For the last two years, a group of volunteer residents along the Route 1 corridor called Welcome Home Neighbor have worked to assist families in need who are moving to the area.

In 2022, Jamila Larson and Mark Betancourt met a mother and two kids moving from a shelter to an empty apartment on Mother’s Day weekend.

The two contacted the HOPE in Hyattsville and Nurturing Parents email listservs to see who could help them get situated, and Larson said they were “overwhelmed with the response.” Since then, they’ve helped a little more than one family each month.

“We’ve had strangers donate food baskets to welcome families home, assemble little home libraries for children’s rooms, and buy clothes and baby bassinets,” Larson told the Hyattsville Wire. “We want families to have the basic tools they need to do the hard work of running a household alone with as many comforts of home as possible.”

Larson’s day job is as executive director of the Playtime Project, which provides children’s programs in shelters in D.C. and Prince George’s County. But Welcome Home Neighbor is not a registered non-profit; instead, it focuses on rounding up and delivering resources with low overhead.

“We just do what we can on the weekends as volunteers,” Larson added. “We’re all parents with busy lives doing what others did to help us out along the way.”

If you’re interested in helping, email Welcome Home Neighbor at neighborwelcomehome@gmail.com and cc jamilalarson@yahoo.com.

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The new owners of the Campus Village Shoppes center at 8147 Baltimore Ave., which previously housed several eateries, including Taqueria Habanero, recently announced their planned development for the site.

LV Collective plans involve the construction of 299 apartments and 13,000 square feet of retail, with returning tenants such as Taqueria Habanero, Hanami Sushi, Mr. Fries Man, and the UPS Store.

The project is located across the street from Vigilante Coffee and will include a ground-floor coffee shop and a community center that pays homage to the history of Lakeland, a historically Black community in the area.

“We have worked closely with the city of College Park and the Lakeland community to create this development that will bring value and vibrancy to this neighborhood and honor its identity,” said Andreé Sahakian, senior development manager at LV Collective, in a release.

The building will also feature a coworking space on the second-floor mezzanine and is slated to open in the fall of 2027.

When completed, the project would add to the changing landscape of the area, which is already home to three tall apartment buildings aimed at University of Maryland students: University View, The Varsity and Tempo.

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A new art gallery and studio in Mount Rainier is showcasing local artists as well as teaching the arts.

Located at 3510 Rhode Island Ave., inside a renovated historic building, Station 3510 exhibits local art while also offering community workshops and teaching various art classes.

At one recent event, held in conjunction with New Brooklyn Farms and Diaspora Honey, kids aged 5 to 14 looked at real bees in a glass observation beehive, sampled honey and then made bee-inspired paintings. Another event slated for Sunday will feature paper weaving.

Station 3510 also regularly features exhibitions where you can buy from local artists, including “How to Day Dream,” which kicks off with an event from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight.

Both photographers, Jarrett Hendrix is the owner of the studio and art gallery, while Michael Ant serves as the Creative Director. They told the Hyattsville Wire that they had the idea for a combination studio/gallery/marketplace earlier this year which came together pretty quickly.

Station 3510 is located inside a building from 1947 that was fixed up by Daniel Simon, who also renovated the Palmer Building in Hyattsville currently occupied by Vigilante coffee.

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A new full-service luxury salon and wellness spa has opened on Route 1, in the Woodridge neighborhood of D.C., just south of Mount Rainier.

Located at 2308 Rhode Island Ave. NE, next to the Zeke’s Coffee roastery (which is opening its expanded cafe next month), Studio Chique offers hair care, including styling, coloring, and straightening; wellness services such as body sculpting and waxing; hydrotherapy and colonic irrigation; and more.

They also have a Japanese head spa, where massage and serums are used to promote circulation, relieve stress, and improve scalp and hair health. And their wellness spa even offers a monthly membership option.

Previously located on Georgia Avenue, the salon is in a soft-launch phase as of July 15, with plans to hold a grand opening soon.

Owner and founder Ngina Thomas, who envisioned and designed the new space on her own, aims to serve a diverse mix of clients from the neighborhood and the greater D.C. area.

Studio Chique is open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays, and noon to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

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A historic Masonic lodge in Hyattsville may soon get a second life.

The owners of the Mount Hermon Lodge No. 179 have applied for the building to be designated a historic property by the county and are studying how it could be adapted for other uses.

Located at 4207 Gallatin St., across from St. Jerome Academy, the two-story Romanesque Revival lodge was built in 1893 after the Masons moved from Bladensburg.

The building’s owners recently received a $25,000 grant from Prince George’s County to draw up architectural and engineering plans and conduct a feasibility study for potential alternative uses.

They have also asked the Prince George’s County Historic Preservation Commission to consider designating the building a historic property, which will be discussed at a hearing on July 23.

The Mount Hermon Lodge is already considered a “contributing” property to the Hyattsville Historic District, so that will likely be approved.

The bigger question is what kinds of alternative uses the building could support. With nearly 9,000 square feet of space and high ceilings, it could be turned into an event space or be divided into smaller rooms, much like the Arcade building that’s now home to Pyramid Atlantic Art Center up the street.

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Manifest Bread in Riverdale Park is expanding its bakery and opening a new sit-down restaurant in a vacant space next door.

Located at 6208 Rhode Island Ave., the popular organic bakery has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help pay for the costs of the build-out and buying a new oven.

The new space will have room for around 30 seats and at 3,000 square feet, nearly triple its current size. In the new space, it will serve a slightly expanded menu of breads, pastries and sandwiches during the day, then at night it will turn into a bar and restaurant.

Owners Rick and Tyes Cook told the Hyattsville Wire that the restaurant will intentionally limit its menu to seasonal ingredients and things that can be made in an oven.

“The menu and its contents simple and seasonal, will be limited to what can be produced from the oven and a couple other cooking elements,” Tyes Cook said. “These restrictions are what spark creativity.”

The two have been thinking about opening a restaurant for a while, but their plans got delayed as they spent time learning how to bake bread and opening the bakery in 2022.

Manifest Bread is closing on Sunday, July 28, for construction for four months, with Cook saying they hope to reopen by Thanksgiving.

You can contribute to the Kickstarter here.

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A popular Mexican restaurant in the Berwyn neighborhood of College Park has expanded.

Tacos a la Madre, which opened a sit-down restaurant on Berwyn Road in 2021 and is a favorite in the Hyattsville Wire reader poll, has added a second location in Beltsville.

The new location is at 11623 Beltsville Dr., not far from Interstate 95 in the Calverton area. Chief Operating Officer Herson Romero told the Hyattsville Wire that they were impressed by the revitalization of the area and the potential for growth.

“We were super excited to be given the opportunity to be a part of it,” he said.

The interior of the taqueria was dramatically redesigned for a more modern look by local architect Christian Romero, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland.

The new restaurant is a big step for the family-owned restaurant, which got its start working from home in 2020 and then at a temporary location at a Holiday Inn before moving to Berwyn.

The menu includes a number of traditional tacos made with ingredients such as beef tongue, chorizo and carne asada as well as new twists such as a mushrooms, fried zucchini and crab cakes. A customer favorite are its shrimp tacos, which were named among the 25 best in the U.S. by a national website.

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