Detectives investigate downtown bank robbery

By The Penguin newsroom | Dec 30, 2009

Detectives from the Montgomery County Police Major Crimes Division – Robbery Section are investigating a bank robbery that occurred Monday at the American Bank located at 8630 Georgia Ave in Silver Spring.

At approximately 4:00 p.m. on Dec 28, third district officers responded for the report of a bank robbery that had just occurred. Through the course of the investigation, it was learned that two suspects armed with guns entered the bank and posed as customers before displaying their weapons and obtaining an undisclosed amount of cash. No one was injured. The suspects were last seen fleeing on foot in a northbound direction on Georgia Avenue.

The suspects were described as black men between the ages of 25 and 30. One is described as 6′0″ to 6′2″ tall, weighing between 190 and 200 pounds. He was wearing sunglasses, a dark-colored puffy vest, a blue shirt, and a black baseball cap. The other suspect was described as between 5′8″ and 5′10″ tall, weighing 170 pounds. He was wearing jeans, sunglasses, a black jacket, and a black baseball cap.

Anyone with information about this incident and/or the suspects involved is asked to call the Robbery Section at 240-773-5100. Those who wish to remain anonymous should call Crime Solvers of Montgomery County at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). Crime Solvers will pay a cash reward of up to $1,000 for information provided to them that leads to an arrest and/or indictment for this felony crime.

Source: Montgomery County Police Department.

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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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Gratuitous Shot

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 30, 2009
Courtesy of Susan Sermoneta.

Courtesy of Susan Sermoneta.

The day after Thanksgiving marks the quasi-official start to the holiday shopping season, and according to The Washington Post, plenty of people hit the stores on Black Friday. Sure, people didn’t spend as much as they have in the past, The Post reported, but at least they put in some face time at the local mall.

Or not. This photo, taken by visiting shutterbug Susan Sermoneta, shows downtown Silver Spring’s City Place Mall at 2:40 p.m. on Black Friday. Apparently they’ve decked the mall with boughs of holly, and workers at the Santa display have donned their gay apparel.

But Sermoneta’s title for this photo — “The ‘big’ shopping day?” — suggests slow going inside the mall. That, or a mid-afternoon nap for all those early birds who handled their business at 4:00 a.m.

Photo courtesy of Susan Sermoneta.

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Downtown pizzerias show varying signs of progress

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 17, 2009
Photo: Flippin' close to the finish. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

Photos: Flippin' close to the finish. Credit: J. Deseo/SSP.

UPDATE — On one end of downtown Silver Spring, a franchise pizzeria is poised to fling open its doors and sling a few pies into its ovens. At the other end, a locally owned parlor sprouts slowly from scratch. It’s the tale of two pizzerias on different tracks of development.

On Colesville Road near Ramsey Avenue, Flippin’ Pizza promises to deliver “a slice of New York” to Discovery HQ employees and other area office workers. A quick visual inspection Friday revealed workers adding final touches to the small restaurant’s lighting. An exposed-brick wall framed posters of the Brooklyn Bridge (holler!) and the New York skyline. Two wide wooden paddles hung on a wall behind the counter, next to flat, stacked pizza ovens.

A brief glimpse on Monday morning showed an orange ladder leaning against Flippin’ Pizza’s dining room wall.

Electrical workers inside the restaurant said on Oct 28 that the place would open for business the following week. Almost three weeks later, the place still isn’t open. However, Penguin ninja and Twitter buddy @joshourisman reported seeing employee training inside the place last week. (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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