A plan to build a "minicity" on 1,400 acres outside Washington, D.C., is moving from vision to reality, with the project breaking ground after decades of false starts and shifting market conditions.
Gould Property Co. said this month it began work on the core of the development, named Konterra. The project, taking shape between Baltimore and the nation's capital in Laurel, Maryland, is set to include apartments, townhouses, shops, dining and offices, along with 8 1/2 miles of trails, parks and plazas.
The multiphase exurb's 400-acre downtown, now underway, is slated to host about 12 million square feet of mixed-use development, though the entire project is not expected to be completed for years.
After acquiring the land in the 1980s, the ownership group said now is the time to set the sizable development in motion, as improved transportation infrastructure near the site has increased accessibility, making the project viable.
"If you think about a development of this size taking shape over the decades, how you jump-start something like this changed over time," Giacomo Barbieri, CEO of Gould, told CoStar News in an interview Monday. Ideas for a mall or outdoor shopping center did not have long-term staying power, he said, noting that added roadways and other transportation infrastructure have helped align with the current vision.
Konterra's downtown is set to include an estimated 1.5 million square feet of retail space, 3.8 million square feet of office space, a community center, 600 hotel rooms and 4,500 units of housing across a mix of multifamily rentals, condos and for-sale townhouses, a spokesperson for the project said. Some townhouses, part of a project called The Marais, built by Caruso Homes, are expected to be completed this fall.
"Downtown is probably comparable to National Harbor, but then we have the remaining acreage, which will continue to complement and grow Konterra as a destination location," Barbieri said. The roughly 350-acre National Harbor waterfront development, also in Maryland, serves as a hospitality and retail anchor for the state.
Gould acquired the Konterra land in the 1980s from a surface mining company.
"Over the past 40 or so years, we've actually developed quite a bit. People think, 'Oh, this has been just sitting around,' but the reality is we built over 800 single-family homes. We have about a million square feet of flex-industrial, so we've been active," Barbieri said, adding that originally the project stood at 2,000 acres, though it sold some of the property with single-family houses.
Beyond Konterra's upcoming central district, more for-sale townhouses and a smaller data center are in the works, Barbieri said.
As for the financing structure, Konterra and the Marais townhouses have been equity-financed to date, the project spokesperson said. Though the project is not assuming public finance mechanisms at this time, they may be appropriate in later phases, the spokesperson added.
Other minicities have also made headway in recent months around the nation's capital, including one in Reston, Virginia.
"I would say Reston is very commercially oriented, yet walkable, and dense and urban. We're going to be very residential and retail oriented, just as walkable, maybe with a little more green," Barbieri said.
For the record
Konterra Realty serves as the developer. Bozzuto is slated to work on the rental apartment component.