FIRST IMAGE OF

CAPITAL CRESCENT TRAIL

AT-GRADE ALONG

BETHESDA AVENUE

7200 Woodmont Developer Offers to

Construct Trail as Part of Streetscape Improvements

Another Robert Dyer @ Bethesda Row Exclusive!!!

Just weeks after the Montgomery County Council determined the popular Capital Crescent Trail would be relocated in downtown Bethesda to make way for the Purple Line, a developer has offered to build one section of the new route along Bethesda Avenue.

Friday evening, the Montgomery County Planning Department released the above rendering prepared by developer JBG, incorporating the CCT into its expanded 7200 Woodmont development.

There are no 3-D street scenes to show what the finished trail will look like. This is a preliminary sketch showing the shared-use CCT bike path (running along the bottom of the image, above and parallel to Bethesda Ave.) between Woodmont and Wisconsin Avenues. As such, there is no way to know if the design fits council president Roger Berliner's demand for a "gold standard" at-grade CCT. Of course, no one has yet defined what gold standard means in this case.

Some things that are clear from the illustration and the Planning staff report, are that the trail will have some physical separation from Bethesda Avenue parallel to it. Whether that is a mountable curb, a median or insurmountable barricade is not specified yet.

In terms of safety, there are at least two vehicular curb cuts that will cross the new CCT, certainly more dangerous than the separate tunnel route today. As one of those entries is for the hotel on the property, there will be taxis zipping in and out of there across the CCT.

7200 Woodmont has grown in size. The new project is requesting approval of a 182,950 sq. ft. hotel with 230 rooms, 755,739 sq. ft. of office space, 81,165 sq. ft. of retail, and a 210-unit apartment building, the latter to be located on the current Elm Street parking lot.

Not only does the development stretch from the Woodmont/Bethesda Ave. intersection to that Elm Street site, but now also all the way along Bethesda Avenue to Wisconsin, as you can see in the site plan above.

The plaza at the corner of 355 and Bethesda will be replaced with a building, and JBG will donate some of the property fronting Wisconsin to the state highway's right-of-way. This is partly to facilitate CCT-related safety improvements to that intersection.

The only amenities for the CCT noted right now are landscaping and "terraced seating platforms" along its Bethesda Avenue route.

There are a number of other stipulations. JBG must place a bike wayfaring sign to direct riders near the Woodmont intersection. The CCT will remain open through the tunnel for the duration of the 7200 project construction. JBG must complete the CCT along Bethesda Ave before the county will issue occupancy permits for the ground floor retail on that side. And it must submit the detailed plans for the CCT concept before construction may begin on 7200.

Furthermore, JBG is going to pay over $400,000 for a comprehensive study of constructing the trail between JBG's portion and the original right-of-way beyond the Air Rights Building.

The tallest building in the project will be about 14 stories, by my calculation. This seems too short for a site walking distance to Metro, on the Bethesda Circulator route, and literally above the future Bethesda Row Purple Line station. And there are only 210 apartments, which is too few for a 5 acre project at this site. Sacrificing density here puts more pressure on areas like Westbard where such heights would be inappropriate.

In my opinion, the residential portion should be at least 20 stories. I can't comment on the architecture yet, because we don't really have the full illustrations of the buildings yet. The simplistic rendition in the staff report didn't make it seem very impressive. Let's hope they're more like North Bethesda Market I and II, and less like JBG's Rockville Pike Safeway proposal in terms of architecture.

We need more distinctive buildings that people will associate with Bethesda, not cookie cutter mixed use, Soviet-style apartment blocs.

But the project deserves some leeway, if JBG is going to pick up the tab for a major stretch of the new CCT, because that's money that won't have to come out of the taxpayers' pockets.

So it's a little early to make final judgements, but I wanted to let everybody know about this new Bethesda Row "neighbor," and in particular that there is a surprising twist here in the CCT soap opera with this unexpected - and welcome - offer from JBG.