Over the last three years in Montgomery County, we've seen German auto brands raise the bar for auto dealership architecture. Titanically-tall windows and clean euro-modernist lines dominate as these Teutonic auto giants attempt to match or outdo their rivals, even as some are owned by the same parent company.
Porsche Bethesda was the first to turn heads, debuting at Pike & Rose in 2017. More recently,
Audi Rockville and
BMW of Rockville have unveiled their showrooms of the future on Rockville Pike.
Now it's
EuroMotorcars' turn to dazzle auto buyers in downtown Bethesda with their brand-new showroom and facility at 7020 Arlington Road, now fully-stocked with the latest Mercedes Benz and AMG models. Also returning is EuroMotorcars' always-interesting assortment of used luxury vehicles and supercars at the corner of Arlington and Bethesda Avenue.
Will Euromotorcars continue to have auto deliver trucks/ trailers park on and obstruct one lane of Arlington Road?
ReplyDeleteObviously they have money to have a nice new showroom. Why PPP? https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/292090-euro-motorcars-bethesda-llc-bethesda-md
Did they include a location for car carrier trucks to park when delivering new vehicles? Or will these trucks continue to block one lane of Arlington Road, inconveniencing everyone and subsidizing those who can afford a new Mercedes?
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting! I also noticed that they are now beginning the demo of the former dealership buildings that front on Bethesda Avenue. I recall that they were denied site plan approval for a scheme that proposed a big open parking lot on that site, as the county required a building close to the street. A future building was proposed at the corner of Bethesda and Arlington, which I believe was going to be a new Audi showroom. It looks like they got around their denied site plans by simply, but extensively, remodeling within their existing footprint. They course are now building a three story high Audi showroom on the east side of Arlington, at the former Goodyear tire store site.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like we will get a dynamic new Audi showroom that follows their new prototype, but will be stuck with a rather boring one story tall glass box for the Mercedes side, facing a massive parking lot.I hope the new work on the Bethesda side is a bit more edgy. Bethesda Avenue, west of Arlington has been a hodge-podge of tired one story buildings for decades. A reminder of the former semi-industrial automotive repair shop nature of the area. Not unlike the hold-out auto-body repair shop in the middle of Bethesda Row on Elm.
Perhaps it’s time for Federal Realty to step up and expand Bethesda Row to the south, west, and north, by purchasing some of these under utilized spaces and creating a more thoughtfully designed mixed-use development. I know they have site plan approval for a three story high mixed use development south of Bethesda Avenue, including the parking lot behind the Apple Store. They asked for but were denied higher building density and height in the recent Downtown Bethesda Sector Plan.
Sign says no car carriers. So, they're still going to block a lane on Arlington Road to unload cars with all that space in their lot?
ReplyDeleteHopefully the days of blocking traffic are over. Pre-pandemic, they'd do that all the time during prime Bethesda Row traffic hours in the evening.
The new BMW of Rockville building is a step back from the "old" VOB-era BMW dealership, which ironically looks more contemporary and attractive. The new dealership is basically an unimaginative massive four-story box. Although the lower two stories have an all glass facade and look inviting enough, the upper two floors are oppressive blank white walls, probably to mask a massive parking garage.
ReplyDelete