A Road That Led To National Harbor

African American contractor and investor Carl D. Jones helps ground the $2 billion National Harbor project in Prince George's County. (National Harbor)

Hanging on the wall of the small waiting room in Carl D. Jones's unassuming office, under the photos of former Maryland governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and President Bush, is a quote from Calvin Coolidge:

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

It's the same quote that Jones's son, Jason, hung in his bedroom when he went to college. And it is the philosophy that may best explain how the father-son team has come to be the dominant minority developer in the largest mixed-use project underway on the East Coast.

The $2 billion National Harbor project, a conglomeration of offices, retail stores, residences, and hotels with convention space, is the brainchild of Fairfax developer Milton V. Peterson, who has labored more than a decade to make it happen. Three years ago, when county officials began pressuring him to find local African American partners to ground the project further in Prince George's County, the answer came to him -- literally -- one Saturday morning.

Carl Jones, who for years had owned a company that was a primary supplier of asphalt to road construction projects in Southern Maryland, had stopped by National Harbor, not far from his Oxon Hill office, to check out progress on the site.

"When I met him he was on a D-8 bulldozer," Jones, 67, said of Peterson. "He said, 'I want you to build all my roads.' He'd seen my work on the Wilson Bridge and the Beltway and said, 'Hey, you do pretty good work here.' "

Though Jones had sold his asphalt company, he signed on as an equity partner in two office buildings and a marquee restaurant on the main street of Peterson's development. He declined to say how much he put into the projects upfront, but he will share in revenue they produce. Jason Jones, 35, became a manager of design and construction for the properties, coordinating permit submissions to the county and reviewing contracts. His father is also consulting on the overall infrastructure of the project, including street, sewer and electrical-line construction, an expertise he developed 30 years ago in the District.

Back then, contractors whose crews were cutting up streets to make way for cable would complain that they couldn't find subcontractors to replace and shore up the asphalt.

"I said, 'What are you paying?' " recalled Jones, who at the time was doing subcontracting work on small digs and building scaffolding and supports on other projects. "So I bought a truck and shovels and started doing it during my lunch hour."

He carved out a niche for himself, becoming the first minority contractor for Metro. He also benefited from the federal government's 8A minority contracting program and D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's push to expand government and boost minority-owned companies' share of District government contracts. Jones did so well that eventually he was able to buy a paving company for $211,000, positioning himself to be a primary supplier of the material for road construction projects in southern Maryland.

In the early 1980s his company won nearly $10 million in contracts to pave roads and haul sludge from D.C.'s Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Plant, and Jones put his son to work raking the sludge in summer months. Over time, the company won bigger contracts, such as the Beltway and Wilson Bridge paving jobs, and grew into the fifth-largest asphalt operation in Maryland, with more than $25 million in annual sales.

In 2003, he sold the company and began to look for different kinds of business opportunities. While still maintaining an engineering office and the sludge-hauling operations, Jones turned his attention to real estate development investments through a variety of partnerships.