The Silver Spring Penguin

The Silver Spring Transit Center took one teetering baby step Thursday towards actually being built.

During their weekly meeting, the county’s planning board agreed to turn over 35,000 square feet of urban parkland to the department of public works and the Metro transit authority, according to a press statement.

The land acquisition brings DPWT and Metro one step closer to building the center, which would connect regional and interstate buses with Metro and MARC rail lines. The proposed light-rail Purple Line also would connect at the center, according to the state transit administration.

In exchange for the parkland — a concrete landscape of stepped planters sandwiched between Silver Spring’s Metro station and Ride On bus shelters — the park and planning commission scores two smaller parks.

First, an 11,600 square-foot hardscape plaza would drop in front of the Metro station’s southeast entrance. The plaza would be adjacent to the new transit center and possibly beneath an elevated Purple Line trestle, DPWT’s Bruce Johnston described in an earlier discussion with The Penguin.

Another 11,600 square-foot park would drop onto the “jug handle,” which currently allows buses to turn from Colesville Road into the Metro station’s bus bay. The deal is to scrap the roadway, add some landscaping and possibly build a bike station at the park, Johnston said.

The nonbinding agreement inked Thursday holds a caveat over DPWT’s and Metro’s collective head. Elements such as glass-canopied escalators, shade trees and downtown-styled streetscaping are expected to be there, the press statement reads.

If the cash isn’t there to cover the tab, DPWT is expected to hit up the county council, state and even the feds for more funding, the statement adds.

“I’m very hopeful that county executive [Ike] Leggett will make it clear that these are important items that deserve funding, and that the project proceeds as it has been presented to the public,” board chairman Royce Hanson said. “We’re trying to get what it seems everyone wants.”

Gary Stith, director of Silver Spring’s regional center, previously said Leggett would not approach the county council for more funding. Whether Leggett has changed his tune is unknown.

Board commissioners previously refused to give up the parkland, saying they did not want aesthetic elements scratched for the sake of slimming the project’s budget.

“One way to encourage mass transit is to make it a pleasant experience,” then-commissioner Wendy Perdue said at an earlier project review. “Nothing about this project would suggest a pleasant experience.”

It was a matter of maintenance, DPWT’s Johnston responded. Streetscaping could be added on the county’s dime, but Metro wouldn’t be interested in the upkeep.

Bidding on construction contracts start later this summer, the press statement says.