Washington Property Company to deliver its first office/residential mixed-use project with Hampden East in Bethesda (Photos)

Bethesda-based real estate firm Washington Property Company will develop its first mixed-use project to combine office, retail and residential if Montgomery County approves its plan for Hampden East next year. Taking up a full half-block bordered by Hampden Lane, East Lane and Montgomery Lane in downtown Bethesda, it will move forward as redevelopment of two adjacent properties appears to be stalling again. The latest proposal for a long-vacant gas station on the other half of the block, a senior housing high-rise, is "going bye-bye" due to the Covid-19 pandemic, WPC's attorney Bob Dalrymple said during a virtual pre-submittal meeting last night. Across Hampden Lane, the Metro Tower project is now rumored to be waiting until the Purple Line infrastructure construction around it is completed.

The Hampden Lane project already received sketch plan approval last month from the Montgomery County Planning Board. Last night, WPC introduced its Preliminary and Site Plans at the virtual meeting. 

Hampden East will feature up to 150 residential units, topped by 300,000 or more SF of office space. The ground floor will have a "grand retail hall" at the southwest corner. A 300-space underground garage will handle parking for the development.

Roadway sections around the project

Architecturally, the office tower portion will present an "interesting profile" on the Bethesda skyline, with sculpting on the south facade. The residential podium will have a more expressive aesthetic, and WPC is focused on creating attractive public spaces at street level. Tying the new spaces to the many other plazas and pedestrian cut-throughs around the site is another goal, as are wide sidewalks.

WPC wants to offer office tenants a biophilic design with green terraces, in the belief that human wellness comes from contact with nature. A shared lobby for all of the building's uses will be active 24 hours a day.

Now that the required meeting has been held, WPC will submit the Preliminary and Site Plans to the County later this month. More detailed architectural and landscaping plans will be presented at another virtual meeting in January or February 2021. The Development Review Committee and Downtown Bethesda Design Advisory Panel are expected to review all of these plans by the end of March 2021.

WPC is hopeful that a Planning Board public hearing for project approval will be tentatively held in May 2021.

Hampden East project to combine office, residential and retail in downtown Bethesda

Development partners Washington Property Company and Douglas Development introduced their Hampden East mixed-use project at a virtual public meeting online last night. Bounded by Hampden Lane, East Lane, Montgomery Lane and the former Exxon gas station site on Wisconsin Avenue, the nearly-full-block project will be 262' feet tall with the added height the developers expect to receive for it.

You can see how the architect immediately improved
the massing design (right) over the bland one (left)
pushed in the sector plan that's taking over downtown

Hampden East will include 150 residential units topped with 350,000 SF of office space. 17.6% of the residential units will be affordable housing, which will qualify the project for an additional 12' of height. The ground floor of the building will host 10,000 SF of retail and restaurant space.

Attorneys Bob Dalrymple and Matt Gordon represented the applicants; WPC is "deeply committed" to the project, they said, because their headquarters is located on the site. WPC has not said publicly that it will relocate into the new building. It would seem to be a strong possibility, as they are losing their current HQ, and the office market is weak in Montgomery County.

3 design options under consideration

The developers consider Hampden Lane to be a northern European-style pedestrian street that lends a quiet nature to the property. They plan to facilitate direct access to outdoor spaces to promote better health for the occupants.

Asked if the new abnormal of the coronavirus pandemic would influence the design of the project, Dalrymple joked that "the building did not cause the coronavirus." But architecture firm Shalom Baranes Associates is looking at many ideas for cleaning indoor air and mitigating contact, and expects to incorporate them into the project.

A sketch plan will be submitted to the Montgomery County Planning Department in the coming weeks. There was not yet a solidified architectural design to show last night, but three different approaches are being considered.

Redevelopment of former Pines of Rome/Tommy Joe's/AOTA sites proposed in Bethesda

A long-expected redevelopment of most of a square block bounded by Wisconsin Avenue, East Lane Hampden and Montgomery Lanes in downtown Bethesda is finally moving forward. The gas station site along Wisconsin was recently proposed to be redeveloped as an assisted-living tower. Now the rest of the properties assembled over the last decade will be redeveloped as 500,000 SF of office space, residential housing with 17.6% affordable units, and retail/restaurant space with structured parking.

The properties in question are 4703-4719 Hampden Lane and 4714-4720 Montgomery Lane. Among the notable former tenants of these properties were Pines of Rome (now on Cordell Avenue), Tommy Joe's (now at the corner of Cordell and Norfolk Avenue) and the AOTA.

A required public meeting on the project, which could be up to 250' tall, will be held online on Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 7:30 PM at https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/453890637.