Southern supermarket chain Harris Teeter wants in on downtown Silver Spring’s consumer action, but only if it can find a retail space big enough to house one of its stores, one developer claimed.
Don Hague, whose company wants to redevelop the northern end of the Falkland Chase apartment complex, told Silver Spring’s urban-district advisory committee Thursday that Harris Teeter execs are “very committed” to opening a store in downtown Silver Spring.
“They wanted 50,000 square feet [of retail space] and 200 parking spaces,” Hague explained to the committee. Under a previously proposed design, the redeveloped section of Falkland Chase would have accommodated such a store.
The developer — New York-based Home Properties — and big boys at The Teet even had a draft lease, Hague said. But pressure from preservationists, the county planning board, affordable-housing advocates, the economy and anyone else you can name prompted Home Properties to scale down the design, and shrink the retail space in the process.
Despite that, Teet execs still want in on downtown Silver Spring, Hague said. The crappy housing market has steered Harris Teeter away from vacant suburban developments, and pointed them directly at populated urban areas, he explained.
“If we can still get them 50,000 square feet, Harris Teeter will come,” Hague said.
Of course, that’s if Home Properties can move forward with its redevelopment plans. Area preservationists have long argued that the Falkland Chase apartment complex, which straddles the intersection of 16th Street and East-West Highway, should be spared the wrecking ball as an example of New-Deal garden-style apartments.
There’s also the matter of booting 182 households currently occupying apartments on the northern parcel.
“Do you really think it’s good public policy to displace middle-income households to get more affordable housing?” Mary Reardon, with the Silver Spring Historical Society, told the advisory committee. “For more affordable units, we’re giving up an historic building.”
Ernest Bland, an East Silver Spring architect and member of the advisory committee, agreed. “We’re losing more and more nice things about Silver Spring, and I put Falkland Chase in there,” he told his colleagues.
Bland also sweated how the increased human density would strain infrastructure and traffic flow along East-West Highway. The proposed redevelopment jacks the number of apartments on Falkland Chase’s north parcel from 182 to more than 1,000 units, Hague said.
Ain’t nobody building nothing on the northern parcel until the county council settles the preservation issue. They could declare all, some or none of Falkland Chase’s three sections eligible for historic preservation.
The county council looks that salty dog in the eye in mid March.
Photos courtesy of the Harris Teeter Co.
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