The concept of The HUB is not just about a development. It is about community. It is about a life center. It is about the future.
Its viability is that it is anchored in land-use planning principles, design and construction strategies that meet long-term housing and commercial needs that will benefit our area’s tax base. In short, economic indicators and fiscal analyses show that The HUB at La Plata can be an economic engine for the town and Charles County, according to Urban Analytics, Inc.
The HUB at La Plata grew from a vision that combines attracting high-quality jobs to a region, providing walkable, attractive places to live with a range of housing options, and centering shared or distributed office space near where people live.
This concept revolves around what Dr. Jay Hellman refers to as Virtual Adjacency — the idea that technology allows people to work where they want and that mobility today is not just about getting in a vehicle and making multiple trips throughout the day. People are choosing to live in neighborhoods that allow them to get their work done efficiently, or get to the store, or see their doctor, or go for a jog, or have dinner with their families, or engage in their communities.
The HUB is based on the values of using an area’s natural characteristics and anticipating its evolving transportation and growth grids to devise living and work spaces that are vibrant and sustainable. And, ultimately, these communities improve residents’ qualities-of-life and businesses’ bottom lines. This is because they are grounded in better development and leading strategies that help municipalities stay economically viable.
Today, we see and know that the best town communities are carefully planned and evolve out of coordination with the leaders and residents where they are proposed. The country is moving away from neighborhoods with cookie-cutter homes and stark boundaries that go from green to brown. Developers, towns and the public are backing away from sprawl that depletes taxpayer revenue and unnecessarily eats up tracts of land. Homeowners, and middle America, are moving away from developments that lack mixed uses and marketable identities.
Indeed, developments such as The HUB are being devised based on compatibility with the areas in which they come together. How so? Through extensive walking paths, interesting surfaces, the notion of building up and not just out, beautiful buildings, transitional green and open space, recreational venues, and attractive job sites that appeal to all kinds of people.
Again, this is the Big Picture
Slated to have cottages, condominiums, townhouses and apartments, The HUB at La Plata will have open space, housing, retail businesses, commercial job sites, and high-end public amenities … while also helping tackle one of the area’s biggest dilemmas: the many people who every day commute from Southern Maryland to federal jobs.
We are so excited about what The HUB at La Plata can mean for the town. And we think you will be too.