Monday, January 24, 2011

Gaithersburg Apartments Celebrate Start Tomorrow


Archstone will hold a ceremony tomorrow morning to celebrate the start of their "Archstone Olde Towne" project. The mixed-use development will replace several old buildings with a 389-unit, four-story apartment building with 15,000 s.f. of ground-floor, street-front retail. Preston Partnership designed the building, in a form intended to reflect historic Gaithersburg structures. Archstone broke ground on the project on December 30th, and has since changed the name from "Westchester Olde Towne."

The project is a block from the Gaithersburg MARC Rail Station, and will feature "beach-entry lagoon-style pool," "re-oxygenating fitness center," and in-house pet salon for sundry four-leggers. The Gazette reported that Archstone had contested Woodfield Investments' application for a nearby apartment building as a competitor for HUD funds, an appeal that was dismissed by the city, and which ended amicably with both projects approved by the city and both granted HUD funds; Archstone received an $89.9 million FHA insured Section 221(d)4 loan through CWCapital.

Archstone also started a 469-unit apartment in NoMa last summer, and maintains that it still has stated plans to break ground on CityCenter this spring.

Gaithersburg, MD, real estate development news

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does the design "reflect" historic Gaithersburg structures? If so, only in a circus mirror in which all the proportions are distorted, including quantity, since Gaithersburg has precious few actual older buildings, and most of those are small-scale.

Comparing the rendering to photos of actual historic buildings in the adjacent advertisements, the sad situation is revealed: Big moves--towers, pediments, etc.--are grossly exaggerated, whereas the crucial small moves--windows set back into deep openings, detail of ornamentation, stolidity of materials--are largely absent.

The basics of urban planning and location competent, however, which upgrades the overall analysis from "disaster" to "disappointing."

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