BETHESDA ROW CONSTRUCTION SITE GIVING HINT OF NEW WOODMONT AVE. ALIGNMENT (PHOTOS)

One major change the massive Lot 31 development project will cause is a slightly-new alignment for Woodmont Avenue, east of Bethesda Avenue. This required the county to abandon the original Woodmont Avenue right-of-way, and dedicate a new one. That new right-of-way, interestingly, does not include the ground "to the center of the Earth" (as a memorably-odd 2012 planning memo put it), but only the soil below the road required to house utilities and stormwater systems.

The smaller Lot 31A property - now being developed as The Flats, a luxury apartment building - will extend further out than it did as a parking lot. Woodmont Avenue's alignment will shift westward as a result. Now that both The Flats, and sister building, The Darcy, are rising well above street level, we can get a hint of what the future Woodmont Avenue will look like. In the top photo, Woodmont will essentially be aligned between the two tower cranes. You also have to imagine that the two buildings on the left of that photo will be blocked by The Flats. And that the Darcy will rise well beyond the top border of the photograph.

Below, you can see the curve of Woodmont reflected in the architecture of the future Darcy condominiums: