Courtesy of Silver Spring Daily Photo. Reposted with permission.
One Fenton Village apartment building is getting dolled up this summer with new canopies and access ramps, its management announced.
The Silver Spring Towers at 816 Easley St (or 815 Thayer Ave — whatever) will receive two new canopies over its main doors, Rukiyat Gilbert, with Southern Management Corp., told Silver Spring’s neighborhoods committee in June.
The tricked-out canopies will be made of glass and aluminum, replacing the red vinyl pieces of shit that currently dangle over the doorways. The goal of the new canopies is to “provide the building with a new sense of entrance and street presence,” the company wrote in a summary of the planned work.
The two main entrances will also get ramps for wheelchair users, Gilbert said. Currently, people who can’t make it up the entrances’ stairs must pass through the building’s garage, which can’t be all that cool, committee member Megan Moriarty observed.
None of the building’s 432 apartments was constructed to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, Gilbert admitted. But if residents need adjustments made to their apartments, the management company can handle that, she said.
Gilbert added that construction should wrap by this fall. “Because we’re not making major changes to the building, we don’t think we’ll have to get approval from the planning board,” she told the committee.
Inside the building, residents score improved reception desks and coffee stations, upgraded finishes in the gym, and a new community room with a bar for parties and lounge events, the management company’s written summary stated.
And for those who don’t live there, the management is throwing in a new aluminum-and-glass canopy over the existing bus stop on Thayer Avenue, the summary added.
Updated Jul 8, 2009, to reflect the building’s other address. — JD
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That’s nice, but I bet 100% of the residents at the Silver Spring Towers would have prefered upgrades to their actual apartments instead of the reception desks, coffee stations, and entrance ways.
I live at that apartment building, and to be fair they’ve been gradually making upgrades to the whole building over the course of several years. They renovated the hallways, put in new environmentally-friendly windows, toilets, and shower heads, and painted the building’s exterior. It’s not as if the building is only working on the entrance ways.
Having said that, I grumble every time I receive word that the rent is going up. Just recently they raised the rent by $40.
Sounds good to me. Those ramps will make matters so much better for the wheelchair folks. Also, anyone pulling a grocery cart or even schelupping a backpack and some groceries who just doesn’t wanna clump up the steps.
The bus stop canopy will benefit everyone.
My apartment has new carpet and windows, so I cannot complain that the money would be better spent on my digs, but I’m sure that there are other residents whose places need some updates.
Also, this comment isn’t exactly confidence-inspiring: “Because we’re not making major changes to the building, we don’t think we’ll have to get approval from the planning board.” Um, don’t think or don’t know?
Actually, lobby and entryway enhancements do help. For years, I used to describe my apartment at Summit Hills in glowing terms but encouraged folks to ignore the formica nightmare that was the lobby. Southern Management redid the lobby entirely, from new tile on up, and it makes me happy to walk in now.
I dunno.. I wouldn’t mind a makeover of the circa 1965 lobby in Twin Towers…. But I would definitely take a post-1975 kitchen first…. that said, rent is cheaper than anywhere else in town ..although it does go up routinely every year, still the best deal in town, particularly that close to the metro. Althought I’d probably pay an extra 5% happily to not have the bi-annual bout with cockroaches, or not dealt with those mice when they were doing demolishing that building where Qdoba is (all the mice that used to live in the burnt out building moved into twin towers instead…) or to have had that 2 month period where they couldn’t manage to fix the toilet in the apartment upstairs so it didn’t leak into our bathroom everytime they flushed.. yuck…. OK so, I’m not THRILLED with it… but still… the rent in The Georgian (Georgian Towers at the time) was absurd the year we finally moved out… any DTSS Southern Management building is a steal for the location.. maintainence issues aside.
The ss towers need to fix the blasted elevators. The water is always being turned off for hours at a time. Ants are all over the bdrm and and i hear there are roaches in other apartments. Why not fix this instead of the curve appeal? For what we pay here there is no reason for us residents to have to put up with this crap!