The Silver Spring Penguin

Illustration: Let's do this shit already.

Stick a fork in it — negotiations to build a Fillmore music hall in downtown Silver Spring are done. Or as MoCo exec Ike Leggett exclaimed after a town-hall meeting Thursday night, “It’s done, done, done!”

“We are moving in Silver Spring,” he told about 150 people huddled in a Takoma Park school cafeteria. “We’ll get those things done to improve the quality of life.”

The county’s long-awaited deal with the Lee Development Group (LDG) means plans to build the Colesville Road venue can lurch into the design and development phase, Leggett spelled out to The Penguin. Expect a shovel in the dirt sometime next year, he said reluctantly.

So what the hell was with all these negotiations anyway? It’s complicated, Leggett said, and full of gives and takes on both sides of the table. On the surface, LDG surrenders a former JC Penney department-store site on Colesville, valued at $3.5 million, on which the venue will be constructed. The company also puts in $500,000 worth of “management services” to oversee construction of the concert hall.

LDG made other concessions, according to Leggett, but he didn’t specify what those were.

In exchange, the 32,000 square-foot venue counts as LDG’s required public-space contribution for the company’s larger development project on an adjacent lot. Designs for that still-unknown project and those for the music hall will be presented to the county’s planning board as a package deal, Leggett explained, though he didn’t know when that would happen.

For the county’s part, it (read: we) picks up the tab for the music hall’s design, development and all the stuff that happens before it hits the planning board’s desk. That kind of action adds up to millions of dollars, Leggett indicated. After all is said and done, the county will own the building and collect rent from concert promoter Live Nation, which signed a lease in January 2008.

Surprisingly, Leggett’s declaration of the done deal dropped at the tail end of his town-hall meeting, after local residents petitioned for rent relief, an end to smart growth, and space for teens in downtown Silver Spring. And the announcement came only in response to the evening’s last question.

From The Penguin’s post-meeting analysis on Twitter:

Funny story from @evanmglass: He was surfing net during Leggett’s town-hall meeting, came across Fillmore news. http://bit.ly/3ZMqfr

Leggett made no mention of Fillmore, and meeting was drawing to a close. Last question went to @thausner – don’t know what he meant to ask.

So @evanmglass says to @thausner, “Fillmore deal is done. Ask Leggett about the Fillmore deal!” So he did, and Leggett confirmed story.

And that’s how new media and old-skool social networking can work together!

Members of Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board who were at the meeting were generally pleased to hear that the project can move forward, but Leggett’s negotiation skills left a bad taste in some mouths.

“This agreement shows that if the county executive and some private developer want to conduct private negotiations, they can,” board member Phil Olivetti told The Penguin. Questions about pre- and post-gig traffic, crowd control and the venue’s liquor sales were still unanswered, he said.

Still, Olivetti said he looked forward to scoring his first ticket to a gig there. Rock on, bro.

Video photography by Ron Pace/SSP.