By Megan Sayles
AFRO Business Writer
msayles@afro.com
Montgomery County recently announced a $100-million deal with United Therapeutics, a biotechnology public benefit corporation, that will pave the way for economic growth in downtown Silver Spring, Md.
As part of the partnership, United Therapeutics will build a new public parking garage on Georgia Avenue, supply land and funding to Montgomery County for a state-of-the-art fiber hub and relocate the transportation department’s parking operations to a renovated facility on Brookville Road. The new parking garage will include space designated for future development of affordable housing in Silver Spring.
“When this thing builds out, it’s going to provide a lot of job opportunities. It’s going to be another reason for people to look at Silver Spring as a potential location for life science jobs,” County Executive Marc Elrich told the AFRO. “We’ve got a healthy cluster between Bethesda and the Great Seneca Corridor up by Shady Grove, but we’ve not had the same level of activity on the East side of the county. Silver Spring being right on the metro line is an ideal location to start building a hub around.”
Montgomery County is recognized as a leading life sciences and biotechnology hub. This partnership enables the county to build on this reputation. Under the agreement, once United Therapeutics constructs the new parking garage, the county will take over as owner. In return, United Therapeutics will become owner of the Spring Cameron Garage to accommodate its future growth.
Montgomery County’s relationship with United Therapeutics dates back to 2002 when it first sold land to the biotechnology company for its headquarter’s construction in Silver Spring. In 2015, the county again sold land to United Therapeutics for its Unisphere project, the world’s largest net-zero energy office building.
“Since our founding almost 30 years ago, we have been honored to be part of the downtown Silver Spring community,” said Thomas Kaufman, associate vice president of corporate real estate for United Therapeutics in a statement. “Montgomery County has been a key partner in supporting our growth during that time, and this agreement will allow us to continue our growth and support Silver Spring for years to come.”
While this partnership is expected to advance downtown Silver Spring, Elrich said infrastructure challenges remain a hindrance to the county’s overall economic growth.
“The biggest challenge the county faces is a lack of infrastructure,” said Elrich.
He explained that Maryland’s tax system does not allow Montgomery County to levy the same amount of development impact fees that Virginia counties can. These charges are imposed on the private new commercial and residential developments in order to fund infrastructure improvements made necessary by the development.
“If you look to Northern Virginia, you realize that they’ve got 30 to 40 cents above their base tax rate that’s levied on the private sector developers for construction of transportation projects. That money is walled off because they got authority from the state to have these special taxes to build transportation,” said Elrich. “Montgomery County has none of that.”
He wants the state of Maryland to permit Montgomery County to model its tax system off of localities in Northern Virginia.
“You hear all of this, ‘Look at Virginia this, and look at Virginia that.’ Conveniently, none of the people who point that out tell you that they tax the private sector far more than we do. They focus on income tax, and I’m looking at the tax on actual development, which generates hundreds of millions of dollars that we could access in the county,” said Elrich. “We are trying to model a tax system based on what they do in Northern Virginia so we can stay competitive.”
Megan Sayles is a Report For America corps member.
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