MoCo Approves North Bethesda Market II

The Montgomery County Planning Board approved plans for the JBG Companies and MacFarlane Partners' North Bethesda Market II last week, continuing the area's stunning streak of approved megadevelopments.

While the name "North Bethesda Market II" may conjure visions of one of those upscale bodegas that has prosciutto and a surprisingly good wine aisle, that is not the case here. North Bethesda Market II will consist of four separate structures offering as many as 414 residential units and 368,000 square feet of retail. The roster of tenants is stacked with heavyweights; Whole Foods, L.A. Fitness, Arhaus, Seasons 52, and Brio, with others to come. The centrally-located 4.4 acre site is a block from the White Flint metro station, across from White Flint Mall, and just west of Rockville Pike. Of course, it's also right next door toNorth Bethesda Market I (which features the tallest building in Montgomery County).

"NBM1 has been very successful," said Charlie Maier, spokesman for JBG, when asked about the follow-up project. "The site used to be a one-level motel and now it's a model for development in the Wisconsin Avenue corridor." Maier also said JBG is looking to 4Q 2012 for groundbreaking.

The centerpiece of NBMII is a 26-story, nearly 300 foot tall residential tower that will eclipse its sibling development's tower as the tallest structure in MoCo. The Stu

dios Architecture-designed monolith features a stepped facade and balconies that will look out onto a European-influenced interior plaza designed by landscape architects Olin. The eye-catching building is sloped slightly backwards to catch the maximum amount of sunlight and, like the other three buildings, will feature a green roof. Architectural journals have gushed over the design, and the Washington Post likened it to "a Mayan Temple whose glass bricks have been shaken earthquake-like out of position." Units are planned as rentals, though developers have kept the condominium option open. Elsewhere in the development, developers also plan a movie theater with 175,000 square feet of office space above.

The development continues the recent(ish) trend of transitioning sprawling 50s-style car-centric low-slung areas into dense, vertical, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly urban-style areas, leading to the question of, five years from now, will there be anything left for me to make snarky remarks about at dinner parties? Revitalization in White Flint was catalyzed (much as it was in adjacent Wheaton), when Montgomery County planners approved an updated White Flint Sector Master Plan in early 2010, and shows no signs of slowing down. Aside from the North Bethesda Markets, the Pike and Rose gained approval in February, and the Falkland Chase whole-block development was approved in January.

Montgomery County real estate development news

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Mid-Pike Plaza Warmly Received By MoCo Planning Board

The Montgomery County Planning Board gave initial approval last week to the preliminary site plans for Pike & Rose, the replacement for Mid-Pike Plaza, an ambitious vision that would dramatically transform a 24-acre parcel in White Flint, at the intersection of Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Road.

The preliminary plan, from Rockville-based REIT Federal Realty Investment Trust, proposes to convert the existing surface-parking-and-strip-mall into mixed-use pedestrian- and bike-friendly mega-development with interspersed public green spaces. The final buildout, which was designed by WDG Architecture and Baltimore-based Design Collective, would come in at just under 3.5 million square feet, with approximately half of that total being residential. A list of tenants for the finished development includes AT&T, Bank of America, and CVS, among many others, including - notably - an 8-screen, reserved-seating iPic theater.

Though the project represents a massive facelift for the area, planners have surprisingly received no complaints regarding the project from adjacent property owners or other members of the public, and the planning board was largely receptive to the plans at last week's meeting. Of course, final approval is contingent on developers meeting a long list of conditions, including providing recreation facilities, street improvements, bike parking, vegetated rooftops, and a per-residential-unit payment of just over 1800 dollars to Montgomery County schools.

In accordance with the latest trends in urban planning, plans for Mid-Pike Plaza place heavy emphasis on pedestrian-friendly access, traffic reduction, public spaces, and green solutions. The project, for example, includes a "road diet" that would sharply reduce traffic in the area, largely by reducing Old Georgetown Road to four lanes from six, and a "dramatic" reduction in parking. Phase One also includes generous apportioning of public green spaces; included in the site plan are two pedestrian plazas and a public green that would altogether account for 1.3 acres (of a total 6.7 Phase One acres). Planners have also required Federal Realty to include vegetated roofs on most of the buildings. Smaller pockets parks are splashed throughout the development, and most of the public spaces will be linked by a "recreation loop" of bike lanes and walking paths.

Construction is slated to commence in three phases, proceeding roughly from the southwest corner of the property and proceeding roughly northeast. Phase One, tentatively scheduled to break ground this August, will start with Building 10, located in the very southwesterly corner, a 200-foot-tall, 319-unit residential building with 13,300 square feet of commercial space, Building 11 (directly to the east of Building 10), a 100-foot-tall 251,000 square foot u-shaped office tower with ground floor commercial space, and Building 12, a 70-foot building which will front Old Georgetown Road, and consist of 174 residential units and just over 50,000 square feet of commercial space. Per an agreement with the county, the two residential buildings in Phase One would offer 12.5% moderately priced dwelling units (MPDUs). Phase Two would represent the approximate center of the trapezoidal parcel, and Phase Three would complete the north end of the development as well as fill in spaces on the west and southeast margins.

North Bethesda real estate development news

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North Bethesda's Rock Spring Centre is Back in Action, For Now

Last night, the Montgomery County Planning Board gave the go-ahead for the final phase of Rock Spring Centre, a massive mixed-use development that will include nine buildings on the 54 acre tract in North Bethesda. DRI Development will navigate the project that's to house a hotel, retail, office, and residential space in a town center located on in the north east quadrant of the intersection of Rockledge Drive and Rockspring Drive in the Garrett Park area of the city.

This isn't a new project, it's a redo of the last phase of a multi-stage development: the first phase began in 1997, with the creation of 390-residential unit, Avalon Bay; the second phase introduced a 352-unit Rock Spring Centre residential towers - approved but not yet built; and the third phase would have been the creation of Canyon Ranch spa, which was canceled in 2006. DRI has been shepherding the project since 2008, at which time it was shelved as a result of the economic downturn.


Last night's meeting was an amendment to the 2008 plans, which shifted 10,000 s.f. retail to office space and tabled plans for a community center. By the numbers, the 1.3 million s.f. project looks like this:

• 590,000 s.f. office space

• 210,000 s.f. retail

• 90,000 s.f. entertainment use space

• 200,000 s.f. hotel, 200 rooms

• 1250 residences

Sandra Pereira, Montgomery County Lead Reviewer for the project, says that financing and permits will determine when they'll break ground. That may not be for a while.

Bethesda, Maryland Real Estate 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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North Bethesda Developers Seek Density as Solution to Sprawl

Developers of North Bethesda, having just completed the county's tallest residential building and the Pike's largest recent project, are hoping for an encore. Now nearing completion of the North Bethesda Market, developer JBG has begun courting the community for a second phase, seeking an increase in density for new office and residences that will produce demand for the 200,000 s.f. of retail built in the first phase.

Developers of Rockville Pike in North Bethesda have long hoped that if development continues, and smart urban planning matches pace, the congested corridor might make the triple-jump to a walkable urban district. JBG unveiled initial plans to the community last week, still just conceptual, that would add 745,000 s.f. of development with a 40% increase in density to the block just north of its current project. JBG isn't the only player in the game, as the White Flint Sector Plan highlights several other major developments in the area, including Federal Realty's "Mid-Pike Plaza," and LCOR's White Flint development. JBG submitted initial plans to the Montgomery National Capital Park and Planning Commission early on Friday the 27th, depicting additional retail fronting Rockville Pike and a series of residences on the block behind it. Approval could take anywhere from 18 to 24 months, so construction on the newest phase is not expected to start until late 2012 or early 2013.

After announcing earlier this summer that Florida-based restaurants Season 52 and Dolcé Amoré Café, along with furniture juggernauts Arhaus, will join Whole Foods and L.A. Fitness at the round table of tenants in the nearly completed North Bethesda Market, JBG hopes to broaden the scope of NoBe (or NoBeMa, take your pick) with an array of new residencies, office space, and expanded retail options. NoBe sales representatives said they are hoping Whole Foods will open for shoppers by spring of next year.

The new site extends the Market north to Nicholson Lane, replacing three low density 40-year-old office and retail buildings, and one new office and retail building. Torti Gallas will stay on as the planning architect. One of the goals in maintaining some sort of unifying theme within the development is the extension of Paseo north into Phase II.

Paseo is the "concept of an intimate, pedestrian-oriented, retail lined street" that is meant to tie together the residential and commercial aspects of the project.

Senior VP of Marketing Matthew Blocher depicts the community feedback so far as positive, as developers expect the enthusiasm surrounding the opening of the first phase to carry over as they continue to unveil second stage plans. But one of the obstacles to moving forward with redevelopment is getting the community and county officials on-board with the increased density. Developers say a minimum base density of 3.5 FAR is necessary to buoy the requisite investment, and appropriate given the proximity to the White Flint Metro, but authors of the White Flint Sector Plan currently recommend 2.5 FAR. County officials have been keen on spurring the kind of redevelopment that JBG is pursuing across the region, but have also been conscious of just how fast that growth is developed.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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