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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Downtown bank building on preservation wishlist

By Jennifer Deseo | Sep 30, 2009

Silver Spring’s preservationistas want a 1950s Georgia Avenue office building placed on a statewide list of endangered sites.

Photo: The Perpetual Bank Building. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

Photo: The Perpetual Bank Building. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

Jerry McCoy, president of the Silver Spring Historical Society, told The Penguin via email that his organization wants the Perpetual Building added to Preservation Maryland’s protection wishlist. The building at 8700 Georgia Ave currently houses a SunTrust Bank branch, as well as studio space for the dance troupe Tappers With Attitude.

But the five-story, 51-year-old building once served as a branch of the Perpetual Bank, according to documents submitted previously to the county’s planning board. Preservationists claim the bank financed many Montgomery County homes back in the day, and was among the first banks to give mortgages to the county’s black residents.

“The loss of this building would result in a significant loss to the architecture of Silver Spring,” Marcy Stickle, a member of Silver Spring’s historical society, testified at a 2008 planning board meeting. Isabelle Gournay and Mary Corbin Sies, both associate professors with the University of Maryland, labeled the building’s style “suburban Baby Boom modernism”. (more…)

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City Place proprieter pitches for planning HQ

By Jennifer Deseo | Jul 8, 2009

The MoCo planning board has spent the last few years cooking up designs for new headquarters on Georgia Avenue, but the owners of downtown’s City Place shopping center have another idea: Move that joint into the mall.

In a Jun 11 letter to planning board chair Royce Hanson, developer Walt Petrie pitched the idea of housing the planning department inside the mall’s future nine-story office tower, which will sit above the shopping center on Colesville Road and Fenton Street. That rings up to 210,000 square feet of leg room for the department, the letter stated.

As a bonus, auditoriums within the former AMC movie theater on the mall’s fifth floor can be used for large public meetings, Petrie wrote.

The proposal comes at a time when the planning department is equally hard up for space and cash. Valerie Berton, a spokesperson for the department, told The Penguin that plans to replace the department’s old digs on Georgia Avenue at Spring Street with new digs at the same site are on hold. Pin that on “budget challenges and the county council’s request,” she wrote in an email. (more…)

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Planners give initial OK to Fenton Village development project

By Jennifer Deseo | Jun 2, 2009
Image: A rendering of the Studio Plaza project, as seen from Fenton Street. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

Image: A rendering of the Studio Plaza project, as seen from Fenton Street. Courtesy of MNCPPC.

The county’s planning board said Thursday afternoon that it was mostly cool with what one developer has in mind for Fenton Village. But board members also warned of further regulatory hurdles, the project’s potential to sterilize the place, and the developer’s bad rep in the neighborhood. (more…)

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Residents, businesses consider fate of Fenton Village

By Jennifer Deseo | Apr 29, 2009

It’s an enigmatic neck of the woods, but if some people had their way, Fenton Village would be a cozy haven for short buildings and small businesses.

At a public forum last Wednesday night in Fenton Village (where else?), about 50 area residents and business owners pulled together a wish list of how development should roll in the hood just south of Wayne Avenue. Currently, the area is sprinkled with squat commercial buildings and weed-strewn lots in between.

But a couple of development projects — the Bonifant Plaza residential gig, and the big Studio Plaza mixed-use project — will alter that landscape, for better or for worse. And those at the public forum wanted to be sure that things would swing for what they considered the better.

One of the big hits on the forum participants’ collective wish list was the desire to keep new buildings in the hood on the short side. Existing buildings on Fenton Street’s west side are about 20 to 40 feet tall, but zoning laws would allow new buildings to reach 60 feet in height. New residential projects can actually reach 110 feet between Fenton and Georgia Avenue if they contain affordable housing units.

That kind of height would create a canyon effect that wouldn’t gel with the preferred “human scale” of existing buildings, some participants expressed.

“Developers are building these faux Main Streets, and we have the originals here,” Jerry McCoy, with the Silver Spring Historical Society, said. “We’re in danger of losing them.”

Another big theme was the desire to retain and attract independent businesses to the hood. (Emails also requested a greater variety of shops, forum coordinator Debbie Linn said.) One way to do that would be to offer rent-subsidized retail space, or to negotiate cheaper retail rents with developers in exchange for greater building densities, some suggested.

And then there were calls to improve traffic flow, access to mass transit, and pedestrian safety on Fenton Street. That kind of action would make the place more inviting to shoppers, participants said.

But who will be shopping in Fenton Village, forum coordinator Linn asked. Should the hood be designed to serve downtown residents only? Or should it be a “destination” for visitors from other parts of the region? No consensus was reached.

So what’s next? The information and opinions gathered that evening will be used to guide Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board in its consideration of specific issues, Darian Unger, board chairperson, said.

Photos by Ron Pace for The Penguin.

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Harris Teeter hearts Silver Spring, developer says

By Jennifer Deseo | Feb 23, 2009

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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