DC’s Transit Authority Selects Sites in Maryland and Virginia for New Headquarters
By Christina sturdivant-Sani May 1, 2019 11:18 am
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As part of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s (WMATA) office consolidation plan, the agency has selected a site in Alexandria, Va., and another property in New Carrollton, Md., to develop new primary offices, according to a press release from the transit authority, which currently owns both sites.
The Northern Virginia location at 2395 Mill Road is near Hoffman Town Center, which sits across the street from the Eisenhower Avenue Metro station, per the release. Metro plans to construct a 400,000-square-foot building that will include four stories of parking below nine floors of office space, according to the Washington Business Journal, which first reported the site selections.
The Maryland location, adjacent to the New Carrollton Metro station, will be one of three new office buildings developed by Urban Atlantic, a Bethesda, Md.-based firm that won rights to develop more than two million square feet of the area in 2016, according to the release.
“Metro’s selection today of Urban Atlantic’s New Carrollton development for the site of its Maryland headquarters energizes the dramatic transformation of New Carrollton,” Angela Alsobrooks, the county executive for Prince George’s County, said in the release. “What had been a functional surface parking lot is now an exciting urban center.”
Metro’s consolidation plan includes reducing the number of Metro office buildings from 10 to four, which will save the agency an estimated $130 million over the next 20 years, according to the release. In addition to saving Metro and taxpayers “significant money in the long term,” Metro CEO Paul Wiedefeld said in a prepared statement that the new offices will spur “additional private development and job creation in the surrounding communities.”
Last fall, Metro announced plans to purchase a vacant office building at 300 7th Street SW near L’Enfant Plaza for its new D.C. headquarters to replace its current offices downtown at the Jackson Graham Building, which has been to Metro for more than four decades. With plans to retain ownership of the Graham building, WMATA put it on the market earlier this month with the intent of redeveloping it with a long-term lease holder.
