A Mars landscape is developing on the former Ourisman Ford property by Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. Excavation has advanced significantly, as workers prepare the site for a future apartment building. Several pieces of heavy equipment are being used.
Apartments & restaurants. Restaurants and apartments. I hope no one in any of these many thousands of new apartments ever needs anything other than an overpriced meal --schools; sewers; adequate (that is, not breaking everywhere come winter) water mains; sufficient public spaces so we aren't all crawling over each other. Bethesda's developers know how to build high-density housing, no question. I'm still waiting to see if anyone in authority will ever point out that perhaps we need to stop building, stop jamming more and more and more bodies into the area, and work to preserve something that even vaguely resembles the quality of life that made the area so attractive to begin with.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a rather boring place to choose to live, at least until Montgomery Mall creates their proposed remodeling of the mall to create an open air urban Main Street feel with apartments, shops, cafes, fitness center and a hotel across from this project. I would assume the rents will need to be quite low to draw in tenants.
ReplyDeleteWow, 9:37. Loving the crocodile tears over a defunct car dealership. How will your quality of life ever recover from this!
ReplyDelete9:37 AM:
ReplyDeleteI would argue that adding more density, more housing opportunities, and a wider and expanding variety of retail and dining is key to enhancing the quality of life for most residents. Montgomery County has extensive development fees, school impact taxes and open space requirements intended to match new development with enhances infrastructure. If these fees prove to be inadequate, they can be raised to meet evolving community needs. Criteria for school adequacy and impact fees are reviewed and adjusted every two years.
In downtown Bethesda very expensive Park Improvement Payments, often over $1M for a typical project, are required when enhanced density is built, funding large scale improvements to the park system. Building enhanced density in downtown Bethesda requires extensive design excellence and urban planning review by the Design Advisory Panel, who often require massive changes to proposed projects to create a diverse, dynamic, and thoughtfully designed built environment. Extensive sustainable design criteria, green roofs and reduced energy consumption are all required to develop in downtown, replacing older, under developed and energy efficient buildings.
What 9:42 AM said. This looks like a horrible place to live until much more development occurs at Montgomery Mall to give it more of a community neighborhood feel and less of an "office park off the highway" feel.
ReplyDelete