A $3 billion Canadian real estate firm plans to begin work shortly on what may be Prince George’s County’s largest development since National Harbor, and it is pulling out all the stops to get the FBI to build a headquarters there as a focal point. The Walton Group, one of North America’s largest land developers, purchased the 479-acre Westphalia Town Center project along Pennsylvania Avenue near Andrews Air Force Base in February of last year, and says it will begin construction this month. The first phase of the project calls for 347 town homes, more than 400 apartments, 450,000 square feet of retail and a 150-room hotel. Under previous ownership, the project stalled because of the recession, loan defaults and a conviction on extortion charges for one of the project’s principals. But after buying the property for $29.5 million in February of last year, Walton chief executive Bill Doherty said he is three-to-four weeks from beginning construction. “This is a very real project. We’re moving fast. This is happening,” he said.

Outer Beltway, North-South Corridor, Tri-County Parkway, Bi-County Parkway, Corridor of Statewide Significance. It’s been called many things in the 30 years since Virginia’s leaders first recognized the need for a bypass linking Interstate 95 in eastern Prince William to U.S. 50 near Dulles Airport in Sterling. Today, it’s inching closer

Page Snyder, a longtime resident of Pageland Lane across from the Manassas Battlefield, points to where a proposed four-lane highway would cut through swaths of historic rural farmland. (Jeremy Borden - The Washington Post) Legendary activist Annie Snyder, before she died in 2002, told her daughter that a road she

Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. We are a regional organization based in the District of Columbia focused on ensuring transportation and development decisions are made with genuine community involvement and accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving

We don't need a ranking to know our traffic is bad. What the headlines miss is the crucial role our Metro and our other transit investments have played in preventing gridlock, in offering us an effective alternative to sitting in traffic, and in fueling an economic boom that has revitalized our city and transit-oriented suburbs. "Fifty years ago, visionary leaders conceived, planned and built Metro, and reshaped the Washington, D.C. region. The first order of business is to complete the reinvestment and full rehabilitation of this system that is so critical for our regional economy. We are also calling today for a new vision for a new generation -- for a Next Generation of Transit investments and the leadership to make it happen," said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "We believe our region's leadership is ready for the challenge."