Charlottesville is a great college town. College Park… not so much.

In an attempt to rectify the situation, the University of Maryland is planning East Campus, a transit-oriented town center to be built across Route 1 from the main campus, surrounding a station on the to-be-built Purple line.

The idea is fantastic. The execution is a solid B. To be an A, designers will need to:

1. Figure out how to leap frat row, so the new East Campus town center and the old downtown College Park seem like one continuous space, not two competing nodes.
2. Take great care not to give back-door treatment to Route 1. Route 1 is Main Street, not a highway. If the planned civic plaza on the interior of the East Campus block draws users in and engages the whole district, then cool; mission accomplished. On the other hand, if it takes the center of activity off of Route 1 and puts it somewhere invisible, like at the new downtown Silver Spring, the resulting urbanism will feel inauthentic.
3. Ensure rents aren’t sky high. This market ain’t luxury. College students are broke. Also: high rents mean only chains, and College Park will never compete with the likes of Charlottesville if the eats are Subway, McDonald’s and Dairy Queen.
4. Engage the main campus! If East Campus is to become The Corner, it needs to be fully connected to the adjacent school. The University will need to direct some of its growth to the huge grassy lot currently between East Campus and the usable buildings on the main school.

This project has the potential to be a top example of a newly built town center, but as always, the devil is in the details. Get them wrong and this won’t stand out one bit.