The Montgomery County Council's traffic concerns may have put the brakes on—or at least stalled — a JBG Companies plan for Glenmont MetroCenter, a mixed-use development in Silver Spring. If approved, the project would be built on Glenallen Avenue between Layhill Road and Georgia Avenue, at the eastern end of the DC Metro's Red Line, the Glenmont Metro Station.
JBG intends to demolish Privacy World's 352 garden apartment units and replace them with new construction: 90,000 s.f. of retail space and 1,550 residential and live-work units. In June 2007, the Montgomery County Planning Board voted in favor of rezoning the project. But the MoCoCo gets the final say in whether the project can proceed, and it fears overburdening local roads; though JBG has offered to fund road overhauls, an agreement with the Council has not been reached. In January 2008, the Council remanded the project to the Hearing Examiner. A representative from the Council said it's now up to JBG to submit a revised proposal, at which point a new public hearing can be scheduled
as early as June.
If it goes through, the proposed community would exhibit an urban street grid, with a central park and other public recreation spaces. Tantalizing features include pocket parks and, as the project website promises, the central plaza's "interactive water feature."
JBG confirms that they have not yet hired an architect for the project, which is still in the early stages of development. The company line? "While the architectural character of Glenmont MetroCenter has not been determined, the intent is for the architectural character to contribute in a significant manner to the quality of the streets, open spaces and neighborhood." Translation: The buildings will look lovely.
Very early estimates (the project isn't scheduled to be completed for at least eight years) put Glenmont MetroCenter’s townhouse costs at $500,000 to $600,000, condos at $300,000 and up, and rents at $1,500 to $2,000 per month. The tentative unit breakdown offers “about 1,300 apartments and condominiums and 250 town homes…including 3 to 4 story townhomes, 4 to 5 story multifamily dwellings, and up to 5 to 10 story dwellings over retail.”
JBG's other MoCo Metro-focused development projects in the works include Twinbrook Station and White Flint Crossing.
In JBG's favor is their emphasis on building a community designed for pedestrians and Metro users, with the county pushing for transit-oriented design. They also could benefit from the possibility that the county will build an interchange so that Georgia Avenue can run above Randolph Road. To the county's point: no matter how many sidewalks JBG builds, replacing 352 apartments with 1,500 residences and adding 90,000 s.f. of retail to boot will create more traffic at an intersection that is already a disaster at rush hour. But JBG might ask, if not at the Metro, where?
2 comments:
Typical government idiocy. All you hear is smart growth, smart growth, smart growth. Then when a developer takes them up on that idea - they say whoah nelly, that's too dense! Get over yourselves. Smart growth = dense congested areas around transit nodes. If you want wide open spaces move to Montana.
As a local resident, I would not mind some traffic in exchange for breathing life into an area that has potential. While they are at it, please do something with that horrid shopping center where CVS, Pizza Hut, etc. are. Shoppers is just fine!
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