As I reported last month, the full version of the project would include the addition of a food hall pavilion behind the historic market building, a 175' high-rise next to the farm market, a high-rise across the street (site of current Carroll Community Bank, Jos. A Bank and Starbucks), townhomes on the public parking lot behind Miller's Furs, and another 7-story residential building on half of the parking lot behind Villain & Saint.
McLean Quinn of developer EYA, which is partnering with Foulger-Pratt and Bernstein Companies on the large version of the plan, said a smaller plan that excludes their redevelopment of the public parking lots will also be an option for the County to consider. Residents and officials in the Town of Chevy Chase have already voiced opposition after learning they had been misled by the Council and Planning Board regarding the true size of the parkland that would be delivered. Renderings included existing small, urban parks north of the development site, which exaggerated the overall impact of what would actually be provided in new green space.
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| The larger blue circle, and everything north of that, are existing parks |
While the farm market building is protected and cannot be demolished, Quinn said it would no longer serve its current purpose in the envisioned redevelopment. Market business and food sales would move back into the new food hall pavilion, and the old building would be retail space of some kind. Quinn said the partners are working with Edens, which was behind the hugely-popular Union Market in the District, to come up with a similarly-compelling concept for the market and pavilion.
The format of the meeting was designed to avoid questions from the crowd, although with tempers simmering over the bait-and-switch park promise, several in the audience shouted questions anyway. They were told to hold off on questions until the one-on-one conversations at displays around the room, or until the very end of the night.
Quinn said the project sketch plan could go to the Planning Department as soon as this month. He added the partners anticipate a six-to-eight month process for approval of the project.
21 comments:
Still no reporting here on the rumor that Wildwood Shopping Center plans to install meters or otherwise charge for all parking. Please contact Federal Realty. I did and got no response. Nice neighbor who offers comments on their website but doesn't get back to the person making the comment or asking the question. Robert, work your magic baby! Scoop the other guys on this. Big story.
Dyer has to be playing dumb here. The proposed park would be the biggest park in Bethesda and with the historic Farm Womens Market incorporated to boot!
You can join the Chevy Chase NIMBYS and whine about loss about hideous pavement, but this is LOOONG overdue in Bethesda.
The county should make a firm requirement that the park is completed at the same time or before the buildings are.
Dyer is mistaken. The residents aren't angry at the size of the park, they don't want a park at all, big or small.
Wow this is a great set of projects. I think their offer to underground the public parking and build the parks is a great idea, in exchange for their use of a small portion of the existing parking lots. I love the idea of a food hall, and a curated use for the FWM. Not sure about the design of the taller building on the west side of Wisconsin. It looks a bit odd and of ill proportion.
Westbard got screwed, too, with the half-acre of green space to accommodate hundreds of new residents. Where's the dog park? Where's a playground? where are any services at all?
I like the idea that EYA has branded this area as the Bethesda Market. Too me, it helps identify the FWM as a central markets centric theme, and not just a left over idea, like if it was repurposed as a Starbucks. The location at the interesection of the CCT, the new Purple Line and the New South Entrance to the Bethesda Metro, will make this a new vibrant hub in the city. It will extend the vibrancy of Bethesda Row all the way east across Wisconsin to the expanded parks. This will be a highly walkable destination for those living in the Town of Chevy Chase and the south side of the downtown Bethesda. This will likely spur additional residential development south on Wisconsin, which is greatly needed at some very tired mattress stores. This development will compliment the three large new urban plazas that will be built just to the northwest at the Apex site, at the 7272 Building and the CCT Urban Plaza near the Landmark Cinema. This will also be only one block south of the large new covered urban plaza at the Avocet Tower.
With the new AC Hotel, combined with the three existing nearby hotels, the Market district will be a destination visited by thousands of hotel guests, and could become an exciting new node in the city. New office tenants in the Wilson, 4747 Bethesda and the Avocet Tower will have a great lunchtime destination with a food hall.
As Robert Dyer has suggested, all we need now is one of these developers to step up and include a new urban cinema to help energize the area in the evenings and weekends. Maybe Sauls Centers will step up and include a cinema in their redevelopment of the site just north of the Wilson and Elm, or maybe Bainbridge will do so at their expanded site at the long vacant gas station site one block further north.
8:24am agreed on the need for a theater. With all of the new development in the pipeline, it's disappointing that there's not a theater proposed anywhere around town.
I still believe that the green squares placed on an aerial photo of two parking lots during a planning workshop does not make parks and underground parking happen by magic. This is a sensible way for the county to achieve much of the planning goal, at minimal compromise. We still get a great set of linked parks built for free, 300 underground spaces built for free, a renovated FWM for free, at the cost of about 1/3 of the existing county parking lots used and low rise townhouses and mid rise apartments with nice steppedmasding to reduce their impact.
Yes the tower is tall, but it will certainly look better than the adjacent black glass office tower, and combined wth the west side tower on the Starbucks site, will create a nice gateway into Bethesda from the south.
Those “narrow green strips” that you refer to are actually 60’ wide on the south end and expand to 158’ on the north end. Not exactly narrow in my view. Nearly 5 acres of of green space and paved walkways will result when combined with Elm Street Park. This is a very large amount of green space is substations in a very dense area. Combine with at least 4 large urban plazas nearby, a field ground study would clearly show how open the area will remain if this is built.
This park is directly linked to the CCT and the proposed Bethesda Bike lane improvements, that include separated and protected bike lanes that will hopefully loop the city. It is only steps from a 250 space bike parking garage currently under construction at the Apex site, the largest bike parking facility in The DMV. The CCT actually passes through these combined parks, for easy bike access from neighbors to the east like Chevy Chase Lake all the way to Silver Spring, and from neighbors to the southwest including Westbard all the way to Georgetown.
"The plan only leaves narrow, green strips behind the new buildings, instead of the 'big, green' parks promised by the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board when they approved the Bethesda Downtown Plan.
Residents and officials in the Town of Chevy Chase have already voiced opposition after learning they had been misled by the Council and Planning Board regarding the true size of the parkland that would be delivered."
"Renderings included existing small, urban parks north of the development site, which exaggerated the overall impact of what would actually be provided in new green space.
"The format of the meeting was designed to avoid questions from the crowd, with tempers simmering over the bait-and-switch park promise."
Where is the original proposal that promised more parkland? Do you have a site map that shows more parkland specifically in the area surrounding the Farm Women's Market?
@6:46 They want to charge for parking at Wildwood. That's going to fail miserably -- plenty of other options with free parking nearby.
And I also don't like the reason I heard they may start charging for parking. Commuters park there all day for free and Uber from there to work. It'll ruin the entire center unless they offer 2 hour free and open after 5 and on weekends.
I know McLean Quinn. McLean is a friend of mine... Dyer is no Mclean!
Sorry, it’s not nearly 5 acres of green space, but 2.67 acres on the proposed concept. I had the wrong area.
Still a nice amount of green in the area.
Nancy will win if that's true. What a smart thing to run on that issue. That's a slam dunk.
@5:03AM: EYA wants to take more than a third of the parking lots.
@7:51AM: EYA is going to provide public parking whether it gets the land or not. Its development fails without parking. It's looking to grab land and win a perpetual subsidy from the county by getting the county to run the public parking. Not a good deal at all.
@Everyone: Hans Riemer has already said this is not in line with the council's promises with respect to the lots, and the portions of the lots that EYA wants to grab are worth far more than the price of building the underground ground parking, by EYA's own estimates. This is a ripoff.
7:11 PM.
Wrong, It’s only 1/3 of the existing parking lots.
Wrong. EYA will build a nice tower with a token amount of ground lev3l retail if this is not approved. Similar to the scale of existing retail. The county doesn’t require any parking in the downtown sector. EYA is only proposing to build 200 spaces for their apartments, and replace the 300 spaces for the county. This 300 space parking deck is currently used to support area office buildings in the day and retail in the evening and weekend.
Just because Hans or anyone else thinks a developer will build a 2.67 acre park and underground parking deck for 300 spaces and not get anything in return is not dealing with reality. Yes, of course, the county could build the underground parking, and the park above, but would need to spend about $15,000,000.00 for the parking and $5,000,000.00 for the parks on top. I don’t think the county will undertake a $20M municipal bond to finance both when EYA is offing to give us both if we allow them to build on 1/3 of the parking lot in a very low rise and sensitive fashion. This is not a ripoff. This is a very good deal.
I walked around the existing parking lots today, and the back of those retail shops that front in Wisconsin are really nasty. I’m not sure anyone will ever buy a townhouse that overlooks that mess of built up roofing, mechanical units and the tangled mass of transformers and wiring. I suggest that EYA might also consider buying those retail buildings on Wisconsin (south of the black glass building) and create some mixed use apartments or office over retail over underground parking as a buffer for their proposed townhouses.
@7:39PM: EYA said 61 to 62 percent of the existing lots would become parkland. They're taking 38 to 39 percent of the existing lots. That is more than 33 percent.
The land is probably worth well more than $20 million in today's market. The council paid Federal Realty $8.5 million for 0.4 acres a few blocks away last December. This tract is much larger and has much more development potential. It should command a much higher price. Put it on the open market and use some of the proceeds to pay for a parking garage if you are so determined to build one. Use the rest to build out the park and acquire land for other parks or improve existing ones.
Or just let EYA build its own garage. There is plenty of excess parking garage capacity during the day on weekends and weekends within a half mile radius.
I would agree that this site will be well served by transit, but after seeing a nearly full lot on a weekday afternoon, I suspect most of those using the lot are nearly office employees and their visitors. Since this is close to the NY bus stops, many might be longer term users who drive to and park in the lot for a trip. I’m not sure if the metered spaces permit this, but I saw a free folks with suitcases walking from the lot to the bus stop.
I believe the county has the responsibility to provide at least a minimum amount of parking for those businesses located in the parking assessment district. As many know, the county has a policy of constrained parking use to encourage the use of mass transit. They actually reward developers with additional density who voluntarily provide less parking that typically required in communities that do not have centralized county parking decks and extensive mass transit. This encourages collocated parking for multiple users, and less private parking.
The bottom line I guess is that these lots are likely required for now, and will need to be replaced somewhere if the county wants to add parks.
And yes there is lots of spaces available in the massive new Lot 31 deck. I suspect many of these will be utilized by employees and visitors to the large new 4747 Bethesda and Wilson office towers, at least during weekday business hours.
There also are spaces available at the Waverly and Cheltenham garages almost all of the time. It is rare that both of those garages are full at the same time. It's time for the county to get out of the parking lot business.
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