Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Bethesda construction update: Saah Building facade renovation (Photos)

Work continues on the upgrade of the facade at the Saah Building at 7813-7817 Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda. The design by local architecture firm Steven J. Karr, AIA, Inc. will increase the amount of glass and natural light on the second floor, and add a mural to the north wall of the building.

All current tenants of the building remain open for business throughout the renovation.

47 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rereading all the old comments about the design and it still seems pointless to give this building a slight makeover. This is just going to make true assemblage and knockdown for a bigger higher density building more expensive for everyone. This close to metro! :(

Anonymous said...

And it's still ugly as sin. That's what you get when you use the cheap pine you sell.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Thanks for reporting this earth shattering news Robert!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

So the tenants will stay the same? Do their rents go up because of the renovation? Maybe their leases are coming up and this is a push for higher rents from current or new tenants. All the while the current tenants have to suffer through the renovation process.

Anonymous said...

LOL @ Dyer's life

Anonymous said...

7:28AM I'm laughing at yours. You l-u-r-v-e him. You want to be him.

Anonymous said...

How come relevant comments are getting deleted? Just because they are negative opinions of the architect?

Anonymous said...

This is absolutely ridiculous. Dyer complains about other publications and government improprieties and relationships, and he censors posts that are completely on topic but he doesn't agree with the content.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

The mention of Karr just reminded me - Smashburger is still going strong, in spite of Dyer's desperate rumors.

Anonymous said...

I hope they make it, I like their burgers. The $70 per square foot they pay is absolutely insane though.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a fan of this design. And what's with all the murals on Karr properties? The building design doesn't really stand up on its own?

Anonymous said...

The Smashburger space is available to lease, as Dyer reported.

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

@ 4:41 PM - Sure it is.

Meanwhile, "De Tapas" still has a sign promises that it will open in "Spring 2016", which ends in less than 19 days, and the interior walls have barely even been started.

Robert Dyer said...

7:08: The project is obviously not finished yet - you can see there is Tyvek on much of it - this is not the finished product by any means.

Anonymous said...

Why is Dyer censoring any comment about relevant Greenhill properties?

Anonymous said...

Dyer is such a hypocrite! Just as bad as the county council he rails against. An objective journalist would not delete relevant comments. Most of the deleted comments were relevant as they expressed readers concerns about the quality of the design by the architect. Robert, can you tell us how these comments violated your policy and why you delete them? #dodgingdyer

Robert Dyer said...

4:39: Yes, you are engaging in a personal attack and disparaging people. You've just posted a barrage of comments in the last hour alone. Get back to the topic at hand. If you don't like the design, say it. But you can't make false claims about people's work.

Betsy said...

So the Greenhill building NYC mural you posted pictures of in this blog post being discussed aren't relevant?

I don't like the Karr design. Many people have said it.

What are the false claims that were made?

Many would consider your claims ahainst council members, the planning department, Montgomery County, Equity One, etc false claims. So should all your blog posts be censored by yourself also?

What makes comments about Greenberg and Karr disparaging and personal attacks and your comments about Riemer and there not?

Anonymous said...

Huge hypocrite!!!

Anonymous said...

"What makes comments about Greenberg and Karr disparaging and personal attacks and your comments about Riemer and there not?"

#DyerDoubleStandard

Robert Dyer said...

6:36: My comments about Riemer are true. Nobody cares about your personal beef with a landowner.

Anonymous said...

So you think your comments about Riemer are true. And so many readers here think their comments about Greenhill and Karr are true. Get it?

Anonymous said...

I think it sounds more like a cease & desist letter was received. I've mentioned before that in your zest to rail on Dyer that you disparage others and their businesses.

Anonymous said...

Robert Dyer. Hypocrisy at its best. IMHO.

Anonymous said...

And many of us think these things are true about Greenhill. So why is one ok and the other not?

Rugby said...

Lol...poor Reamer. The guy can't take skeptical coverage from one journalist (Dyer).
Hans wouldn't last long as an elected official in a city with real press scrutiny.

Anonymous said...

8:58AM There are different defamation standards for political and for private parties.

Anonymous said...

Greenhill isn't quite a private party.

Anonymous said...

Btw that was the first real reply about Dyer's inconsistency, thank you for that.

So is Dyer's take that it's okay for him to say his opinion about Riemer because he's a public political figure but Greenhill/Greenberg is a private party?

Anonymous said...

Hi Rugby, in a previous post/comment, Dyer gave his reason as something else.

"All I'm asking is that people don't use the comments to defame, disparage and settle personal beefs with people" - Robert Dyer

So does Dyer consider public opinion of Greenhill as defamating, disparaging, and personal beefs?

Wouldn't he have a direct conflict of interest in defaming, disparaging, and having a personal beef with Riemer and the other council members he ran against and lost?

Anonymous said...

Dyer also said "Sorry, but I'm not going to spend my Memorial Day deleting the same guy's repetitive comments about Greenhill over and over again." As the reason he disabled comments on the Greenhill post.

Anonymous said...

Is your drama going to have an intermission soon? Comment after comment after comment. You're working yourself into a frenzy. Chill.

Robert Dyer said...

11:28: I've never written a single defamatory statement about anyone on this website. Any criticism of Riemer or anyone else has been entirely fact-based. You're embarrassing yourself.

Rugby said...

How is it defaming Reamer to state that he has no press scrutiny other than Robert's reporting? That's fact. If there is another outlet scrutinizing the Council, then I'll stand corrected.
The legacy local media doesn't want to do the work.

Anonymous said...

How could you possibly delete the fact based comment from last night? Which one of those was not true?

Anonymous said...

Hi rents. Fact.

Anonymous said...

Hi vacancies. Fact.

Robert Dyer said...

4:51: I don't have any evidence in front of me for those claims. What is "high rent" in the context of Bethesda? Isn't this the capital of high rent south of New York? There are vacancies in the "town centers" built more recently - do you consider those "high vacancies"? It just seems odd to single out one company for criticism in those regards.

Anonymous said...

How's Montgomery county's economy? Compared to around the country? Our education system? Our commercial businesses and residential occupancy?

Robert Dyer said...

6:56: Non-federal-government economy? Moribund. Education system? In steep decline since 2010 according to the OLO report and final exam scores.

Flynn said...

Interesting conversation developing. A couple questions to be fair...

The federal government is in NoVa also. Who has more and why?

If you discount MoCo's economy because they have federal government jobs, does that mean you discount NoVa's economy because they have IAD?

How do other states fair in that same timeframe according to the OLO report and final exam scores?

Anonymous said...

And it looks like once again Dyer has left the conversation when confronted with actual questions.

#dodgingdyer

Anonymous said...

Looks like the typical Dyer MO.