Housing, Military eyed for Prince George's move
County continues effort to land Maryland department headquarters
ANNAPOLIS Gov. Martin O'Malley's staff is evaluating a study that discusses the merits of moving either the state's Military Department or the Department of Housing and Community Development to a new location in Prince George's County, a state official said Thursday.
"It is my hope that, in short order, the governor will be making the announcement about the location of a state office building in Prince George's County," Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (D) said in an interview last week.
Brown lives in the county, which for years has sought to increase the state's presence in Prince George's. No Maryland department is headquartered in the county.
Brown's chief of staff, Earl Adams Jr., presented the study at a meeting of Prince George's County senators Thursday, saying it had been delivered to O'Malley (D).
The study says the housing department has 340 jobs at its Crownsville headquarters.
The Military Department which is responsible for the Maryland Air National Guard, the Maryland Army National Guard, the Maryland Defense Force and the Maryland Emergency Management Agency has 466 jobs at an armory in Baltimore.
Adams said the state owns the housing department building, assessed at $26 million, and its sale could serve to recoup the costs of a new site in Prince George's.
The county has 3.5 million square feet of vacant office space, the report says.
In 2006, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) proposed moving the state's Department of Planning out of Baltimore and into Largo. The plan was derailed when it was presented to the Board of Public Works.
Comptroller William Donald Schaefer (D), the former Baltimore mayor, objected to moving the 110 jobs out of the city. Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp (D) said some department employees were afraid to raise objections for fear of losing their jobs. She also said the relocation of state agencies should follow a plan, not be done one at a time.
Also revealed at the Thursday meeting, two county sites are being offered to Northrop Grumman for consideration as the company plans to move its headquarters to the Washington, D.C., area. One is at National Harbor and the other is at the University of Maryland, College Park, said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.