Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)
HR&A conducted a comprehensive assessment of MARTA’s transit-oriented development and affordable housing programs, providing strategic recommendations to improve program effectiveness and attract more national developers. Through analysis of regional development trends, performance benchmarking against peer agencies, and evaluation of MARTA’s property portfolio, we identified key improvements that positioned the agency to enhance development partnerships and outcomes while advancing community revitalization goals.
Five years after adopting new transit-oriented development guidelines, MARTA’s board sought to evaluate program effectiveness in promoting dense, mixed-use development with quality public spaces and identify improvement opportunities. The agency also needed clearer understanding of how its affordable housing policy affected joint development deal viability and strategies to attract a larger pool of national developers. HR&A’s approach combined comprehensive analysis of regional and local development trends with detailed review of existing joint development performance and pain points, benchmarking MARTA’s programs against peer city agencies to establish baseline performance metrics.
Our analysis of MARTA’s property portfolio for future development potential enabled the agency to prioritize appropriate stations for pre-solicitation market studies, feasibility analyses, and community visioning. Key recommendations included establishing an independent contracting and procurement authority for MARTA’s real estate office to simplify solicitation processes and work at private sector pace, and strengthening collaborations with regional housing and economic development organizations to unlock creative funding sources for affordable housing. The assessment demonstrated that MARTA’s program performs comparably to peer agencies while identifying specific actions to improve effectiveness, positioning the agency to attract a greater pool of national development collaborators and achieve better development outcomes that support broader community revitalization objectives.
