WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL: A Minnesota affordable housing developer wants to put an all-affordable apartment building on vacant land steps from a Purple Line station under construction in Hyattsville, representing the company’s first foray into Greater Washington.
A subsidiary of Minneapolis-based Dominium acquired the three-acre parcel at 7011 Chesapeake Road in 2022 for $99,000, per property records. Dominium now wants to put a multifamily building with between 245 and 300 affordable units there, according to a conceptual site plan application the Prince George’s County planning department formally accepted Nov. 27.
The company owns or manages more than 38,000 residential units in 19 states, though none in the D.C. region, according to its website.
The site is a stone’s throw from the planned Glenridge Purple Line station at the intersection of Veterans Parkway and Annapolis Road.
Dominium couldn’t be reached immediately for comment. But one application filing says the project would “provide high-quality affordable housing opportunities at a major transit stop without adding to sprawl, along with adding new office space to the area.”
Application documents propose an L-shaped building weighing in at between 183,000 and 392,000 square feet — up to five stories with housing over three levels of structured parking — plus between 1,300 and 2,500 square feet of office space.
Lerch, Early & Brewer and BKV Group are the project’s land use attorney and architect, respectively.
The anticipated affordability mix of units and layers of financing aren’t clear. But it likely would involve low-income housing tax credits, a federal subsidy to investors with various affordability requirements, depending on the given project. Dominium’s website indicates it has several Section 8 properties across the nation, referring to project-based federal housing vouchers.
The Hyattsville parcel sits within the planned Glenridge Transit Village area, where the county’s 2010 Central Annapolis Road Sector Plan envisions up to 500 residential units, 250,000 square feet of additional office space and 50,000 square feet of addition retail. That would include, among other things, redevelopment of or infill at the Giant-anchored Glenridge Shopping Center, just west of Dominium’s property across Annapolis Road.
