City could delay East Campus funding

Before the university can tap a $5 million grant to relocate facilities that will be displaced by the East Campus development project, it needs city approval — something College Park officials say they might not be ready to give.

The state allocated $5 million to the university last year and another $5 million recently toward relocating university facilities to the Washington Post Co. plant in preparation for the East Campus development project — a 38-acre collection of shops, a music hall and graduate student housing. But the city has yet to give the university's plans its seal of approval, a requirement for the state to release the funding.

Although city officials have approved of the university's recent purchase of the plant, council members said they're worried about how the new use of that property will impact nearby residents. City officials won't grant the university the consent required to obtain the $5 million in state funding for the project until they're sure the city's interests are protected, council members said.

"There's a number of issues that have to be worked out regarding East Campus and the Post plant and its use," District 1 Councilman Patrick Wojahn said. "We wanted to be sure that we weren't completely giving away the opportunity to further review the East Campus project by signing off on the dollars."

Ann Wylie, the university's vice president for administrative affairs, said she doesn't expect any more major problems and doesn't think concerns with traffic will hold the university back for long. Wylie said she hopes more details about the traffic impact will be released to the city by the end of the week.

"As soon as we get the money, the renovations will start," she said, adding that once the relocation project is underway, it could be finished within a year.

The first major sticking point with the city has already been overcome: When city officials decried the loss of property taxes from the plant due to the university's tax-exempt status, the university offered to pay a fee each year to cover the lost money.

The city's main remaining interest in the property concerns how traffic in the area would be impacted and managed, especially cut-through traffic in residential neighborhoods, District 2 Councilman Jack Perry said, adding that the issue is "complicated" and involves various resident concerns.

"We're still concerned about the traffic impacts given that there's a number of uses that are going to require traffic going back and forth between the main campus and the plant," Wojahn said.

District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin said traffic should be minimal in the plant's first year since it was only expected to house 80 employees or fewer, but, he said, the university's future use of the property was still a mystery.

"We're probably going to have to make decisions on the $5 million based on information that won't be here for maybe a few more months," Catlin said.

The availability of the Post plant has enabled the university to move forward with East Campus without disrupting the Wooded Hillock — a tree-covered swath of land near Comcast Center that professors and students claim has environmental and educational benefits.

But some university facilities are still left stranded. Wylie said the Post plant would not be able to provide a permanent home for the Shuttle-UM buses due to its lack of parking space, for example.

Despite the lingering concerns, university administrators still say the purchase of the Post plant was a huge step in the right direction.

"We were looking at all kinds of solutions," Wylie said. "The Post plant came up very quickly and solved a lot of our problems."

apino@umdbk.com