The latest hard evidence of Montgomery County's weak office space market is at the 3-property North Bethesda Gateway development in White Flint. Once planned as a very dense mixed-use project along Nicholson Lane, its eastern portion is swinging decidedly towards residential.
The developer of those 5.123 acres, known as the Lake Waverly Associates property, is asking the Montgomery County Planning Board to greatly reduce the already-approved plan's commercial space, and completely eliminate the sizeable office space component.
Overall density would be reduced, while the square feet dedicated to residential use would jump from 484,830 to 557,918. The newly-proposed residential buildings would rise to only six stories.
The Planning Board will hear the request on Thursday, October 3.
This change follows several other recent real estate moves that indicate weak demand for office space in Montgomery County. Recently, the City of Rockville approved a request to eliminate 55% of the planned office space from King Farm. That was a severe blow to the Smart Growth theory that residents of King Farm would also work in King Farm. Equally significant, that part of King Farm is planned to have a Corridor Cities Transitway station. It was once proposed that residents of new developments in Clarksburg or Germantown would also find jobs at this now-eliminated office site. To lose more than half of that office space, while building all of the residential (and more), will clearly add to traffic congestion, rather than reduce it.
Likewise, an existing Wheaton office building is being converted to residential.
This is primarily the realities of the market at work. Developers are not going to build more empty office space. Montgomery County is not attracting large employers, and hence there is little demand for office buildings.
7 comments:
Yet the county is convinced that it is business friendly. How come Fairfax and rest of Northern Virginia doesn't have this problem?
@previous commenter
What do you mean Northern Virginia doesn't have this problem? Office space demand in the entire DC Area is weak right now, especially in Northern Virginia. The Class A vacancy rate is higher in Northern VA than it is in Montgomery County. Take a tour of the half empty office buildings in Crystal City and see how booming business is in VA.
Virginia also saw a significant decline in it's household median income while MD's (highest in the nation for 5+ years) held constant. Maybe you should move South of the river to where business is clearly booming. If not please refrain from spewing clueless nonsense.
right that's why they are building all those office towers in Tyson's Corner.
Wasn't there a big article in the Post yesterday about a massive office building complex - with no residential component - moving forward in between Pentagon City and Crystal City? Vornado seems to feel the office space market is strong in N. Virginia.
@ robert
Exactly
Montgomery County and MD taxes are why we'll be moving to VA in the near future. Not just our family but our family business, as well. It's just insane - paying for everything from bags to rainwater to heck, soon enough, air. So no, it's not at all surprising that businesses do not want to occupy the space.
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