Washington Property Company's 245-unit residential building at 10194 Georgia Avenue is on target for a spring groundbreaking, adding to the long list of greenlit revitalization projects in Wheaton. "We're out to bid now [for a general contractor], and hope to start construction in early May," said Daryl South, Vice President of Development for WPC. "Everything's ready to go."
Washington Property company acquired the 1.65-acre parcel, which is just steps from the Wheaton metro station, in 2005.
According to a site plan approved by Montgomery County planners in October of last year, the Preston Partnership-designed building will be a six-story u-shaped structure, opening to the south, with the interior space used for a swimming pool and greenspace. Designers used a "variety of masonry and glazing" as well as small parapets and height variations ... to minimize the sense of building mass." Underground, developers are shooting for at least 230 parking spaces spread over two levels, and will be required to offer 12.5% of the dwellings as (subsidized) MPDUs. The site is the former home of the First Baptist Church of Wheaton, which has relocated to Washington Christian Academy while construction on their new building in Olney is completed.
WPC's residential tower is just one of several projects that have gained recent momentum in downtown Wheaton; just a few blocks north is the already approved 17-story Safeway/residential project from Patriot Realty, and across from that is the Computer Building, set to be converted by Lowe Enterprises into a residential tower. At the Wheaton Metro station, bus bays are to be converted into an office complex by B.F. Saul, which is also in talks with the county about converting nearby Wheaton Triangle into a massive mixed-use megadevelopment that would bring nearly a million square feet of office space, retail, a hotel, and a public plaza to the area.
7 comments:
A better entrance into wheaton plaza would have been perfect there.
I don't believe that lead photo is related to this article and you have the address wrong. It's 10914 Georgia Avenue.
Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring and Wheaton has a number of gorgeous mid-century churches, so I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come. While this particular church is not the best of that lot, it is still a very pleasant building and its spire can be seen as you are driving north on Georgia...which adds a real neighborhood feel to the area.
The lead photo is the rendering of a WPC apt building nearing completion on Ripley Street in downtown silver spring. It has nothing to do with this article or wheaton
Anon above: You are correct, the wrong WPC rendering was used. We have removed the photo. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Address is still wrong. It's 10914 Ga. Ave.
Anon #3: This church is anything but memorable or gorgeous. There really are not very many that would qualify as such, and you don't see this spire driving north on Georgia so much as the one at the corner of Georgia and Plyers Mill. As for "harbingers", the last thing we need is a bunch of useless churches lying around empty as their congregations dwindle. We need to use our land to the extent of its present value and a church was clearly not the best use. Along those lines, many churches in the area are turning to developers to knock down their old, useless buildings in favor of mixed-used projects that incorporate a worship space within in an effort to maintain their presence in the neighborhoods. See: First Baptist Church of Silver Spring at the corner of Wayne and Fenton.
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