Is Laurel Maryland the New San Jose?

Is Laurel the New San Jose?

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Maryland may be an even bigger winner than Virginia in BRAC—an expected 60,000 new jobs due to expansions at Aberdeen, Andrews, Fort Meade, Fort Detrick and the National Naval Medical Center. But even more eye-popping, and largely unreported in the press: a new Cyber Command at Ft. Meade could (in the view of some) transform that area into a new Silicon Valley.

$1.1 billion of construction is ongoing at Ft Meade, primarily by Hensel Phelps (this is a DISA facility designed by RTKL with HOK and HSMM doing other buildings nearby). BRAC relocations must be complete by Sept. 2011, and contractors will need space near the base, a bonus for an adjacent COPT national business park that could see an increase from 7,500 to more than 30,000 jobs. (There are already 40,000 jobs on post and 94,000 in the region associated with Ft. Meade, projected to rise to 63,000 and 128,000 after the expansions.)

Ft. Meade Commander Col. Daniel Thomas tells us that base will soon house 5,500 employees of three DoD agencies focusing on media, information systems, and background checks. He predicts the Cyber Command will be huge: "The center for cyber security for the United States is going to be Fort Meade."

It's an exciting time for Theo Bell of Newmark Knight Frank, who’s Howard County's BRAC rep. "Cyber is a whole new opportunity for companies that are building. There's land available outside the gates where they're going to build this infrastructure," Theo says. "In less than a dozen years, you'll see this region being the next Tysons.” Of course, that’s a two-edged sword, he adds: “All the problems Tysons has, we're going to have here." Executive director of Howard County’s BRAC office Kent Menser tells us NSA could build as much as 5.8M SF for the Cyber Command. And Trammell Crow won an enhanced-use lease deal on 160 acres of Army land just outside Fort Meade and is negotiating with the Army Corps on the details of housing up to 10,000 workers in as much as 2M SF of commercial space for multiple private-sector tenants.

All this growth takes Laurel further from its roots as a mill town in the 1800s (and a railway stop ever since). But then San Jose had its origins as a gold mining town and sleepy exurb before silicon chip manufacturers changed things.

Quick Bites

Can you ever have too many burgers? Shake Shack, the New York joint whose fans line up for ShackBurgers, fries, and (of course) milk shakes, is the latest to announce that it’s bringing its high-end hamburgers to Dupont. It’s going into this Jemal-owned building at 1216 18th St., in the former Fuddrucker’s space at the corner with Connecticut. (The yellow awning there now is bound to go.) Rogue States is already grilling at 1300 Connecticut (though there's a contretemps brewing with upstairs tenant Steptoe about fumes), while BGR the Burger Joint is just north of the Circle. Restaurant broker extraordinaire Tom Papadopoulos tells us BLT Restaurants’ Italian concept, Casa Nonna, is due soon at 1250 Connecticut, while the same company’s Go Burger  is fired up to open across the avenue. To succeed with such competition “you better be good at what you do,” he says. And more competition is coming soon. Tom’s Papadopolous Properties is repping super-chef Bobby Flay’s Burger Palace in its search for a downtown D.C. location.

RETAIL CONDOS

Holland & Knight partners Steven Dube and Janis Schiff hosted a recent seminar with Calkain Cos. CEO Jonathan Hipp and Rick Fernandez, managing director of Calkain Urban Advisors, to analyze the local urban "retail condo" market. “This is a growing segment, and is becoming a much more popular transaction in the District,” Jonathan tells us, adding that retail condos also allow penetration into urban markets previously not accessible without a much larger investment of capital. Jonathan also advised that the retail component is part of a condo regime set up under a triple net lease. And who better to also sit on the panel than Steven, co-chair of the Holland & Knight's national condominium development team (who has represented the developers of more than 5,000 retail, office and residential condo units in the past five years here).

GEORGIA ON OUR MIND

Your publisher’s in Atlanta today getting ready for our big State of the Capital Markets conference tomorrow. Usually he shows no imagination and stays north in Buckhead, kind of a CRE central, but this time he decided to explore the revitalized “midtown” area of the city, which he reports is full of (excuse the technical talk) awesome big buildings like the brand new Loews Hotel and adjacent office and condo skyscrapers. Bad news: the area overbuilt and it may be a while before they’re filled up and lots of planned buildings (eg, a Trump Hotel) resume.

Quick, what is this? The home of Coca Cola? CNN? No, this is the Atlanta Four Seasons Hotel and Residences. Doesn't look like our G’Town Four Seasons.

Cool buildings everywhere you look.

But amazingly, in the center of it all, old 189-acre Piedmont Park, site of the 1895 World’s Fair and Paul McCartney concerts. We snapped its big lake yesterday, looking as peaceful as ever.