family subdivision, isn't appropriate for a site as big as this in an established community.

by dan reed! on Apr 17, 2012 11:32 am • link • report

Given all the recent corporate relocations OUT of East MoCo and MoCo's general inability recently to attract major corporate campuses compared to Northern Virginia. It seems very unlikely Corporations are going to be clamoring to build huge campus on this site. You see how much trouble Prince George's has had with getting mixed use development started around it's metro stations.

by Mike on Apr 17, 2012 11:44 am • link • report

Re: dan reed!

I agree houses aren't interchangeable. However, I can't see a walkable neighborhood sprouting up without better access to transit near this beltway interchange. The walkable neighborhood will need parking, because to get outside of the neighborhood, one will need to drive, or grab a bus on NH ave.

I'd like to see this site be an office park, maybe mixed with a well planned apartment/TH community along with some sort of community park (make use of that baseball field and basketball court I see on google maps). There already is retail right across NH ave - CVS, safeway, starbucks. Making the 6 lane expressway that is NH ave in this area more walkable would be a great project.

by Nick on Apr 17, 2012 11:46 am • link • report

I agree. This isn't really a site for TOD, though it is on one of the county's proposed Bus Rapid Transit lines. Then again, the Mosaic District in Vienna isn't next to a Metro station, either. But anything to make this area more walkable would be a big help. I had friends who lived on the other side of the Beltway and would walk under it to reach the Safeway. That's not fun.

by dan reed! on Apr 17, 2012 11:51 am • link • report

I have to agree with Dan Reed. Where once, TOD was a unique proposal, shouldn't everyplace be designed with walking in mind? You've got all that commercial right across the street, and the Bus rapid Transit is due to come.

by Thayer-D on Apr 17, 2012 12:14 pm • link • report

The north end of the mosaic district is about 1/2 mile from the Dunn Loring Metro station on the Orange line. Its about 2 miles from Tysons Corner which is a larger employment center NOW than any that exists in the state of maryland, and is expanding, and a bus transitway is expected soon, IIUC and that will probably be high on FFX county's list for conversion to LRT. The Mosaic development IS right across rte 29 from the Dunn Loring area TOD.

I do not know this campus, but I am doubtful it is either as convenient to existing and future high quality transit, or to a major employment centers, as the Mosaic district is.

Given that, it seems likely that its modal share for single occupant auto will be high, which argues against high density.

That of course does not mean that it should not be made as walkable as possible given its density. Nor does it necessarily exclude some form of multi use. Though it does seem like it would be appealling as a corp campus - I am sure someone has a model for walkable corporate campus incorporating multiple uses, but I can't think of any.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Apr 17, 2012 1:18 pm • link • report

There is such a demand for colleges in this country I'd love for the site to be used for its original purpose.

by movement on Apr 17, 2012 3:13 pm • link • report

Please, please Georgetown, GW, AU, CUA, etc please consider buying this just to show Washington that your patience with ANCs is ending. And that you will move jobs and tax revenue out of DC.

by Jasper on Apr 17, 2012 3:58 pm • link • report

47 acres should be suitable for the FBI.

by Rayful Edmond on Apr 17, 2012 4:01 pm • link • report

@Rayful

Yes, but the campus is too far from a Metro Station to be considered.

by Steve on Apr 17, 2012 4:27 pm • link • report

@Steve, I wouldn't be so sure. If the Mark Center is close enough to the King Street Metro at 3.9 miles for it to be acceptable for a bus bridge, then a bus bridge from Forest Glen to this campus at 4 miles away is hardly out of the question.

by Craig on Apr 17, 2012 9:28 pm • link • report