South Silver Spring project shrinks its garage

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 14, 2009
Image: The Galaxy project site (red) and its neighbor, The Aurora condos. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

Image: The Galaxy project site (red) and its neighbor, The Aurora condos. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

UPDATE — A development project planned for Eastern Avenue will offer less parking to future South Silver Spring residents, the county’s planning board decided. What’s unclear is how the decision will affect current South Silver Spring residents.

In a unanimous Dec 3 vote, the planning board agreed to shrink residential parking at the proposed Galaxy development project from a previously approved 257 spaces to 191 spaces, or 66 fewer parking slots. Chalk up the change to “current market conditions,” planning board documents stated.

The two buildings that comprise the project will plant a combined 241 units onto Eastern Avenue at 13th Street, planning department documents read. Do a little math, and that means 50 units must go without the matching personal parking spots.

But developer RST also offered parking at The Galaxy to residents of the adjacent Aurora building, which it rehabbed from vacant office space to 145 condominium units in 2005. (more…)

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Blasting schedule set for Silver Spring transit center site

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 9, 2009

After endless digging and more digging, construction crews at downtown Silver Spring’s transit center site will begin blasting at bedrock later this month, county reps announced.

Expect the walls to shake, the earth to quake, and perhaps your mind to ache on or after Saturday, Dec 19, Don Scheuerman, with the department of general services, said at last Tuesday’s pedestrian safety committee in downtown Silver Spring.

Daily blasting will go down at 2:00 p.m., during which car and people traffic will be stopped along Colesville Road and Ramsey Avenue. Scheuerman did not say how long the street and sidewalk would be off limits, but a daily blast job in South Silver Spring last year was a 15-minute (or less) routine, as recorded in a YouTube video.

Once the blasting work is completed, crews can begin to lay down the three-tiered transit center’s foundation, David Dise, director of the general services department, told the pedestrian safety committee. That action should start next spring, and by summer 2010, the transit center’s skeletal structure should be apparent, he said.

The transit center eventually will house local and regional bus stops, with connections to the Metro’s Red Line, MARC rail and possibly the Purple Line light-rail system. Dise predicted a spring 2011 opening.

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Georgia Ave office building to bolster Fenton Village park

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 9, 2009

UPDATE — A development group and the county’s planning board agreed to a deal that will shift public space from outside a Georgia Avenue office building to a park in Fenton Village.

Image: Coming soon to Georgia Avenue. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

Image: Coming soon to Georgia Avenue. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

The agreement, forged at the Nov 19 planning board hearing, allows an office building planned for 8621 Georgia Ave to align its facade with neighboring buildings, without surrendering 20 percent of its 30,400 square-foot lot to public use, as required.

Instead of giving up 6,080 square feet of Georgia Avenue streetscape, the agreement calls for only 1,760 square feet of onsite public-use space, planning board documents read.

In exchange for the extra street frontage, the 8621 Limited Partnership development group must pay nearly $583,000 into an “amenity fund” that will help finance redevelopment of the Fenton Village Urban Park, two thirds of a mile from the planned office building. (more…)

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County, developer reach agreement on Fillmore music hall

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 13, 2009
Photo: Lets do this shit already.

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. (more…)

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Plans for Woodside skateboard spot to roll forward

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 10, 2009

UPDATE — A skateboard park will be constructed in the Woodside area with residents’ input on how to deal with big crowds and rowdy teens, reps with the county’s parks department announced.

Photo: A shredder tore it up outside planning board HQ last Wednesday night. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Flippin sweet. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP

During a packed and sometimes contentious meeting last Wednesday night, department reps said they’d plan for the 3,000 square-foot ”skate spot” as part of larger schemes to renovate Woodside Urban Park on the northwest corner of Georgia Avenue and Spring Street. However, department reps said they will leave the door open to residents’ feedback.

And there was plenty of feedback inside the planning board’s auditorium that night.

“We’re not discriminating against skaters,” Woodsider Pam Wanveer told project managers. “We’re questioning its size. If all you [skateboarders] come after school, it’ll be overrun immediately.”

Casey Anderson, a Woodside resident and member of Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board, worried about the spot’s location within the park — sandwiched between a basketball court and a county building along Georgia, away from the street. That, plus the potential for boarders to ditch a crowded skate spot for the nearby playground, spelled trouble. (more…)

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Music-hall talks move closer to a deal, Leggett says (again)

By Jennifer Deseo | Oct 30, 2009

Negotiations between the county and one landlord to develop a music hall in downtown Silver Spring are close to wrapping, MoCo exec Ike Leggett declared.

Expect an official announcement in about six weeks, Leggett told The Penguin last Saturday at ye olde library’s book fest. Exactly what would be announced was unclear.

Photo: Nothing to see here. Move along. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photo: Nothing to see here. Move along. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

It’s been a long-ass road to bring the project to someone’s concept of fruition. Concert promoter Live Nation inked a deal with the county in January 2008 to rent out the venue, which will sit behind the Art Deco facade of a former JC Penney department store on Colesville Road. At the time, county officials predicted the $8 million music hall would be open by 2010.

But the Lee Development Group, which owns the land and is offering it as required public-use space for a larger adjacent development, wants all assurances that the project next door won’t be screwed by the music hall’s construction, Leggett explained in May.

“Everyone’s super-lawyered up,” he said at the time. (more…)

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