Dean & DeLuca Bethesda store opening delayed - for two years

The eagerly-awaited 4th Quarter 2017 opening of Dean & DeLuca on Bethesda Avenue won't happen after all, according to a spokesperson for the store's landlord, JBG Smith. A lack of construction activity inside the two-level retail building, part of JBG Smith's future 4747 Bethesda Avenue office/retail project, has raised eyebrows among commercial real estate observers in recent months. JBG Smith has now confirmed no construction is taking place inside the Dean & DeLuca space. 

Construction of the office tower at
4747 Bethesda Avenue is underway

So what is going on? A real estate source has told me the Dean & DeLuca deal is off at this property, and the store will not open. Ever. JBG Smith tells me this is not the case. Instead, they say, Dean & DeLuca wants to make changes to the design of the store, and the new opening date is expected to be in the 3rd Quarter of 2019, when the adjoining office tower opens. Dean & DeLuca declined to comment for this story.

Pines of Rome reopens after minor updates

After a brief closure this week, the new Pines of Rome at 4918 Cordell Avenue has reopened. It appears the closure was to address some minor code issues related to the sign and entryway.

Hyatt Regency driveway reopens to traffic (Photos)

Construction still isn't quite finished out in front of the Hyatt Regency Bethesda hotel, but the driveway has reopened to automobile traffic. A major, building-wide renovation is nearing completion, and Starbucks and a second new tenant will move into new ground floor commercial spaces.

iPhone X lines up customers at Bethesda Apple Store (Photos)

The release of the ridiculously-priced iPhone X had customers still lined up outside the Bethesda Row Apple Store last evening. Police were on hand to manage paying customers, and those who just wanted to get their hands on the display iPhone Xs. The phone itself is short on major tech breakthroughs, and long on price. It has an impressive screen, but it is slightly marred by the odd design choice to stick a bezel tab down into the top of the display. To the Montgomery County political cartel's chagrin, it still can beautifully display the leading news websites fighting the $y$tem in corrupt MoCo.

Bethesda construction update: West Lane Apartments (Photos)

Look at all the glass now in place at the West Lane Apartments since my last report 24 days ago.  The 112-unit project is located at 4901 Montgomery Lane, and is scheduled for delivery in Spring 2018.

Double curbs tripping up Bethesda pedestrians (Photos)

New intersection curbs and ramps installed along Wisconsin Avenue were designed to improve safety and accessibility, but a particular double-curb design is instead sending pedestrians flying - and to the hospital. One senior citizen reports that she tripped on the double-curb outside True Food Kitchen, and suffered significant injuries. 

A waitress told the victim she has witnessed two other people trip on the curb, which creates a drop-off step from the grade of the main sidewalk, to a lower grade around the curb ramp. Once at Suburban Hospital, the pedestrian who fell encountered a younger woman who had fallen on a similar curb earlier that evening.

I inspected the sidewalk and double curb contraption at the intersection of Wisconsin and Woodmont Avenue/Leland Street outside True Food Kitchen. The sidewalk was recently completely reconstructed when the Solaire Bethesda apartment building replaced Eastham's Exxon on the site. It appears the double curb is supposed to provide a shorter transition of grades, but instead has created a new trip-and-fall danger. 

Walking among a crowd, being momentarily distracted, or navigating with poor (or no) eyesight, the design is a major injury hazard. In fact, the double curb on the north end of the block doesn't even have a yellow warning stripe!

The double curb at the north end of
the block doesn't even have a
warning stripe

There is not any textured warning surface that would alert cane users to an imminent drop, simply the drop itself. We've seen how dangerous that can be on subway platforms. In relative terms, the step down is fairly steep.

Extremely dangerous

The curb and ramp area was installed by the Maryland State Highway Administration, and is their responsibility, according to Montgomery County. It's clear some type of modification is warranted and urgent for any sidewalk with this design.

Several parallel curb designs in the
MDSHA Pedestrian Facilities Guidelines
manual; no guidelines are given to
prevent falls at double curbs

MoCo political cartel sees cemetery "protection" law as a move-the-bodies bill

Something is happening behind the scenes in Montgomery County government. This week, multiple government departments are coordinating new public messaging on the battle over the African-American cemetery at Westwood Tower in Bethesda. Developer Regency Centers, the County's Housing Opportunities Commission, and Montgomery County want to build a parking garage on top of the graves, many of which belong to the first generation of free African-Americans after Maryland Emancipation. While the HOC tested a new, but not-credible, PR message yesterday, the County Council and Planning Department scored a fake news victory with a preposterous headline in the Washington Post Metro section yesterday.

Much like the HOC headdesk-worthy statement, the article on a new cemetery "protection" bill being passed unanimously by the pro-developer County Council was all about false impresssions. A banner headline falsely stated: "Montgomery to protect cemeteries." As Bill Clinton said, "Give me a break." I actually heard from someone yesterday who saw the story, and believed that the County had stepped in to save the cemetery at Westbard. WRONG. But that is clearly what the County's political cartel - in reality just a tiny-but-powerful sliver of the local Democratic party - and headline writer at the Post had in mind, a deliberate misinformation campaign.

Anyone following the contentious battle over the cemetery on this blog already knows the bill will not solve the Westbard graveyard battle. It would not have prevented it had it been in place, and will not prevent a similar battle in the future, when a cemetery is physically "lost" to the naked eye and community consciousness. One cannot "research the boundaries of burial sites" on their ready-to-develop land IF THEY DON'T KNOW THE CEMETERY IS THERE (or pretend they don't know - the County Council hasn't bothered to inquire whether the Tauber family informed Capital Properties of the cemetery when they sold the land to them a decade ago, or if Capital Properties informed Regency Centers when they sold the 22 acres to them in 2012).

But the fake news came with a dose of chilling reality, as we've now confirmed that the County Council and Planning Department support the destruction of cemeteries, and the removal of bodies to clear the way for private profit by big corporations. Significantly, no taxpaying civilian who testified on the bill supported giving the Planning Board authority to decide if a developer gets to relocate bodies. In fact, several - including myself - pointedly asked the Council to remove that provision from the bill.

Shockingly, the Council ignored its own constituents, and retained the pro-developer proviso that would let the same Planning Board Chair who surrounded himself with police officers to speak to a representative of a black church decide whether black bodies will be relocated at Westbard.

The Council should have instead included a provision forbidding the relocation of graves in cemeteries such as the one at Westbard. This is not the discovery of a random pauper's grave during highway construction. Rather, this cemetery is formally delineated in land records, has recorded burial announcements, and has both a descendant community and church as present-day legal parties to the matter. It is also, along with the Macedonia Baptist Church, the only remaining physical remnant of the "lost" African-American community along River Road, founded by former slaves of the adjacent Loughborough plantation. Living history that has been suppressed by the County for decades, but is now forcing its way back into the conversation.

Yet, according to Planning Director Gwen Wright, "if burial sites are found" by Regency Centers (there's that conditional "if" again - the Post claims the cemetery was "probably disturbed" by construction of Westwood Tower, despite at least two witnesses who have great detail about the discovery of bodies during that late-1960s desecration), "the Planning Board would use the criteria developed and make a judgement."

"Montgomery to protect cemeteries?" Not with a move-the-bodies bill. Fake news. Should Regency, HOC and Montgomery County actually be stupid enough to try to relocate these graves, this will be a national civil rights story.

HOC changes public message under heat of cemetery protests (Video + Photos)

Protesters returned to the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission in Kensington yesterday, and the increasing heat over a threatened African-American cemetery on HOC land had commissioners changing their public stance on their development plans. Public documents and testimony by HOC representatives earlier this year made clear the commission intends to build a parking garage atop the cemetery on its Westwood Tower property in Bethesda. Emails and memos obtained via public information requests show HOC has been a player in the Regency Centers development plans from the beginning in 2012.

But yesterday, commission chair Jackie Simon had a new message for protesters and the public. Reading from a heavily-lawyered prepared statement, Simon declared the HOC has no plans to redevelop any part of the property at this time. It does plan to purchase the Westwood Tower property it currently operates from Regency Centers, but will merely continue to operate the existing building. Of course, the legal language left open the possibility of exploring future redevelopment of the site.

The new public stance is "fake news," as HOC engaged in mediation hearings with the Macedonia Baptist Church over its plan to build the garage all summer. HOC's plans for the garage and new housing on the cemetery site were detailed and far along in the planning process up until 4:00 PM yesterday.

Protesters organized by the church and the Montgomery County chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice were not buying the prepared statement, asking for votes by the commission that would provide actual concrete protections for the cemetery, which was already desecrated by construction workers building Westwood Tower in the late 1960s.

Several speakers, including Macedonia Baptist Church Social Justice Ministry director Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, called on commissioners to resign if they would not stand up to protect the sacred ground of the cemetery, which holds many remains of the first generation of freed slaves in Maryland among its dead. In appealing to the HOC, she said, "like our ancestors, we were met with the stony eyes of contempt and disregard" by commissioners and staff. "There is no moral core to HOC," Coleman-Adebayo continued. "George Wallace would understand why you are hiding behind rules and regulations. Your names will be forever linked with such racist titans. Your leadership is bankrupt." She challenged the commissioners to protect the cemetery and allow a museum on the site instead of a garage, adding, "if you cannot do that, the only decent choice you have is to resign."

Protesters also pushed back on the baseless allegation by HOC that the church had leaked information from the mediation sessions over the summer. "That is a lie," MBC's pastor, the Rev. Segun Adebayo told commissioners. "We want to demand an apology." Commissioners and staff were unable to substantiate the leak allegation yesterday.

Of the Westwood Tower property, Pastor Adebayo said, "Our people were there before you got there. And they will be there long after you are gone. We are law-abiding. We are not violent. But we will use every moral fiber to resist. You may not care about those bodies. [HOC Executive Director Stacy] Spann may not care about those bodies, but we do."

"Give us the vote!" protesters chanted. Kevin Berends of the No Fear Coalition pressed commissioners again on the leak allegation. He challenged the commission to provide proof, or retract the charge. Simon acknowledged she knew of no specific basis for the allegation, but said she was "not going to comment." Quoting Marcus Garvey's belief that "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots," Robert Stubblefield of Impact Silver Spring advised commissioners to "forget the tree being doomed to fall - it has already fallen, and is being eaten by termites."

Resident Peter Burr came to the meeting to see for himself "what kind of people think they're entitled to build a parking garage on top of a cemetery." He accused the commission of "standing idly by," not only threatening the future of the graveyard, but also failing to "cure the desecration that has already occurred."

"Your treatment of the descendant community is deplorable," SURJ representative and resident Laurel Hoa said. "What you are doing is just impeding justice. Recalling the pre-civil rights era, she added, "What was done in the 1950s was wrong. What you're doing in 2017 is even more wrong."

A major protest rally against HOC/Regency Center's garage plans is scheduled for Sunday, November 12, 2017, at 1:30 PM at the Macedonia Baptist Church at 5119 River Road. Spread the word. Be there!

Bethesda construction update: Brightview Bethesda (Photos)

The pace has really picked up at the Brightview Bethesda construction site at 4907 Rugby Avenue. Not only is demolition complete, but the Donohoe Construction team is already on to excavation, sheeting and shoring. We're also getting a temporary clear view of the classic Battery Gardens apartments from Rugby Avenue.

Brightview Bethesda will be for assisted living and memory care residents, with a secure second floor for dementia patients. Floors 3-7 will be assisted living divided into studios, and 1-and-2-bedroom apartment units. Units will have kitchenettes, but 3 meals a day will be served in the building. Activity rooms are also planned for patients.

 

Loft Living closes in Bethesda, will keep going online (Photos)

Loft Living's space is cleared out at 7215 Arlington Road in downtown Bethesda. The store specialized in designer-quality furniture at more affordable prices. It continues as UrbanLoft.com online, although when I tried to visit the website as of this writing, an "unavailable due to maintenance" message was all that appeared. The vacant Loft Living space is now available for lease.