Hopefully the significant investment means the restaurant will stay in place, as this, the McDonald's and Popeyes are all on very valuable property these days in the transforming Pike District. B.F. Saul already has a tower planned for the McDonald's site.
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HANS RIEMER IS NOT SATISFIED WITH WAR ON NITESPOTS AND GAS STATIONS AND WINTERTIME PEDESTRIANS NOW HE HAS DECLARED WAR ON MCDONALDS
That entire block (between Old Georgetown, 355, Executive, and Marinelli) is very valuable and needs to be redeveloped. Unfortunately, pretty much the only properties in White Flint not slated for redevelopment are on this block. The owner of the strip mall immediately south of Arby's has explicitly stated that he planned to continue operating the property with its current use.
Part of the problem is the FAR for those sites, which is less than the max FAR in downtown Bethesda. That's fine for the huge parcels at Pike & Rose, White Flint Mall, etc., but not the smaller properties on this block.
Many of the property owners on that block aren't against redevelopment, but it's virtually impossible financially without assemblage. For instance, you can't really build a mixed-use project with any meaningful density on the the Arby's or Capital One Bank properties, because they're so small.
All of the properties on that block might fit in with the neighborhood now, but they're gonna stick out like sore thumbs and look borderline absurd in 15 years when Pike & Rose, North Bethesda Center, the Conference Center site, the Gables site, and the Saul site are fully built out. The ironic thing is those properties are the closest to the Metro station.
In 15 years they can re-assess their options. It will take that long for all the projects anyway.
In the meantime, a new exterior on Arby's will help.
People still go to Arby's?
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