Welcome to The Dark Side of White Flint, an ongoing series about the not-so-wonnerful, wonnerful, wonnerful side of urbanizing the suburbs of Montgomery County.
P.F. Chang's and Dave and Buster's were still open this weekend, but everything else (with the exception of Lord and Taylor, who own their own building) has closed at White Flint. In early April, the U.S. Postal Service referred to "demolition" as the obstacle to keeping their post office open in the mall. Now a blockade of a vacant wing of the mall, and notices posted of an asbestos project within, strongly suggest demolition of the rest of the mall is not far off.
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| Asbestos project notice posted at the mall |
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| Look for these Hollywood movie set doors; they're blocking access to a large portion of the mall now |
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| There's another one...and another one |
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| The interior is still impressive. What a shame it's going to be demolished by our disposable society |
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| What's behind the door? |
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| Still waiting to learn the fate of popular Dave and Buster's, whose closure would hardly bolster the so-called, "Nighttime Economy" |
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| Impressive architecture that will be reduced to rubble |
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| A gremlin appears to have taken up residence in the abandoned food court (which Buzzfeed and Gawker didn't know is actually called, "The Eatery," not "the food court") |
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| He's absolutely exhausted after walking around the new, urbanized White Flint area without finding a single new chef-driven restaurant, or new Fortune 500 corporate tenant |
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| The directory is just chock-full of shopping destinations |
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| A perfectly good 1977 building being demolished in 2014: #FirstWorldProblems |
All photos (c) 2014 Robert Dyer
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23 comments:
Robert, I still don't understand why it troubles you that a developer, on their own dime, wishes to change their real estate investment. Why are you so passionate to preserve an old mall? You seem to be very aggressive and appreciate sustainable growth. I am curios why you seem to think that progress and new walkable streets with structured parking is not so "wonderful", but an old and dated shopping mall surrounded by surface parking is somehow "wonderful".
I would think someone who is as informed as you seem to be would applaud any effort to create a more urban experience and remove some of the planning and rampant consumerism that was present in many indoor shopping malls. I concur that it seemed to be old to replace these so soon, but do you not feel that new urbanism is better that old suburban sprawl that was epitomized by the mall?
When did Khoury Bros. jewelers and the dentist's office close?
And P.F. Chang's?
White Flint is not being redeveloped just on the developer's dime; the taxpayer investment in this is huge, with a $72 million tax cut being just one of the public investments in the White Flint urbanization.
Surface parking is certainly more appropriate for a suburban area than a dungeon-like garage.
I don't have a problem with new urbanism in urban areas. We have a lot of mixed-use luxury apartments just opening, or under construction, in downtown Bethesda. I think that's entirely appropriate, as it is in downtown Silver Spring.
The problem with new urbanism in bedroom communities like White Flint, Rockville, Wheaton, Long Branch, Glenmont, White Oak, etc., is that it not only destroys the suburban character and green space of those areas, but is overwhelming the infrastructure.
Metro Red Line capacity significantly degrades at Grosvenor and beyond. Yet, the council and planners are trying to jam as many people as possible between Grosvenor and Clarksburg. With no investment planned for additional capacity on the Red Line, and politicians and local media continuing to enable and prop up Mr. Sarles at WMATA, how is that sustainable? In fact, they're planning to reduce road capacity on 355 and 97 by 33%, and cut speed limits along major stretches to 25 mph. This is a planning disaster.
New urbanism in places like Belward Farm/Science City, King Farm and Clarksburg has proven to be sprawl, as much as any suburban development ever was.
Frank - P.F. Chang's is still open, as well as Dave and Buster's.
Khoury is never open when I've visited recently.
"Still waiting to learn the fate
of popular Dave and Buster's,
whose closure would hardly
bolster the so-called,
"Nighttime Economy""
Seems like such a dumb move on D&B's part to have wasted their energy on digging in and being stubborn instead of finding a new lease elsewhere. The soon-renovated "Ellsworth Place" (City Place Mall) would have made a lot of sense, but now the owner has signed Revolutions - an arcade/sports bar/bowling alley - instead.
"The problem with new urbanism in bedroom communities like White Flint, Rockville, Wheaton, Long Branch, Glenmont, White Oak, etc., is that it not only destroys the suburban character and green space of those areas, but is overwhelming the infrastructure."
Problem is, the area of White Flint we're talking about wasn't a bedroom community. It was a series of strip shopping malls with surface parking lots -- an inefficient use of space and the perfect place for redevelopment.
You have to realize this one fact: There are more people coming.
The population is increasing -- globally, nationally and here in Montgomery County. So what do you do?
Go by outdated land use models that allow sprawl and more and more people to live farther away from each other? That is the method that will truly overwhelm your infrastructure.
You redevelop up where you can. The two-floor strip shopping centers and surface parking lots of White Flint is a prime example of where you can.
Your green space argument is laughable. Show me existing "green space" in the existing (or recently redeveloped) areas of White Flint. You're either too stubborn to see another perspective or lying.
It may not be planned now, but the Metro is highly scalable by adding longer trains or more frequent trains. This can easily add capacity to the system, of course at a cost. BRT and Streetcars can expand this at lower cost.
Poorly designed parking decks are indeed very dark, but a properly designed high density parking deck with tall floors and light colors can be much nicer than an 800 space ring of cars around a two story mall.The average walking distance and connivence of a well designed deck is much more friendly that a long walk through a parking lot aisle.
Decks can be masked with other buildings, housing or retail...not so much with big open parking lots.
Properly designed urban parks with amenities can be much nicer and useful than big open lawn setbacks of suburbia. Why deny any suburb the right to become more urban just to preserve your memory of a suburban dog that just does not hunt.
Adding more frequent and longer trains to Metro would require power upgrades, but they are less barriers to that than extending the lines.
I think the last 50 years has shown us that big setbacks and lawns are "nice" but consume a lot of water & chemicals without being really useful. People are far more likely to gather, relax and interact in urban green spaces.
I hope that some of the stone and other materials in White Flint Mall are saved and reused elsewhere. Not that I expect to see any of it in a museum like the parts of historic Chicago buildings I saw at the Art Institute last week.
White Flint is simply the commercial area for the bedroom communities that surround it (Randolph Hills, Luxmanor, etc.). Parking lots are only inefficient for developers, who would like to build on that "underutilized" square footage. It's not a "fact" that there are more people coming. They're only going to come if we pave over the county and build the Soviet micro apartments for them to move into. There is no quantifiable number of people "coming," and no obligation of the citizens or government to build housing and change lifestyles to accomodate them, even if they were. Check out the green space at the corner of Old Georgetown Road and 355.
"Smart growth" turned out to be a Trojan horse for more sprawl in White Flint, and to build cities in the country at Belward Farm and Science City. Citizens were duped by politicians as the planned office space to allow "smart growth" in King Farm and Clarksburg is all getting flipped to more residential. Along with White Flint = more cars, more emissions, more students jamming classrooms.
Expanding capacity on the Red Line is going to take money, and that would be a better use of funds than BRT. The suburban dog is still hunting just fine here in Montgomery County. Millenials are already heading for the exits in DC, with schools far inferior to the suburbs. Crime, noise and lack of parking and privacy are not really selling points for young families. I don't think the majority of parents would feel an urban pocket park was safer than a backyard.
I am sorry Robert but I think you are really out of touch with what is going on in the DC region and the rest of the country. There is a DC & Arlington have the strongest real estate sectors in the region. Developers from Tysons Corner to White flint would not be spend hundred of millions of dollars redeveloping their "superior" suburban properties if the market for urban spaces was not popular.
Not only is the market telling you this with the distric leading the region in population/investment growth, but expert after expert with PHD's have being saying the same thing. I think they know what they are talking about rather compared to 1 guy with a blog saying we should stay in the 1970's despite what modern society is saying
Sorry for the poor writing but reading all this nonsense about parking garages being dungeons and surface parking lots being superior had me so agitated I couldn't contain my thoughts.
Has this blogger walked down 14th st recently in dc? I dont know how anyone can argue that the suburban platform is superior.
Any word on the parking situation at Pike & Rose or White Flint. My main question being, will we have to pay? :)
Parking at Rio is free, Rockville Town Square costs, so where does White Flint fit in?
I agree with the sentiment regarding lawns. Far too many chemicals and gas powered machines are being used in Bethesda neighborhoods.
I'd much prefer to see able bodied homeowners out with push mowers, doing it the old fashioned way. It's the only green way to cut grass
Not to defend Robert, but he seems well versed in new urbanism, and keeps folks like me (who hopes to retire to Bethesda, away from the suburban sprawl of the Midwest) well informed.
I believe he has a romantic memory of the glory days of a fresh new suburban mall, and the beinifits of an indoor streetscape. Benefits to some, but a what cost? I am an architect at a firm that unfortunately has designed many suburban malls that have destroyed many a town. Replacing quaint little downtowns with huge sprawling mega malls ringed by thousands of cars. I am not proud of this and my practice is now focused on new urbanism, mixed use, dense housing and structured parking.
I live in a region that is devoid of any reasonable public transportation, and will very soon move to the DC area to finally live in a city that understands the benifits of transit, connectivity, walkable and complete streets and new urbanism. Of course it's not perfect.
I encourage Robert to continue to expose all of the good and bad development in the region, and continue this dialog.
The loud cacophony of support for urbanization of the suburbs is actually just a relatively small group - developers, politicians with checks from developers, "academics" with checks from developers (Dr. Stephen Fuller, Coalition for Smarter Growth, etc.), and newspaper companies who actually own land and will profit from being able to build that land to the highest density (Washington Post). That doesn't sound like a dispassionate, objective group to me.We're hearing their well-paid message 24-7-365.
We also don't have the jobs and corporate headquarters moving to MoCo to support smart growth principles, in contrast to DC and Tysons. So even putting aside the quality of life changes, the model can't work until we change the business and transportation (new Potomac River crossing, M-83, Rockville Freeway) reality in the county.
12:33: Have you been to Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg? A totally autocentric development off an interstate with free parking, but far superior to 14th Street in water features and landscaping.
What you are describing actually did happen in Rockville - they demolished their historic downtown for the Rockville Mall, which they ended up tearing down a few decades later. I certainly don't support demolishing historic areas for malls. One place to check out where planners handled the same situation a better way, is downtown Frederick, MD. They kept the historic downtown, and added a new development - Carroll Creek - with a great water feature, and sense of place. I still hate using the (paid!) garage they put up, though!
Most of the malls our firm has built are on greenfields in remote sprawl locations. These alway sap any life out of any nearby small towns causing a slow death, with dwindling retail, restaurants and vacant offices...all moved to be closer to or in the mall. A recent trend we have seen are Lifestyle Centers that start in a greenfield site and artificially create a streetscape flanked by retail and restaurants, but still surrounded by big rings of parking. Many suburban bedroom communities love these and claim them as their new downtowns. Not really new urbanism, but fake urbanism in my view.
I encourage the enhancement of the density and vitality of existing towns by adding new uses, sidewalk cafés, walkable streets, pedestrian amenities and nearby housing, supported by structured parking. Bethesda Row is a perfect example of such infill enhancement.
I agree that Bethesda Row is a great model for new urbanism. It is in an urban area just outside of DC on the Red Line. The idea of building a similar project in Westbard, by contrast, doesn't work. Westbard is a residential neighborhood commercial center, not close to Metro. We really need to consider the location of projects before applying one trend to an entire area. That was how Rockville ended up losing almost all of its historic buildings downtown. They just tore down another one, the Suburban Trust Building.
The worst lifestyle centers are the ones mentioned above. I went to one in Annapolis a while back. Mid-rise buildings and a grid (rather a T) of streets with parking, but the whole thing had been a field a few years before.
These things seem to work best in existing urban areas or immediately adjacent to mass transit. What no one remembers in Bethesda Row is how industrial it all was before. The larger lots made the project much easier than doing the same thing in Woodmont Triangle would be with all its tiny lots originally created for residences.
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