Prince George’s County recently approved a new town center in Riverdale Park that will have the county’s first Whole Foods. This might be a good location for a new Metro station as well.

Map by the author.

The Cafritz Property covers 37 acres along Route 1 between East-West Highway and the University of Maryland. Developer Calvert Tract, LLC plans to build nearly 1,000 townhomes and apartments, a 120-room hotel, 22,000 square feet of office space and about 168,000 square feet of retail space, including the Whole Foods. But the project has been controversial due to concerns about traffic.

Concentrating different uses and activities at the Cafritz Property can make the development more walkable and likely to draw customers willing to patronize the location without adding single-occupant vehicles to local roads. But a new Metro station on the property could make it even easier for people to travel there without a car.

I took a visit to the property last year, not to scout out the area where the store would be built, but to take a look at the area where the Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail will extend through the site. One of the things you notice while traveling south from College Park’s Calvert Hills neighborhood is that WMATA’s Green Line emerges from a tunnel just to the east of the property.

Earlier plans from the developer show that WMATA owns the piece of land that separates the Cafritz property from the city of College Park to the north. What if, as part of the negotiations for future phases of the development, Prince George’s County worked with the developers to fund an infill station here?

Current site plan for the Cafritz Property with WMATA property highlighted. Image from the developer and edited by Dan Reed.

The station would be close to the midpoint between the College Park and Prince George’s Plaza stations, approximately 4/5 of a mile from the College Park station and 1.1 miles from Prince George’s Plaza. Direct rail access to the Cafritz Property would be a win for the property developers as well as the neighbors in University Park, the southern neighborhoods of College Park, and Riverdale Park, all of which can be a long walk from existing Metro stations.

It’s probably too late in the process for a Metro station to be built as part of the first phase of the Cafritz Property, but there’s no reason this couldn’t be seriously considered for the future.