CRIME STATS County sees spike in carjackings, drop in burglaries. A-5
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NORTHERN AND CENTRAL PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNT Y DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Thursday, February 19, 2015
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Dining, arts venue replaces old bar n
Bridges inspected after car damaged
College Park space could open next year, developer says BY
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KIRSTEN PETERSEN STAFF WRITER
College Park residents who are looking for an arts and dining experience may travel out to Busboys and Poets in Hyattsville to get their fix. But soon, they may be able to enjoy a restaurant and performing arts venue within the city at the former site of The Barking Dog. “I think most of us assumed it would be a bar again,” said John Rigg, the president of the Calvert Hills Citizens Association. “The fact that it’s not a bar again is a step in an exciting new direction.” Philadelphia-based developer U3 Advisors is in the pre-development stage of turning The Barking Dog, which closed in 2013, into a restaurant on the first floor and a performing arts venue and community space upstairs, said co-CEO Omar Blaik. The space would be operated by MilkBoy, a Philadephia-based restaurant, music venue and recording studio, and feature performances and arts
See BAR, Page A-7
Hyattsville budget increases Additional funds go to staff increases, raises
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BY JAMIE
ANFENSON-COMEAU STAFF WRITER
Hyattsville’s anticipated tax revenues are up, and the city plans to use the money to hire additional staff, provide cost-of-living increases and for health and wellness initiatives, according to city officials. “Major revenues in the General Fund are expected to increase or remain consistent with Fiscal Year 2015 levels,” said Hyattsville City Administrator Tracey Nicholson during the Feb. 11 budget introduction hearing. Hyattsville’s total operating budget from all sources is $25.3 million, an increase of 10 percent over last year’s approved $23 million budget. Nicholson said the increased budget will allow the city to pay a 1.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment, raises for those employees who qualify and funding for five full-time equivalent employees. “Personnel requests include a DPW [Department of Public Works] project coordinator; 1.5 police officers — that’s one officer for the full fiscal year and one to start in January; one community planner, a part-time parking aide,
See HYATTSVILLE, Page A-8
Automotive Calendar Classified Entertainment Opinion Sports
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Beltway bridge is ‘structurally deficient’; loose concrete removed from six bridges BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
KIRSTEN PETERSEN/THE GAZETTE
Ramona Moyer (right), vice president of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle School PTSA, and her daughter speak with John Mangrum, the Laurel school’s incoming principal, during a Feb. 10 meet-and-greet.
Principal No. 6 welcomed Laurel parents back leader, the sixth in three years BY
KIRSTEN PETERSEN STAFF WRITER
J
ohn Mangrum, the new principal at Eisenhower Middle School, said his turn as the school’s leader will not be nearly as short as those of his five predecessors, who each spent a year or less at the Laurel school. Rather, he said he hopes to still be principal in 2021 so he can shake hands with his current sixth graders when they graduate from Laurel High School. “For any change to take place it takes at least two or three years. For anything to be instilled or adopted, it takes at least three or five years,” Mangrum said. “I want to make sure for us moving forward as an [Inter-
“I want to make sure for us moving forward as an [International Baccalaureate] school that consistency is there for the school and the community.” John Mangrum, Eisenhower Middle School principal
national Baccalaureate] school that consistency is there for the school and the community.” Mangrum, who took over Jan. 26, served as an assistant principal at Wheaton High School in Silver Spring for two-and-a-half years before coming to Eisenhower. He previously worked as an assistant school administrator at Pyle Middle School in Bethesda and Francis Scott Key Middle School in Silver Spring, he said. PTSA president Ronald Dortch said he believes Mangrum can put an end to the high turnover of principals at Eisenhower. “He’s young. He’s eager. I just really think he’s what we really need,”
See PRINCIPAL, Page A-7
Dave & Buster’s coming to county Restaurant part of expansion of Ritchie Station Marketplace
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BY
DANIEL LEADERMAN STAFF WRITER
A Dave & Buster’s restaurant will soon come to Capitol Heights and will headline an expansion of the Ritchie Station Marketplace shopping center over the coming year. The expansion, projected to cost about $30 million, will also include shoe retailer DSW, an Ashley Furniture and several smaller retail spaces, according to NAI The Michael Cos., the Lanham-based developer behind the project. The Dave & Buster’s is expected to open in about 12 months, while the other stores are projected to open in the fourth quarter of this year, said Michael Isen, senior vice-president at NAI Michael. “It’s a very big deal for the county,” said Scott Peterson, spokesman for Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D). “It’s
long been known in Prince George’s that this was a brand residents wanted to see.” The restaurant will occupy a freestanding, 40,000-square foot structure just north of I-495, while the shoe and furniture retailers will be in a new structure in the same commercial strip as the Big Lots and Bed Bath and Beyond stores, Isen said. Two additional buildings, intended to house smaller establishments such as dry cleaners or banks, are planned to be built next to the freestanding McDonald’s restaurant in the shopping center, Isen said. Stores currently located at Ritchie Station Marketplace also include T.J. Maxx, B.J’s Wholesale Club and Modell’s Sporting Goods. Dave & Buster’s locations are a mixture of restaurant, bar, pool hall and video arcade with dozens of restaurants across the country, but the only other Dave & Buster’s in Maryland is located at the Arundel Mills mall in Hanover, which is also the site of Maryland Live! Casino. Dave & Busters’s previously had
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INDEX
SPORTS: Fairmont Heights goes from 0 points to second place at state indoor track meet. B-1
‘TURNED ITS BACK’
Parents, coaches of championship team leaving Boy & Girls Club league after fights, suspensions.
A-8
a restaurant at White Flint Mall in Montgomery County, but that location shut down last summer as that mall’s owners prepared to redevelop the property. In addition to pool and video games, the Arundel Mills Dave & Buster’s offers bowling, shuffleboard and late-night happy-hour prices on drinks. Isen said he hadn’t seen the final floor plans for the new location, and that the restaurant’s features vary from location to location. Dave & Buster’s has been eyeing a location at Ritchie Station Marketplace since at least 2012, and while the deal “took some time” to complete, Isen said the lease with Dave & Buster’s was signed and the first set of permits had been filed as of last week. The lure of Dave & Buster’s has already attracted interest from national restaurant chains in coming to the property, Isen said. dleaderman@gazette.net
Volume 18, No. 8, Two sections, 20 Pages Copyright © 2015 The Gazette
State highway workers were deployed to remove loose chunks of concrete from six Prince George’s County bridges this weekend after a piece fell from an I-495 bridge over Suitland Road Feb. 10 and struck a passing car. The bridges allow both directions of traffic on I-495 to cross Suitland Parkway, MD-4 and MD-414. The driver in the Feb. 10 incident was not hurt, and Acting Maryland Transportation Secretary Pete K. Rahn offered his apologies to her in a Feb. 12 statement in which he also announced the inspections of 27 stateowned bridges, including four in Prince George’s County. Officials added another 42 bridges across the state to that list late last week. “These targeted statewide inspections will help us immediately identify any bridges in need of repair, with the goal of preventing what happened Tuesday from happening again,” Rahn said in a statement. Of the 2,093 bridges across Maryland that are maintained by state authorities, 82 are considered “structurally deficient” and rehabilitation efforts for these bridges are either underway or in the design phase, according to the Maryland Department of Transportation. The two bridges that I-495 uses to cross Suitland Road — one each for the inner and outer loops — are among those that are “structurally deficient.” Repair work on the inner-loop bridge, from which the concrete fell, began immediately, said Chuck Brown, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation. Design work for a more permanent
See BRIDGES, Page A-8
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Workers remove loose concrete from the I-495 bridge over Suitland Road on Monday.
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