The Silver Spring Penguin

Sure, the county’s planning department could use some cash to design its new offices on Georgia Avenue and Spring Street. But planning commissioners said Thursday they didn’t want any big debts — financial or otherwise — with the county government.

“I’m worried about not having this project completely under our control so we can keep moving,” commish Joe Alfandre told staffers at the board’s weekly meeting. “The more we’re needy, the tougher this is going to be for us.”

At least $1 million is needed to score preliminary architectural designs for the board’s new auditorium, a seven-story office tower, and the public atrium between them (above). That bit of cash could be borrowed (with interest) from the county council, Al Warfield, with the planning department’s financial office, explained to the board.

But then, the project would need an undetermined assload more money from the county to get architectural details cooking in earnest. The planning department hits up the county council for an appropriation sometime this month, though the council won’t work on it until after its holiday recess, project manager Dan Hertz said.

And it’s that county appropriation that has commish Alfandre sweating. “We might be beholden a litlle more than we think if we have to depend on the county,” he told his colleagues.

What the county might behold unto the planning department is unclear. So far, early concepts for Silver Place drop 150,000 square-feet of office space on Georgia and Spring, plus 305 residential units towards the site’s northeast end (below).

Community members previously said they worried about traffic volumes with the number of apartments to be built there. Meanwhile, people in the business community complained about Silver Place’s zero retail space. It’s unknown where any of the county council members stand on either issue.

Still, the planning board doesn’t want too much of the county’s money if it means wearing a studded, black-leather leash around its collective neck. Instead, the department might tap into “a couple hundred thousand” left over from June’s public design meetings, conduct DIY engineering surveys, and negotiate with dime-a-dozen architects scrounging for work in this crappy economic environment, project manager Hertz suggested.

The planning department meets with the county council’s planning, housing and economic development committee Monday afternoon to discuss the project. Construction on the office space could start in 2010, with completion in 2012.

Renderings courtesy of SilverPlaceWorkshop.com.

First Madonna and Guy Ritchie called it quits. Now the county’s planning board has dumped its private partners in a project to redevelop its downtown Silver Spring headquarters.

During a closed session late last month, planning board commissioners decided to cut ties with a trio of developers pegged to build Silver Place, a mixed-use project set for the corner of Georgia Avenue and Spring Street (below). The board announced its decision Thursday in a press release.

The trio of developers – The Bozzuto Group, Spaulding and Slye Investments, and Harrison Development — was first supposed to manage construction of the board’s new mothership on part of the three-acre site. Then, the trio would have bought the remaining land to build about 300 residential units.

But the planning board and developers couldn’t settle on what the board called “key financial terms”, and that included what price the trio would pay to score that remaining slice of land. The board still plans to roll with private residential developers — just not the guys listed above.

And despite the breakup, the board said basic plans cooked up in June (below) are still the way to go. Back then, architects, planners and area residents decided to plant a 30- to 40-foot-tall building on Georgia at Spring for the planning board. The rest of the planning department will get new digs inside a 90-foot-tall office building on Georgia, next to the Crown Plaza Hotel.

Behind those buildings will be some green space, plus residential buildings reaching up to nine stories towards the center of the lot and tapering to four stories on Spring Street (below). At least 30 percent of those units will be tagged as affordable housing, the board’s press release said. No retail space is in the mix.

“The issue was of more traffic and service vehicles, and whether we can make retail have any critical scale,” John Torti, the project’s master planner at the time, explained at the wrap of a week-long charette (French for “brainstorm”) in June.

“The conclusion was no,” Torti said.

The planning board announced it will hold a public meeting on the Silver Place project sometime in mid November. At some point, it’ll hit up the county council for funds to build the office space. It’s unclear how much that tab will be.

And when the buildings will actually be done is anyone’s guess. In June, months before the breakup, master planner Torti estimated it could be five or six years before anyone moves into anything.

Images courtesy of SilverPlaceWorkshop.com.