Image: Whoa! Construction on Silver Spring's civic center looks cool! Courtesy of Montgomery County department of general services.
Construction of Silver Spring’s civic center is cooking with oil, one county official declared Wednesday. But a local committee wants to know when the plaza next door will be open to the public.
“That space is sorely missed,” Ernest Bland, an East Silver Spring resident and member of the urban-district advisory committee, said Wednesday during the group’s monthly meeting. “What we’d really like — businesses, residents — is to have that open space captured sooner rather than later.”
The open space on the northeast corner of Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive will be a hardscaped plaza with a veterans memorial and seasonal ice rink. But in a previous life, before construction on the civic center began last fall, it was an AstroTurf-carpeted lot and a popular hangout for teens and families.
Without that hangout, management at the nearby Downtown Silver Spring shopping center have had to hustle extra programs and events just to keep the kiddies occupied, committee chairperson Jon Lourie indicated.
But priority number one has been completion of the civic center, Don Scheuerman, with the county’s department of general services, told the committee. Construction on the 42,000 square-foot building should wrap in July 2010, or three months behind schedule, he said.
Besides, finishing off the plaza and constructing the light-up pavilion over the ice rink won’t take long. And crews working on the civic center’s construction need the unfinished plaza’s space to store equipment and machinery, Scheuerman added
Photo: Ernest Bland, member of the urban-district advisory committee. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.
“How much staging space do your people need?” committee member Bland shot back. Another empty lot along Cedar Street, just north of the construction site, was already being used as a staging area, he said.
“We’re not paying attention to what’s working for the community,” Bland added.
The department of general services could look into moving up the plaza’s delivery date so that it opens before the civic building, but that would likely increase the cost of its construction, Scheuerman and committee chair Lourie thought out loud. Still, Scheuerman said he’d explore his department’s options.
In the meantime, the urban-district advisory committee will draft a letter to MoCo exec Ike Leggett, asking him to make the plaza available sooner. The letter won’t be dropped in the mail until Scheuerman gets back to the committee with options next month.
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Thanks for the update! I for one would love the plaza back!
Dude, seriously. There is nowhere to sit and eat your Cold Stone as the world goes by. The benches along Ellsworth all face the wall, instead of the open street.
Wasn’t that the plan the whole time for plaza to open first then the building? At least that is what I call from the public Charette mtgs. Neither is more important than the other – this community is disparately in need of them both – this week of Silverdocs only amplifies that evidence further. I don’t want ANY further delays in opening the building, but couldn’t careful project management and planning brought us a better outcome?
While this would be bad for me personally (I find it very easy to take Ellsworth all the way from Dale, to get my kids to Maryland Youth Ballet or to the Wayne Garage), why not permanently close Ellworth between the garage entrance and Fenton and call that open space? Especially once they can take down the stupid covered sidewalk… Just need enough space to put the zpizza delivery guys.
This is definitely the right call, to open the plaza early. There is not enough space for everyone and its getting uncomfortable.
Kathy J wrote:
Last year, then-regional director Gary Stith said the plaza would be open in time for a Veterans Day dedication, even though the building wasn’t finished.
That is what I recalled from the Charette they presented it as a two-part plan, with phase 1 being the plaza open 6 months or so before building. Made perfect sense at the time. Why has that changed now?
From the article above:
Hope that answers your question, Kathy J.