Every serious idea now in front of the City of Bowie for Bowie Town Center leaves the main buildings standing. The two studies the City paid for treat the asphalt around the mall as the land that can change, and they keep the anchor stores. One of them also expects the full plan to take decades. So the near-term changes people see on Excelsior Drive will be small, and most of them will be temporary.
That matters this week. On Thursday, October 8, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., City staff will hold a Re-envisioning Bowie Town Center Community Open House in the main lobby of City Hall at 15901 Fred Robinson Way. According to the City's event listing, staff will present "recommendations from two City commissioned studies" and ask what would make the Town Center a place to "gather, dine, shop and live." The event is drop-in, with no set presentation time. The rest of this post covers those two studies, who owns the mall now, and what has already changed there this year.
The First Study Measured Sidewalks, Not Storefronts
The older of the two reports is the State of Place Analysis of City Activity Centers. It looked at three places: Bowie Town Center, Old Town Bowie, and the MD 450 corridor. M-NCPPC's project page says the final report came in April 2024. The consultant's founder and CEO, Dr. Mariela Alfonzo, presented the findings to City Council on April 1, 2024.
The study works at the level of a single block. It focused on physical changes the City could realistically make and built nine investment scenarios: 50%, 75%, and 90% versions of the plan for each of the three areas, each with an estimated real estate value and return. The examples in the State of Place case study are trees, sidewalks, and benches.
So the first study started from the walk between buildings, not from what fills the stores. The second study took that same idea and applied it to a much bigger piece of land.
The Second Study Started With the Parking Problem
In November 2025, ULI Washington held a Technical Assistance Panel on the Town Center. The City sponsored it with support from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, and ten professionals in real estate, development, and design spent November 12 and 13 on the question. The site in the panel's report covers 123 acres in two parts. Bowie Crossing sits to the northeast and Bowie Town Center to the south, divided by Collington Road and connected by a pedestrian bridge. The report describes the site as "dozens of retailers and considerable surface parking."
The panel built on a draft vision that Bowie's Economic Development Committee had shown City Council the month before. That vision called for new retail, entertainment, housing, institutional uses, and more green and public space. The panel's high-level recommendations include:
- Co-create the Bowie Town Center plan with the community
- Connect the greenway, bicycle, and trail networks
- Create a hierarchy of public spaces and circulation
- Establish a signature park
- Connect to City Hall
- Incorporate compatible housing
The first item explains the timing of this week's open house. The panel said the next step was to bring the ideas to the community and learn its priorities, and it put "community knowledge and experience" at the center of the process.
Both Sketches Keep the Anchors
The panel drew two sample site plans. The report states the reasoning plainly: "parking lots are not generally beneficial to the community and do not generate returns."
Scheme A keeps the anchor stores and redevelops the existing parking into housing. The streets through the middle would close and become a cross-shaped Central Green for outdoor entertainment and plazas, with cars kept to the outer edge. Five-story residential buildings would wrap the existing retail, along with office space "as the market allows." Those buildings would have structured parking on the first level and shops facing the street. The plan also adds better walking routes to City Hall and to the lake and Centennial Park at the southeast corner.
Scheme B turns part of the center into a Community Cultural Campus, with spaces such as an athletic center, art center, theater, museum, and children's space.
For Bowie Crossing, the panel suggested mixed-use or office development anchored by either a regional attraction or, as an alternative, housing. The report calls all of these concepts for discussion, not a set plan for redeveloping the whole site.
So the panel did not propose tearing down the mall. Its main sketch keeps the main buildings and builds new ones around them on the parking lots.
Who Owns the Mall Now
A plan on paper only matters if the owner has a reason to go along with it, and Bowie Town Center changed hands this year. Bisnow reported on January 30, 2026 that Nile Equity Group and Community Realty Co. bought the 293,000-square-foot center for $50 million. The seller was an affiliate of WPG, a company based in Columbus, Ohio, that filed for Chapter 11 in 2021 and later put all of its remaining shopping centers up for sale.
The center was 86% leased at the time of sale. Tenants then included Macy's, Barnes & Noble, United Furniture Warehouse, and LA Fitness. The January 2026 roster from Shopping Center Business also lists Foot Locker, Bath & Body Works, Famous Footwear, Lane Bryant, Pandora, and Starbucks. United Furniture Warehouse occupies the former Sears, and the ULI report listed that space as in use in 2025, not empty.
The buyers have described their approach. Community Realty Co. President Joshua Aronson said the firm focuses on "opportunistic acquisitions, like the Bowie Town Center, that fit our investment thesis of long-term ownership of unique assets." Community Realty Co. is based in Silver Spring and was founded in 1963. Nile Equity Group owns other residential and retail properties in DC and Maryland.
A long-term owner of a mall that is mostly leased fits both ULI sketches, since both keep the anchors and add buildings around them. Neither study is a development application, though. The new owners have not filed or announced a redevelopment proposal in the sources available for this post.
| Item | Status as of October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Ownership | Nile Equity Group and Community Realty Co., bought January 2026 for $50M |
| Occupancy | 86% leased at the January 2026 sale |
| Former Sears space | Occupied by United Furniture Warehouse |
| State of Place study | Final report April 2024; nine investment scenarios |
| ULI Scheme A and Scheme B | Sample concepts for discussion, not a plan |
| Community input | Open house October 8, 2026, City Hall main lobby |
The Change That Already Happened Was About Food
The biggest change at the Town Center this year was a new tenant, with no rezoning involved. Wonder opened its food hall at 15443 Excelsior Drive on July 30, 2026, offering dine-in, pickup, and delivery. Patch reported that it has 20 concepts that can be combined in one order, including Bobby Flay Steak, Detroit Brick Pizza Co., Di Fara Pizza, Streetbird by Marcus Samuelsson, Yasas by Michael Symon, Tejas Barbecue, Maydan, and SriPraPhai. It is Wonder's second location in Prince George's County after College Park, and the company has announced a third at Largo Plaza in Upper Marlboro.
That lines up with what the ULI panel wants first. Because a full plan will likely take "decades," the panel recommended Phase Zero activations: temporary steps that need no new infrastructure, such as movable furniture, public art, and using existing sidewalks as gathering spaces. The panel suggested building these on a "Food-Experience-Culture" identity for the Town Center. It said the four buildings that share an owner may be the easiest place to begin.
The report is also direct about what isn't working now. "Currently, businesses are inward facing, there are blank walls," and there is no shared branding that gives the place an identity. The panel's ideas include seasonal gateways, clear signs and maps, and turning the "anti-climactic" alleys between the parking lots and the stores into interactive walkways. If the City and owners move forward, those smaller changes are what will show up first, years before any five-story building.
What Else Is on the City Calendar This Month
The open house sits in a busy October for City Hall and the nearby parks:
- Food Truck Frenzy at City Hall, October 16, 4 to 7 p.m.
- Boo-wie Fest at Belair Stable, 2835 Belair Drive, October 24, noon to 4 p.m., with pumpkin decorating and trick-or-treating through the shed rows. It's free and needs no registration.
- Halloween on Ice Party at Bowie Ice Arena, 3330 Northview Drive, October 24, 1 to 2:45 p.m.
- The last Bowie Farmer's Market of the season, October 25.
Food Truck Frenzy runs at City Hall, which is the building the ULI panel wants more closely tied to the Town Center.
Plans for a large shopping center affect the homes around it in ways a median price won't show, including traffic, walking access, and what gets built next door years from now. If you own near Bowie Town Center and want to understand how these plans could fit into a future sale or purchase, Anthony Lacey and the team can walk you through it. Schedule a Free Consultation.
