Bethesda's weak apartment market on display in 8011 Norfolk retail proposal

I've been writing for years about the low market demand for "luxury apartments" at the outrageous rents being asked for in downtown Bethesda. While thousands of new units have been delivered in Bethesda since the "Great Recession" ended, rents have only skyrocketed, recently surpassing $3000 for 1-bedrooms for the first time at one of the newest buildings. Under the laws of supply-and-demand, and the free enterprise system, landlords should be cutting prices to meet the actual market rate, and undercutting each other to compete with the many options renters theoretically have. Instead, they have maintained the high rents publicly, while quietly filling their many vacant units with illegal Airbnb guests, college students, and corporate contract housing tenants. But the weak demand for the current product at the current price is now spilling into more obvious view, with the proposed replacement of a failed condominium project with a retail building.

Washington, D.C.-based Dochter & Alexander Retail Advisors is pitching a new retail development for 8011 Norfolk Avenue, the former site of Steamers behind the Gallery Bethesda apartment tower. This site, and adjacent property, had been assembled for The Claiborne, a boutique condominium project. Groundbreaking for that building stalled repeatedly, and it is apparently now dead after 10 years of talk and development approvals. The property was sold to Rock Creek Property Group last year. 

While the renderings of the proposed retail development look great, the bigger story here is what this is telling us about the multifamily real estate market in Bethesda.

The Bethesda condo market has been dead for some time now. Banks who finance condo mortgages are more than slightly averse to approving loans for condo owners whose neighbors will be Airbnb tourists and college students, to say the least. And you have to actually sell the condos, as opposed to filling them with frat brothers for the spring semester, and they won't sell at way-above-market-rate prices. So condos are kaput for now.

But 10 years ago, you might have seen a rental apartment developer swoop in to snap up 8011 Norfolk once The Claiborne flatlined. They haven't. In fact, multifamily housing building permits have dropped 96% over the last year, Montgomery Perspective reported last month. While blogger Adam Pagnucco is blaming that on the County Council's passage of a rent control law, the fact is that rent control doesn't apply to new construction for 23 years - by which time, reading the Montgomery County cartel tea leaves, the rent control law will have long since been repealed. Most developers sell their buildings shortly after they are delivered, anyway, so they couldn't care less about what happens in 2049.

No, the problem is that there is simply no demand for the apartment product being offered at the price it's being offered at. And now we are seeing the first crack in the dam that developers have constructed to hold off the forces of the free market.

Beyond the lack of multifamily development suitors for 8011 Norfolk, there is a second factor that supports this. That end of the Woodmont Triangle has historically been a terrible location for retail. It's a very quiet, low-traffic area more conducive to a good night's rest than high-octane shopping. If retail is now seen as more viable there than sleepy apartments...well, the multifamily market in Bethesda is in real trouble, folks. 

We've already seen the impact of this low demand in the Westbard sector. The number of residential units sought by Regency Centers at Westbard Square was significantly below what was approved in the 2016 Westbard sector plan. Two apartment buildings were entirely deleted, and a third was changed to a nursing home use. A separate developer of two additional projects on the "Park Bethesda" site backed out altogether. When there's red hot market demand for apartments, a collapse like that - or at 8011 Norfolk - simply doesn't happen. 

The chickens are slowly coming home to roost for our incompetent and corrupt elected officials who have created this moribund economy. They want to be reelected - and, in some cases, promoted - in November's election. And this is the record they're running on? Heckuva job, Brownie!

Texas beats Montgomery County for Public Storage HQ despite Westbard self-storage capital

The latest Montgomery County fumble on the corporate headquarters front is hardly the highest-profile, but wields a special sting due to a dubious honor the County holds. Public Storage announced Thursday that it has chosen Frisco, Texas from among its suitors for the next location of its worldwide HQ. Fleeing California, Public Storage will join over 200(!! - hey, everything's bigger in Texas, right?) other corporate headquarters at Hall Park in the booming Lone Star state. This despite the Westbard area of Bethesda arguably holding the world's record for most square feet of self-storage, and the greatest number of individual self-storage facilities within such a cramped radius. 

"We sell boxes!" is rarely considered sizzling competition for "I Love New York" and "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" when it comes to prominent placemaking slogan signage. But what self-storage CEO wouldn't get a daily ego boost from looking out his window at a corner of the globe utterly dominated by his or her industry? Why, not just one, but two Public Storage facilties are even among the prominent architectural landmarks of the Westbard area.

Josh Allen-ing the chance to win the Public Storage HQ achieves the trifecta of Westbard embarrassment for the Montgomery County cartel. Multiple County Councils have failed to deliver the promised amenities, schools, parks, and public perks of the 1982 and 2016 Westbard sector plans. What did materialize since the cartel seized control of a Council majority in 2002 were numerous, gargantuan self-storage facilities that loom over every corner of that "Westbard sector." To then fail to even win the corporate HQ of one of them is the latest - albeit trivially small - reason the cartel and its puppets on the Council can't say "Problem Solved" the way Public Storage does, when it comes to the moribund County economy and its failure to attract a single new major corporate HQ in over 25 years. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Francesca's closing at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda

Francesca's is closing at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. A closing sale is now underway at the boutique. It's one of the rare business closures we can't blame the Montgomery County Council for, as the chain is closing all of its stores nationwide. It's been something of a slow-motion car wreck for Francesca's, which filed for bankruptcy over five years ago. Westfield has a number of tenants coming in that would be considered a clear step up from Francesca's, so the pain is going to be borne by the employees and loyal customers as opposed to the mall itself.

Assault outside of home in Bethesda

Montgomery County police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault outside of a home in Bethesda early Thursday evening, February 12, 2026. The assault was reported at a residence in the 8100 block of Old Georgetown Road at 6:17 PM Thursday. That is near the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad. The assault reportedly took place in the driveway of the home.

Xi'an Famous Foods "coming soon" to Montrose Crossing

Xi'an Famous Foods is "coming soon" to 12031 Rockville Pike at Montrose Crossing, new signage posted at its future storefront advertises. The 1,718 square-foot western Chinese restaurant will be located next to RASA and Five Guys Burger and Fries. Xi’an Famous Foods was founded in 2005 as a 200 square foot basement stall in the Golden Shopping Mall in Flushing, N.Y. It claimed to have been the first restaurant to bring the little-known cuisine of Xi’an to the United States. Over the last twenty years, it has grown into 20 locations across the Big Apple, and was a favorite of the late Anthony Bourdain.

A tax-and-spend warning for Maryland as 2030 fiscal disaster looms

A warning about the fiscal ruin that results from aggressive and excessive taxation and spending is coming to Maryland - and its greatest offender, Montgomery County - from a state known for its coffee, grunge music, and Communist autonomous zones. The scariest part is that Maryland and MoCo are further down this road than Washington state. But due to a series of radical left turns, the Evergreen State appears determined to adopt Maryland tax-and-spend policies at an increasing clip. The saga doesn't just remind us that we can't keep going with tape over the Check Engine light on Maryland's fiscal dashboard, but of the proven economic development boost that comes from a competitive tax policy.

"For decades, Washington state's economic advantage was its lack of a personal income tax," Ryan Frost and Mark Harmsworth write in an op-ed in The Washington Post. "Washington built its economy by attracting companies such as Microsoft and Amazon with no income tax." Some elected officials in the state have apparently grown tired of winning, though. "Washington state Democrats, who have largely controlled the state government for 40 years, are now proposing an unconstitutional income tax." Unconstitutional? I like the sound of that. Give Washington's Supreme Court credit for reaffirming that income taxes are illegal and unconstitutional way back in 1933. Where's our William J. Millard?!

Taxes can not only be illegal, but ill-advised. "Seattle recently imposed new payroll taxes, and businesses responded by relocating to neighboring cities," Frost and Harmsworth explain. "An income tax would make that exodus statewide. High earners are already leaving Washington amid the recently enacted taxes, and those moving in earn substantially less than those departing."

Maryland has already seen this happen. Montgomery County dropped off the Forbes Richest Counties in America list many years ago, and watched its vaunted "Montgomery County's Rodeo Drive" in Friendship Heights devolve into vacant storefronts, aging apartments, and smashed-up bus shelters, as the ultra-wealthy fled to lower-tax jurisdictions in the region. Businesses have relocated to Northern Virginia. And, like Washington state, the residents moving into MoCo and Maryland are mostly low-income.

But Washington state isn't just aping our massive tax burden, which is the largest in the D.C. area. They've also got the same crack addiction to spending that our County Council and state legislators have had since 2002. Washington state has a multi-billion dollar budget deficit just one year after the largest tax increase in state history. "The pattern is predictable: increase taxes, allocate the revenue to permanent new obligations and then point to the resulting 'shortfall' as justification for the next tax hike," Frost and Harmsworth summarize in a nutshell. 

Sound familiar? Annapolis started with a "millionaire tax" in 2012. Only two years after that tax hike, there were 1000 less such "millionaires" filing tax returns in Maryland, tanking state revenue. Current Maryland Governor Wes Moore walloped Marylanders with IT taxes and massive fee hikes for vehicle registration last year. The Montgomery County Council kept a disastrous energy tax and absurdist tax on the rain(!!) in place, while adding annual property tax hikes and a gargantuan recordation tax to the burden of homeowners.

And like their fellow spending junkies on the West Coast, the appetite of our elected officials to burn through taxpayer cash has only increased alongside the taxes. The Montgomery County Council has more than doubled the County budget over a mere decade. Their counterparts in Annapolis found a "permanent new obligation" in a reckless waste of money known as the "Blueprint for Maryland's Future," which is really a blueprint for teacher's union endorsements for the legislators who voted for it with the full knowledge that it would bankrupt the state in the next decade.

As Frost and Harmsworth correctly diagnose the illness, "the problem isn't that citizens aren't paying enough. It's that the government has lost the ability to say no." Have voters in Montgomery County and Maryland also lost the ability to say no to our incompetent and corrupt elected officials? Election results so far this century would suggest they have. Is there a breaking point, a level of taxation that's too high, or a realization of impending fiscal doom that can provide a smelling salts moment?

To paraphrase the op-ed authors, "Maryland is no longer a shining example of how to build a prosperous economy. It is a case study of how to dismantle one."

Kako Claw opens at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda (Photos)

Kako Claw is now open at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda. The claw machine arcade offers token packages starting at $10. Win blind box toys and collectibles Win keychains. Win plushies. Win plushie keychains! Already tired of what you won? Trade up at the Trade Station.

Kako Claw claims every machine gives you a fair chance to win. Look for Kako Claw on Level 1 of the mall, in the Cheesecake Factory wing. Kako Claw opened a Wheaton Plaza location just last month, so they are growing quickly in our area.

Signage installed at Char'd at Pike & Rose

The sign is up at Char'd at 11881 Grand Park Avenue at Pike & Rose. It's already hooked up and lit after dark. However, it looks a bit undersized for the amount of space available above the storefront. What's not undersized is the steady popularity of burger startups in Montgomery County, with the Char'd announcement generating immediate enthusiasm among hamburger lovers familiar with the brand. The burger fad has remained strong for over a decade, with a Steeze Burger and Z-Burger entering for every Kraze Burger and Bobby's Burger Palace that has exited. Let's have a moment of silence for Hamburger Hamlet and Fuddruckers, though.

Maryland is 2nd-worst state to start a business, study finds

Maryland is the second-worst state in America in which to start a business, a study by WalletHub found. Rhode Island is rated the worst of all. The latest ignoble recognition for the Old Line State is compounded by other recent rankings showing Maryland is #46 out of 50 in tax competitiveness, according to the Tax Foundation, and is way down at #36 on the list of best states to retire in - also compiled by WalletHub.

Montgomery County has the highest overall tax and fee burden in the region. What else makes Maryland a terrible place to start a business? A poor business environment, WalletHub says. That includes measurements of current small business growth statistics, job growth, variety of industries, startups per capita, five-year business survival rate, share of fast-growing firms, and the entrepreneurship index. 

Another criteria examined was the cost of doing business. Beyond high County and State taxes, that takes into account the cost of living, the cost of office space, labor costs, employer-based health insurance costs, and the corporate tax rate. Not surprisingly, Maryland scores poorly across the board on business costs.

Also considered were access to capital and a skilled workforce. This includes the amount of venture capital being invested in Maryland businesses, rankings of colleges and universities in the state, and growth of the working age population.

Which states are the best to start a business in? According to WalletHub, Florida, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana, Nevada, and California. Better start voting for better-qualified elected officials, or rent a moving truck for your business to relocate to greener pastures.

Imagine if they had factored in the exorbitant cost of energy in Maryland! We might have dropped to dead last. As it is, we're in real trouble, folks. How many more miles can Montgomery County and Maryland go down the road with tape over the Check Engine light on the economic development dashboard? Heckuva job, Brownie!

Foot Locker reopens at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda

 

Better late than never. Foot Locker has reopened at Westfield Montgomery Mall in a new, larger space. The new store includes a Kids Foot Locker. A fall 2025 opening date blew past, but one of the top sporting goods destinations at the mall is finally open for business again.

No Regrets to Go pizzeria opening in Bethesda

No Regrets Pizza is expanding from White Flint to downtown Bethesda. No Regrets to Go will be located in the ground floor of the new Sophia Bethesda apartment tower at 4924 St. Elmo Avenue. The new location will sell beer and wine. The owner has applied for a liquor license from Montgomery County. A hearing on the application has been scheduled for March 19, 2026 at 10:30 AM.