INTRODUCTION The Indian Head Science and Technology Park will be built on a 277 acre site in Bryans Road. This employment center is a public/private partnership between Charles County and a joint venture formed by Facchina Companies and Corporate Office Properties Trust. The purpose is to provide a desirable location in Charles County for defense and federal contrac-tors, their vendors, and other related companies to bring more high-paying jobs to the county and reduce the number of

residents who must commute out of the county for work. The vision is to create a campus of office buildings, re-search facilities, and manufacturing in a green setting that compliments the adjacent Chapman’s State Park. The site itself and all the buildings will be designed, built, and oper-ated in an environmentally responsible manner. The Park stretches from Indian Head Highway/Route 210 to Route 224 across from the airport. This location compliments and sup-ports the Bryans Road sub-area plan and benefits from prox-imity to the upgraded Maryland Airport.

What will be built? The Tech Park will have up to 1.3 million square feet of of-fices, research, and employment space on 277 acres, creating about 1500 new, high paying jobs in Charles County. Ap-proximately 50 acres have been set aside for technology-based manufacturing. How long will it take to complete the park? The current schedule is for build out in about 15 years.

Why did the county choose this location?

• Access to the base at Indian Head

• Access to the beltway & Washington DC

• It’s in the Development District.

• It’s in a Priority Funding Area (PFA).

• Most of the land was already zoned for employment.

• Access to workforce

• Proximity to the Maryland Airport

• Some of the land was given to the County by the State for this purpose when the state acquired the Chapman’s Landing property.

Who will build the park? The joint venture of Facchina and COPT will develop the park. COPT will focus on leasing and management while Facchina will manage the site development and construction. Who will pay for the development? The County is responsible for bringing public infrastructure to the site (water and sewer). All construction, all infrastruc-ture within the park (roads, telecommunications, water, and sewer), and all site work, buildings, landscaping, parking areas, and such will be paid for by private dollars. What is the benefit to the community? The Indian Head Science and Technology Park is one of the county’s top economic development priorities. Benefits to the community include:

• About 60% of the employed adults who live in Charles County commute to other jurisdictions for work. These residents are spending two and three hours a day – even more – to go where the high paying jobs are. By bring-ing more high paying jobs to Charles County, residents

won’t have to spend so much time and use so many resources in their daily commute to work.

• Many young adults are moving away from the county once they enter the workforce. Or, they go off to col-lege and never return. By providing more professional opportunities here at home, the next generation can

build their lives right here in Charles County.

• Commercial taxes that will be generated by the Indian Head Science and Technology Park will help keep taxes down for residents. In every community, residential taxes do not cover the cost of services used. On the other hand, commercial taxes paid are usually greater than services used. So a healthy balance of commercial

and residential taxes is needed to help cover the cost of

services to residents.

• By creating linkages between contractors at the Tech Park and the work at the Indian Head Base, we can help protect the base (the County’s largest employer) against future closures or reductions in mission. In fact, the realization of the Tech Park would enable this region to be identified as a critical national resource in energet-ics and related technologies.

• Through partnerships with the School District, College of Southern Maryland, the University of Maryland and other training entities, tenants located at the Tech Park will create new, technology-based career paths for our young people.

How much tax revenue will the project generate? The net fiscal impact to Charles County from the develop-ment of the Indian Head Science and Technology Park at full build-out and occupancy is estimated to be $1.5 million an-nually. How will this campus be designed to protect the environment? Both developers/builders involved in this project – COPT and Facchina – have a proven track record for responsible

environmental stewardship. From COPT’s website: We are award-winning leaders in building "green", and we are committed to creating facilities that are environmentally sound and exemplify the best practices of green development. Every new property we develop is built to meet the requirements for Silver certification in the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program of the U.S. Green Building Council. Green features include improved environmental qual-ity, extremely efficient mechanical systems, water usage re-duction, and green housekeeping programs.

COPT has four buildings that are certified gold; four build-ings certified silver; and 33 others registered for LEED silver or gold certification. Fourteen professionals in the Company hold the LEED Accredited Professional designation. More information about the LEED program is available at the US Green Building Council website, www.usgbc.org. Paul Facchina, Sr, founder and CEO of the Facchina Group of Companies has proven his commitment to the environment through his many donations to the Maryland Environmental Trust. In fact, Mr. Facchina has protected more land

through this program – almost 2000 acres – than any other individual in State history.

Facchina is also an experienced LEED builder, including construction of the new La Plata Town Hall, a design/build project that has been awarded LEED certification. This demonstrated commitment to environmentally sound

business practices will be maintained at the Indian Head Science and Technology Park – from design through devel-opment, construction, resources, and operation. If most of the land was already zoned for employ-ment, why this application for a zoning change? Over 200 acres of the site is currently zoned BP, business park. These parcels abut routes 224 and 227. A few parcels were not zoned for employment – but they are the parcels that are accessible to Indian Head Highway. It makes sense to have such a facility feed onto a major highway. The developers are asking for a PEP overlay (Planned Em-ployment Park) for the entire site in order to provide a master planned technology park. The Overlay zoning will allow the developers to have a greater mix of uses including office,

warehouse, manufacturing, flex space, research and de-

velopment, as well as a small component of retail to support the users of the park. Who will be the tenants? It’s expected that a mix of large federal and defense con-

tractors and small, high-tech companies will be the pri-mary tenants of the site. COPT has experience building and leasing office parks such as this throughout the Washington DC region. Users will primarily work in office and research

environments, although the park will include a small amount of high tech manufacturing. It is also expected that the large companies will be followed by their vendors – smaller com-panies that might locate at other nearby office parks. The county’s economic development team will coordinate these attraction efforts with COPT. The first company to commit to a facility at the park is Martin-Baker Aircraft Company Ltd., a manufacturer of ejec-tion seats who will make Cartidge Actuated Devices and Propellant Actuated Devices (CAD/PAD) for their seats at the park. Martin-Baker is the largest supplier of ejection seats in the world with facilities in the U.K., France, Italy and the United States. Their ejection seats are used by 88 Air Forces worldwide and are known for their quality and reli-ability for saving lives. Over 7280 lives have been saved to date with more than 3700 of these being U.S. pilots. What are these devices and how are they used? They can be as simple as a shotgun shell type of item to a sophisticated device that can open a door or eject a canopy.

These devices are present in our everyday life — mostly in life-saving applications. Your car can have as many as 15 of these devices performing functions such as seat belt retraction, air bag deployment, and head restraint. These common devices are all derived from designs used in the aircraft ejection systems. The materials used to manufacture these devices are all handled in controlled, safe environments using procedures and equipment that have been developed through decades of experience. The safety record for Martin-Baker is better than nearly all light manufacturing operations because of this emphasis on safety. The average gun enthusiast using hand loader equipment has much more hazardous material expo-sure than one would experience in the Martin-Baker plant. What about the environment? Martin-Baker has gained recognition as an environmentally supportive company through their attention to energy usage, water conservation, pollution management, recycling and waste management. They have created a nature preserve called Martin’s Meadow at their UK facility. As the result of these policies, Martin-Baker’s UK operation was awarded “The Queen’s Award for Sustainable Development” in 2004. This commitment to the environment will be a key foundation for their facility in the Indian Head Science and Technology Park. You can read about Martin-Baker’s environmental initia-tives at http://www.martin-baker.com/MB-enviroment.aspx. What is the difference between the Indian Head Sci-ence and Tech Park and The Energetics Technol-ogy Center? Simply put, the Energetics Technology Center is a 501C(3) corporation that will eventually have a home at the Indian Head Science and Technology Park. The Energetics Technology Center was created as a spin-off of the Center for Energetics Concepts Development at the University of Maryland in College Park. ETC work is fo-cused on research and development of technologies associ-ated with energetic materials and energetics systems as well as workforce development programs for engineers and technicians. The organization has a paid staff and a Board of Directors and currently operates in leased space in La Plata. Customers of the ETC will include the Department of De-fense (DOD), Homeland Security, NASA, defense contrac-tors, private industry, and educational institutions. How is Energetics defined? Energetics is the science of explosives, propellants, and pyro-technics. Energetics engineering involves research and de-velopment, testing, and the manufacture of energetics prod-

ucts and materials. Are energetics and pyrotechnics the same thing? In some parts of the world, the term pyrotechnics is more commonly used to describe what we call energetics here in the United States.

What was the purpose of the zoning text amend-ment that was approved in October? The zoning text amendment was approved by the Charles County Commissioners in order to create more opportunity to attract businesses. Nothing in Charles County’s land use regulations allowed for manufacturing of energetic related components. The zoning text amendment that was approved in October of 2008 added energetics as an approved use in the PEP zone in order to accommodate potential businesses that might want to locate in the park.

What is the danger to the neighborhood to have that as an approved use? As is the case with Martin-Baker, storage of energetic materi-als and manufacture of energetic components must be done under strict safety procedures that are regulated by the Fed-eral government. Those regulations include “buffers” of space around facilities to protect adjacent buildings in the unlikely event of an accident. Many Charles County resi-dents are familiar with the research at the base at Indian Head which includes similar activities. Will this be the main function of Indian Head Sci-ence and Technology Park? No. Manufacturing activity will occupy a small amount of land on the back side of the park. Manufacturing that in-volves energetic components will be just a fraction of activity located there. The majority of the buildings that will be built at the Tech Park will be offices, research facilities, and flex

space as well as a handful of auxiliary retail uses to serve the companies located at the Park.

This brochure was created by the Charles County Department of Economic Development and Tourism. If you have ques-tions about this project that have not been answered here or would like additional information, please contact us: Economic Development &

Tourism Department 103 Centennial Street, Suite C La Plata, MD 20646 301-885-1340 keethm@charlescounty.org www.TheNationsBackyard.com

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October 29, 2008: The Charles County Commissioners hold a signing ceremony at

the Annual Economic Development Summit for a public/private partnership agreement to develop the Indian Head Science and Technology Park.

Charles County Commissioners

Wayne Cooper, President Edith J. Patterson, Ed.D., Vice President (Dist. 2)

Reuben B. Collins, II (Dist. 3) Samuel N. Graves, Jr. (Dist. 1)

Gary V. Hodge (Dist. 4)

Equal Opportunity County ● Say No To Drugs Mission Statement: The mission of the Charles County Govern-ment is to provide our citizens the highest quality of service possi-ble in a timely, efficient, and courteous manner. To achieve this goal, our government must be operated in an open and accessi-ble atmosphere, be based on comprehensive long- and short-term planning, and have an appropriate managerial organization tem-pered by fiscal responsibility. Vision Statement: Charles County is a place where all people thrive and businesses grow and prosper; where the preservation of our heritage and environment is paramount; where government services to its citizens are provided at the highest level of excel-lence; and where the quality of life is the best in the nation.

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