Frederick County government looks to build affordable housing on Prospect Center campus

The Frederick County government is taking steps to construct affordable housing units on the Prospect Center campus, which the county acquired in October 2021 for $20 million to use as a multi-agency complex.

The 26-acre property on Himes Avenue in Frederick includes several large parking areas, in addition to the 209,000-square-foot main building, which the county previously used as a mass vaccination site.

The county is redeveloping the building, which will house several government entities, such as a 911 call center, an internal data center, and several divisions including Family Services and Human Resources.

According to county Housing Director Vincent Rogers, the proposed affordable housing units would be built on 8.5 acres of the Prospect Center property that is currently an underused parking area.

Based on the size of the parcel and the number of units in similar affordable housing projects, Rogers said, the county anticipates building 150 to 200 units on the Prospect Center campus.

Depending on the proposals that developers put forth, Rogers said, the units could all be part of the same multifamily building or be split between two buildings.

The units would be designated as workforce or senior housing, depending in part on preliminary results from a planned housing needs assessment, Rogers said.

The county is soliciting bids to determine which company will do the assessment.

The county plans to put out a request for proposals related to the Prospect Center affordable housing project within the next few months, Rogers said. The project is expected to be completed in 2028.

In an interview on Thursday, County Executive Jessica Fitzwater said the development of affordable housing on county-owned land has been a priority of her transition team, as well as the joint city-county Affordable Housing Council.

As a member of the County Council, Fitzwater was a liaison to the Affordable Housing Council and voted in favor of the Prospect Center acquisition.

At that time, there were no plans to build affordable housing specifically on the Prospect Center campus.

However, the potential for future development on the site was known as early as last summer, when the Fitzwater administration briefed the current council on the Prospect Center.

“Because the parcel is so large, it provided us an opportunity to really think big and think differently about how to continue to scratch the surface of the problem we and other jurisdictions are facing when it comes to affordable housing,” Fitzwater said on Thursday.

The redevelopment of the Prospect Center building itself is expected to cost roughly $149 million, including the $43 million already allocated toward the initiative by the county, state and federal governments, according to the proposed capital improvement program (CIP) for fiscal years 2025-2030.

The proposed CIP for the next five fiscal years does not include any money for the proposed affordable housing units on the Prospect Center campus, Fitzwater said.

It is not yet clear how much money, if any, the county would put toward the affordable housing project. However, Rogers said, “the goal is going to be that the county’s investment of the land is our main investment in the project.”

“This is gonna be sort of our first foray into this kind of a project on county-owned land,” Rogers said. “But what I’ve seen in other areas is that, with the county providing the land to the developer, there should be very little actual cost to the county.”

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. David Trone announced he was requesting $7.5 million in federal Community Project Funding for affordable housing units at the Prospect Center. If approved, the money would be tied to fiscal year 2025.

Other local projects covered by Trone’s requests for FY 2025 Community Project Funding include:

* $5,720,000 for Middletown to install an enhanced nutrient removal system at its wastewater treatment plant

* $5,000,000 for the city of Frederick to repair and upgrade sidewalks

* $4,000,000 for the city of Brunswick to upgrade its water and wastewater treatment plants

* $3,000,000 for the Brunswick Volunteer Ambulance and Rescue Company to construct a new building

* $1,919,950 for the Frederick-based nonprofit Justice Jobs of Maryland

* $1,041,000 for the FC Frederick Clean Water project