Langley Park, Maryland - History - Commercial Development

Commercial Development

Langley Park is probably best known as a center of commercial activity in northwestern Prince George's County. At each corner of the New Hampshire Avenue / University Boulevard intersection is a large strip shopping center. Three of them are now known as Langley Park Plaza (northeast corner), Langley Park Shopping Center (northwest corner), and Hampshire-Langley Shopping Center (southwest corner). The area is generally known as the Takoma/Langley Crossroads shopping area. It continues east along University Boulevard to the intersection at Riggs Road to encompass the International Mall and other smaller strip shopping centers in an area designated as the "International Corridor."

• Langley Park Plaza is the largest of the four centers. It was once the second largest strip mall in Maryland. Plans were originally announced in 1951 for development of the 15-acre (61,000 m2) site to include 40 stores and a six- to eight-story office building. The site remained undeveloped until 1954, when the Washington, D.C.-based department store Lansburgh's announced plans to open a three-story, 126,750-square-foot (11,775 m2), $2 million store. It was the first major department store opened in Prince George's County. Through the demise of the Lansburgh's chain in 1973, it would remain its most profitable store. At the store's opening in October 1955, in addition to substantial displays and a payroll of 350, it contained the "Hampshire Room" — a luncheonette seating 90 and a community room to hold about 200. The remainder of the plaza opened shortly thereafter and included a Giant Food store and Peoples Drug store. After Lansburgh's closed in 1973, it was occupied by E. J. Korvette, followed by K-Mart (opened September 1981), and most recently by Toys "R" Us. The Giant Food store closed around 1994 and is now occupied by a local Latino grocery store. In recent years, the plaza has become a shopping destination for many recent immigrants, especially those from Central America. An attraction in the plaza is a fountain, nestled in a section of the mall, where recent immigrants take photos to show their families and friends at home that they have arrived in the United States. The center continues in the hands of a descendent of the original Langley Park estate owner, Leander McCormick-Goodhart.
• Development of the Hampshire-Langley Shopping Center was first announced in August 1959. The 25-store center was built on the 10-acre (40,000 m2) site for $3 million and developed by Giant Food Properties, Inc. When opened in February–March 1960, it included a 19,000-square-foot (1,800 m2) Safeway supermarket and Kress (later McCrory's) variety store, the first in the Washington, D.C. area. The Safeway store expanded in the early 1980s. The 131,700-square-foot (12,240 m2) grocery-anchored center is currently managed by Saul Centers, Inc., of Bethesda. The Safeway closed in October 2009 and has been sub-leased to an Asian supermarket, which opened in December 2009.
• The Langley Park Shopping Center is a 135,000-square-foot (12,500 m2) shopping center currently anchored by a Rite Aid drug store. The center opened in August 1951, when a Food Fair supermarket opened; it was later converted to an Acme, then Grand Union. This center was home to a Dart Drug, Hot Shoppes, and the 1,000-seat Langley Theater, which opened in March 1952. Later converted to a multi-screen theater, it closed in the early 1990s when the owner, K/B Theaters, went out of business. The shopping center is now home to the landmark Woodlands Indian restaurant. The Takoma/Langley Crossroads project calls for the parking lot of this center to be the site of the transit center.
• The southeast corner of the New Hampshire Avenue / University Boulevard intersection consists of a set of two small strip shopping centers with a 7-Eleven convenience store in between. These centers were the first shopping destination at Langley Park. A longtime business in the University Boulevard side was Weile's Creations, a noted ice cream parlor in business from 1938 to the early 1980s. For some decades, the noted Indian restaurant Udupi Palace has been at the University Boulevard center.