Silver Spring's downtown will soon be the heart of an Art and Entertainment District as Montgomery County swaps a shuttered JCPenney for the Fillmore Music Hall, inspired by the original Fillmore in San Francisco. Courtesy of Live Nation music company and Lee Development Group, the venue will sit on Colesville Road between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street, across from the AFI Silver Theater and down the street from Discovery Communications. In an interesting swap, Lee, which owns the building, will build the new music hall for the county, and both the state and county will contribute $4 million toward construction. The developer will give the Fillmore property (valued at $3.5 million) to the county in exchange for land use allowances on an adjoining property at 8615 Georgia Avenue, currently planned to include a hotel and office buildings.
The Fillmore will be a historic reuse project, maintaining the exterior of the old department store that has been vacant for almost 20 years. The new theater could have capacity ranging between 500 and 2,000, depending on the type of performances. The design for the project is by Hickok Cole Architects which is also behind the design for Lee's planned hotel and commercial buildings at Georgia Avenue, which will back up to the Fillmore.
The project planned for Georgia Avenue will bring a 12-story Class A Office Space and a 14-story 3 Star Hotel to the 72,000 s.f. of land. The developer indicated the team was deep in the planning stages for the commercial and hotel project and had not yet been through any Planning reviews.
In November, the County approved the exchange, with assurances to the developer that the County will pay the developer for any costs it might incur resulting from interceding zoning changes that affect the office and hotel project. 
The exchange is an aberration from the normal process by which a developer's plan is approved contingent on community benefits. In this case, Lee is building the theater (the community benefit) and promising to give away land without prior project approval for the proposed hotel and office. To offset the risk of not receiving approval and having to adjust designs for the commercial development, Lee received promises from the County that it would pay development costs due to any new regulations imposed on the Georgia Avenue Property.
Construction for the music hall could begin by the end of this year, setting the Fillmore Music Hall for a grand opening in late 2011. The County expects a $700,000 yearly profit from the venue.
Photo by Lizzie Turkevich. Silver Spring commercial real estate and development news
8 comments:
What a crock - such a misuse of taxpayer dollars, it's shameful. Let Live Nation pay for their own rock bar.
That is one fugly design. Throwing up some pink and blue lights--really? That's the best they can do? Hickok Cole is better than that. They should be ashamed.
Excavators... Start your engines!
This couldn't happen soon enough, and the county should be commended for assisting Silver Spring and the area in general for bringing this venue to us.
What do you expect from a county exec who supports Illegals in the community & is too good to use a public bathroom.
Such a waste of money...not to mention the abundance of intellectual and cultural venues that the DC area already has...the county could put the money (and space - what a horrible design!) to much better use.
My tax dollars at work - budgets everywhere being slashed and we build a rock club for a multinational corporation. $700K profit a year? I've got some swampland in Florida for Mr. Leggett...or maybe the Lees do.
Ugly perhaps, but it is an adaptive reuse and there only so much they can do with the exterior unless you want to demo the building. As for all of the cry-babies, those of us in Maryland are happy to be obtaining a live music venue. DC and VA have their share and there is nowhere to hear live tunes without a significant drive. Bring it on.
You think of all the revenue this project will generate and the county's investment looks like a smart bet.
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