Mixed-use project near Muirkirk MARC station awaits county approval

The plans now go to the County Council for final approval.

Plans for the northern portion of the site, about 57 acres of office and retail space, received approval about 18 months ago.

‘‘We have a total of seven buildings which we will open in late 2008,” said Thomas Aylward, a vice president for Jackson-Shaw.

Tenants have already signed leases to move in this summer, Aylward said. These tenants include Freestate Electric, Carpet ‘N Things — which will have its headquarters and distribution facility in the development — and American Mechanical Services.

The southern portion of the development is to be a MARC Planned Community, a development built close to a MARC train station with the purpose of making mass transit more readily available to residents. It will have approximately 1,265 houses, apartments and townhouses, as well as nearly 30,000 square feet of retail and office space, clustered around the Muirkirk MARC station.

The Brick Yard will join several new or redesigned developments in Prince George’s County that will be marketed to an upscale clientele.

Konterra Realty plans to break ground on a 2,200-acre, mixed-use development known as Konterra early next year in unincorporated Laurel. And Laurel Commons, the soon to-be-revamped former Laurel Mall on Baltimore Avenue in the city of Laurel, is set to begin its redevelopment next year.

While members of the West Laurel Civic Association have voiced concerns about Konterra’s impact on traffic, association president Mary Lehman said the group has not formed an official position on The Brick Yard.

‘‘It’s not a project we’ve tracked that closely as a community,” she said. ‘‘Konterra ... is much larger and closer to West Laurel, and it’ll have a more direct impact on us in terms of traffic.”

She added that she saw a need in the community for public transportation near housing developments and hoped future residents of The Brick Yard would take advantage of the MARC service.

Karen Coakley, president of the Beltsville Citizens Association, said her group has long been in favor of The Brick Yard.

‘‘We’ve been supportive of the project since they came to us about five years ago and we have supported the various renditions,” she said. ‘‘It fits with the direction [in which the county is trying to move] to increase the capacity of the different transportation hubs.”

Because The Brick Yard site was devoted to brick manufacturing for about 130 years, the land required reclamation, a process that has taken Jackson-Shaw about three years, Aylward said.

Greenbelt resident Bill Orleans, who spoke at the hearing, said he was concerned about the development’s environmental impact.

‘‘With ... ongoing development on either side of Route 1 ... it would seem to me this is just going to encourage further degradation of the watersheds,” he said.

But Aylward said The Brick Yard’s arrival would mean a vast improvement over the presence of the brick-manufacturing site, which had no checks in place to curb sediment runoff.

He added that the developer would use much of the building material left from the mining site in its own construction.

E-mail Anath Hartmann at ahartmann@gazette.net.