Centex Feeling Confident in Wheaton

Planners have been busy working on all the new developments getting ready to launch near the Wheaton Metro station, but walk a half mile north to the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Arcola Avenue and you'll find a busy construction site. Where eager students once sat glued to their physics texts at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School (since relocated to Olney), bulldozers now rule as townhouses rise to completion. The high school was demolished in 2007, with the Rafferty gymnasium the only original structure remaining. Centex Homes of Dallas, TX began building on the 14-acre site in 2008, and have now completed 85 of the originally proposed 190 homes. But in late July, the Montgomery County Planning Board approved Centex's request to raze the Rafferty Center to make way for an elaborate open field, intended for the "general play" of their new residents. The total approved number homes will now soar from 190 to 194, as Centex proposes to add new townhouses to abut the new parkland. As now planned and approved, the completed Leesborough Townhomes will consist of 143 townhomes, 45 condominiums or "garden units," and six single family homes.

Local residents were holding out hope that the county would maintain the gymnasium as a recreational facility or that Centex would develop the building into a mixed use space involving community amenities and additional office space. But the County announced in June that is was scrapping its plans for renovation of the Rafferty Center, and clearly Centex wants nothing to do with it as well. However, the County does have plans to develop another full service community recreation center on the southwest quadrant of the Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road intersection. The $20 million project will be fully stocked with basketball courts, a state-of-the-art gym and other recreational amenities. But as expected, there will be a significant time lapse separating the leveling of Rafferty and the opening of the new facility; planners can't begin the project for at least another four years, when the Randolph Road site, now serving as staging area for Inter-County Connector highway construction, opens up.

Looks ready for a pick up soccer game.

All in all, this is a positive sign that Centex is confident in demand for more housing. With development plans stalled across the metro area, it remains one of the few active site. It is a welcome reverse from the direction Centex was forced into several years ago, as it pulled the plug on a few large projects scattered about the metro area. The completed townhouses are currently being offered from the upper $300's.

Wheaton Maryland real estate development news