A pair of slick apartment buildings and a mythical street in the Ripley District got a collective thumbs up from the planning board Thursday.
The Midtown Silver Spring project jumped through its last hoop in the review process without a hitch during the board’s weekly meeting near Woodside. Expect construction on the two 20-story towers (below) to hit Ripley Street and that alley behind the Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center any … day … now (or late 2009, says The Gazette.)
According to planning board documents, each building will stand about 200 feet tall, the maximum head space for that neck of the woods. Combined, they’ll contain 314 rental units, 40 of them moderately priced. And 5,400 square feet of space has been pegged for street-level retail, though what kind of shops will occupy those slots has not been announced.
The developer will also construct the long-fabled Ripifant Street (above), a new roadway connecting Ripley and Bonifant Streets. (Ripifant isn’t the street’s official name, but developers and members of the planning department have been bouncing it around for at least a year.)
That new street could come in handy, given the project’s ample parking supply: up to 480 spaces, according to documents from 2004. Once completed, the buildings will sit around the corner from the Silver Spring Transit Center, and adjacent to the Dixon Street public garage.
But don’t sweat it, said Don Hague, of Home Properties (yeah, that Home Properties), which bought the project from another developer.
“When this parking number was set, the project was intended to be a condominium,” he told planning commissioners. The intent was to sell the parking spots along with the housing units, he explained.
“Now that it’s a rental, we’ll look into that number,” Hague added.
In addition to the apartments, retail and parking, the project plants a small park on Ripley and what will be an extension of Dixon, behind what’s now Pyramid Atlantic. The project’s masterminds previously announced they would name the joint in honor of environmentalist and Silver Springer Rachel Carson.
Images courtesy of MNCPPC.
Updated Sep 24, 2008.
Read 
What the hell are they building now? Learn more from 
Boxed wines and rosés are back in vogue. Just ask The Penguin's sommeliers.
So who’s in charge of naming the streets in Montgomery County and how would one influence this process? I myself like “Ripfant Street.” Do I have a second?
Between this project, the one directly across the street and the SS Transit center, there will be a ton of cranes looming over that side of downtown for quite a while! I really hope that with this dense concentration of housing right in DTSS that the West side of Georgia will start to re-develop with quality retail, services & restaurants. Maybe we’ll finally get a CVS over there. Does anyone know if there are any planned pedestrian crossings over the tracks to connect the housing/offices along East-West Highway and the Ripley District? It sure would make things vastly more accessable.
They’re doing so much residential development, but yet why are they having such a hard time with building more office towers to balance out the “expected” residential population growth?
The article in the Gazette today said this project now moves toward final design and engineering and construction is expected to start late next year (not any…day…now). You might be confusing the immediate construction with 1050 Ripley Street that has already cleared their site: http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/private_projects/1050_ripley_st.shtm
Thanks for your comment, Woodsider.
According to Elsa Hizel McCoy, with the planning department’s development-review division, last Thursday’s look at this project was “the final step in the review process”. I’ll add this to the article to clarify.
And a late 2009 start date on construction? That is any … day … now. (Okay, I’m editorializing. Will fix.)
You’re the editor…you can editorialize all day long :)