Joint Merger to Produce Transit-Oriented Multifamily, Commercial and Single-Family Community

By Jessica Fiur, News Editor

Lanham, Md.—Brickyard Station in Beltsville, Md., is chugging ahead! Jackson-Shaw, a national commercial real estate development and investment company, has started construction of Brickyard Station, a community surrounding the Muirkirk MARC station. This transit-oriented property will include 433 residential units, which are being developed by JLB Partners, a national multifamily developer. Additionally, Ryland Homes, a mortgage finance company, is building 400 single-family homes and townhouses in the community. The multifamily and single-family projects represent a combined investment of $200 million.

“The location of Brickyard Station is beneficial because it offers easy access to several transportation options including commuter rail service, express buses and new highways,” Chase Galbraith, vice president of development with Jackson-Shaw, tells MHN. “It is adjacent to the MARC Rail Muirkirk Station (Camden Line), so residents may easily commute to Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Plans are in place for the station to become an intermodal hub for the Bus Rapid Transit(BRT) corridor from Shady Grove to Montgomery County along a new extension of the Inter-County Connector (ICC) that will reach U.S. Route 1. The 2013 completion of the ICC, an 18-mile highway between U.S. Route 1/Interstate 95 and Interstate 270 that links Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties and has its eastern terminus adjacent to Brickyard Station, will also provide Brickyard Station commuters easier automobile access to government agencies such as the Department of Defense and the Federal Drug Administration, and other companies in the employment-rich Montgomery County area.”

The community will feature several green elements. It was designed to be a part of the LEED Neighborhood Development program, which promotes the creation of communities that support economic development, environmental improvement, educational growth and safe streets.

“The LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND) Rating System was established by the U.S. Green Building Council to provide third-party verification that a development’s location and design meet accepted high levels of environmentally responsible, sustainable development. LEED ND projects integrate the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building,” Galbraith says.

“Brickyard Station fits into this program because it is a pedestrian-friendly project with extensive trails for biking and walking, and offers plenty of large green spaces,” he continues. “Prior industrial use of the property originally made the land unsuitable for building, until Jackson-Shaw reclaimed the property using the principles of “smart growth,” which encourage developers to limit urban sprawl by reusing the region’s infrastructure resources and by revitalizing existing urban property. Reclamation of the land was an extensive three-year process during which thousands of pounds of materials, such as steel, brick and concrete, were recycled or reused as building and landscaping materials at the Brick Yard Business Park.”

Additionally the property features a pedestrian-friendly campus with walking and biking trails, as well as green community spaces.

Brickyard Station is part of The Brick Yard, a community that includes a business park for light industrial, office, flex and warehouse space. There will also be a dinosaur fossil park to commemorate and protect the discovery of a fossil deposit on a portion of the land. Seven acres of property surrounding the fossil deposit was donated to the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission.

When completed, the transit-oriented development will include 750,000 square feet of commercial space, 30,000 square feet of retail space, 51 single-family homes, 354 townhomes and 860 multifamily units.

“Jackson-Shaw decided to develop Brickyard Station as a residential component to The Brick Yard because of feedback from residents in the surrounding community indicating that they supported a high quality residential project,” Galbraith says. “It is rare for this community to support a residential project, and in others locations it has been turned down. However, community leaders saw that a residential project at this particular location made sense due to its access several modes of transportation and, if designed right, the project would be very successful. Jackson-Shaw participated in over 100 community meetings to present plans, address concerns and work with community leaders to find mutually beneficial solutions. Working with the community, we were able to get a very unique and high quality residential project approved when others could not, which makes the project that much more successful.”

The multifamily aspect of the community is expected to be completed in the fall of 2013, and will represent the first new multifamily construction to the area in years.