Montgomery County Planning Board Gives Wheaton Safeway Go-Ahead

Create a landscaped terrace and art installment, or fork over nearly a million dollars to County Planners: thanks to a Montgomery County Planning Board ruling last Thursday, developers at Patriot Realty will do both. Last spring a "favorable" staff report concerning Patriot's mixed-use "Wheaton Safeway" redevelopment proposal across from the Wheaton Metro questioned whether their efforts to satisfy the "20 percent public amenity requirement" was satisfactory. Apparently not quite, as the Planning Board gave developers the green light to move forward with the plans for the 50,000 s.f. Safeway and 17-story apartment complex, but required that Patriot contribute $961,161 to a public amenity fund in addition to its proposed public terrace. But pay to play seems

de rigueur, as Patriot and local urbanists are just happy the large-scale, transit-oriented project is finally moving forward.

Designed by Baltimore-based architecture firm Hord Coplan Macht, the new building will shoot what appears to be 3 vertical towers skyward, dwarfing all the other buildings in Wheaton. But the towers are simply a visual ploy to avoid the appearance of a mammoth monolith of a building, as each column is connected at the center. But the break up of the massing does succeed in this capacity, as the giant structure does not at first glance appear to be a singular integrated building. Lee Driskill, a Principal with the firm and the lead architect for the project, explains that "the skin" of the building "has been organized to have these three tower elements come to the fore." The result is not a bland block, but a "tall and elegant" building.

The 195-foot building will feature a new Safeway on street level, an underground parking garage for shoppers, a 486-unit apartment complex (60 of which will be offered as "moderately priced dwelling units"), and three levels of residential parking above the store. A cutback in the massing in between each tower offers the luxury of a fifth-floor courtyard atop the parking garage. Here residents will be able to simply enjoy the view or take advantage of the pool, outdoor lounge area, fire pit and/or open lawn. In total, some 70 percent of the roof will be green, which is expected to assist the project in earning LEED Certification (upon completion of course). The approved 59,000 s.f. of ground-floor retail space will house not only the expanded Safeway, but also a Starbucks, SunTrust, and a Bergman’s Drycleaners (everything a Maryland suburbanite knows and loves all in one place).

Although the planned on-site, public-use terrace offered by developers only totals 7,615 s.f. and 9.9% of the net lot area (10.1% too little), Patriot will make amends for their shortcomings with a $961,161 "donation," which will assist in the redevelopment of 13,800 s.f. of off-site public green space. A public art installment also helped woo the Board into approving the proposal, as several bronze figures ranging from 14 inches to 28 inches tall will be arranged throughout the public terrace. Judy Sutton Moore, a Silver Spring artist, will craft the statues that are set to be welded to a stainless steel pole and "float, as it were, above the flowers, grasses, and shrubs in the planters." Planning Board members specified that the public statues must "avoid depicting art as a commercial expression of Safeway-life."

But before the meandering grocery shoppers can enjoy cute puppy statues, the public amenity funds must be released into the escrow account, demolition and building permits must be secured, and 17 stories of concrete and glass must be amassed; with Board approval at last in had, developers will look to keep things moving as construction is set to commence by early Spring of next year.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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Music to Developer's Ears in North Bethesda

112 new townhouses are on the way in North Bethesda. Streetscape Partners, a two-year-old McLean-based firm, has broken ground on the 18-acre site at Strathmore Avenue and Rockville Pike called Symphony Park at Strathmore (extreme caution: link plays Classical music upon opening). The on-schedule groundbreaking puts delivery of the first homes at "late spring," according to Ron Kaplan, Co-managing Principal at Streetscape. The homes have not yet been priced, but Kaplan expects pre-sales to begin within a month.

The community is adjacent to the Strathmore Music Center and Mansion, ergo the mellifluous name. Streetscape paid $5m plus "additional consideration" for the land, donating 5 acres back to Montgomery County for public open space, to include an amphitheater and "from scratch" forest. In addition to ticket deals with Strathmore, buyers will get Hord Coplan Macht landscaping. "HCM has done an amazing job to create beautiful outdoor, European mews," says Kaplan.

The developer described the finishes as "real materials" - brick and stone and solid wood doors. The design team tried to evoke the appearance of Georgetown, and Boston's back bay, a "sophisticated" community, according to Kaplan. The project is backed by Lubert-Adler Partners, LP. The land once belonged to the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA) and had been under contract with residential developer Centex; Streetscape stepped in when Centex went bust after several years of planning, leaving Streetscape with the original plans and architects, Lessard Group, which have since made revisions to the designs.

North Bethesda, Maryland real estate development news

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