Architecture firm Bonstra | Haresign promised attendees "a building that will be special and embraced by the community" in revealing its proposal to redevelop 4824 Edgemoor Lane at a public meeting last night. The firm was represented by Managing Partner Bill Bonstra, who was joined by Shawn Weingast of developer Acumen. Under their plan, an existing single-family home on the property would be replaced with a 12-story, 120' tall residential condo building that will stretch to the property lines.
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Sketch plan shows anticipated
bike lane on Woodmont with concrete
island in front of the building |
Right off the bat, the architecture firm being utilized does slightly raise expectations and confidence. Bonstra | Haresign was the design firm for the impressive Capital One headquarters in Tysons, the surrounding 26-acre Tysons Urban Village project, and the Tapies Condominium with the spiral-bound notebook-style front facade detail in the District. While there is no firm design for this Edgemoor Lane building yet, renderings of three possible designs were displayed at last night's meeting. I would say Option 1 looks best, followed by Option 3, which has a bit of a mid-century German accent to it.
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| Option 1 |
The building is planned as a condo tower, equal in height to The Chase, but with fewer units per floor. Acumen is targeting a potential buyer looking for a unit that's "not Cheval big, not D.C. small," referring to already-completed competitor Duball, LLC's The Cheval a few blocks away. The 77 units will be a mix of 1 and 2 bedrooms. Windows will be minimized on the south side of the building, which faces The Chase.
Parking and loading will be accessed from Woodmont Avenue, but there will be no vehicle pull-off for drop-offs and deliveries. The schematic shows a proposed Woodmont Avenue bike lane with island out front.
Acumen believes most residents will use the Metro directly across the street, and will mostly "store" any cars they have. For this reason, they have proposed a robotic automated parking garage beneath the building. "Platters" will pick up cars and insert them into stalls for storage, with an apparent capacity to serve a few residents at once.
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Option 2 is the most conventional - you've
seen this building all over the region by now |
The garage would be the first of its type in Bethesda. Frankly, I haven't seen one of these in-person anywhere in the region, as far as I can recall. One wonders what happens to this garage in the future once the building is turned over to the unit buyers' condo board. How much does specialized maintenance on a relatively-rare contraption like this cost per year? Who pays if a car is damaged by the machine? There will be only 77 backs to bear the cost of any major repair or other building issue that comes up in the decades to come.
There is expected to be a 24-hour front desk when the building opens, but it will be up to the condo board to decide if they will continue that. The developer is not big on concierge services, noting that most of these tasks are performed on cell phones today. Residents will get the ubiquitous rooftop terrace, and 6 to 7 units per floor. What they won't get is retail. Acumen says there aren't enough pedestrians walking by to make retail viable.
Lack of retail is largely the fault of Montgomery County for not encouraging or requiring it in the newest or past downtown Bethesda sector plans. You can't expect the developer to be the first to pay extra for retail, if there isn't any up and down the rest of the street. The way Woodmont Avenue was mis-planned in the past resulted in a dark and lonely street after business hours. Neither the Planning Board nor the County Council made any effort to fix that in the 2017 plan. The result is that there is less activation of the streetscape today than there was in the pre-Metro days on Woodmont south of Black's Bar + Kitchen, with the exception of the Bethesda Row area.
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| Option 3 |
The building materials will be masonry and wood. Bonstra | Haresign architects created thirty sketches of the potential architecture, which were then whittled down to the three you see here.
Groundbreaking for the building, if approved on the anticipated timeline, would be at least 12 months away. Delivery is expected about eighteen months later.
23 comments:
Ugly building and the garage proposal is nuts.
Another interesting project! Great report.
Looking forward to it!
Good report. I also prefer #1 and am concerned about the costs of the automated garage.
The developer might have a hard time financing this given the complexity, number of units and local market conditions.
That garage arrangement is a major assumption that I'm not sure is practical. Despite Bethesda being walkable, there are still plenty of times when public transit remains inadequate in our region, and thus one needs a car.
The Chase is directly across from the Metro as well and the garage is definitely used by residents.
I hate to say it, but if you can afford a unit $1 millon+, you're probably the type of person that has a very nice car and isn't spending time waiting for transit, unless you're a few stops away on Metro.
And with all of the deliveries, service workers, Ubers, etc. stopping at buildings these days, I suspect there will be some backups on Woodmont.
No need to fret, folks. Those garage systems are in use all over the world, DC included. I lived in an apartment building downtown more than 10 years ago that had one of those systems, and it was great.
It's actually a more efficient use of space because cars are stacked vertically in cubbies, so you can fit many more cars in a confined space than you could with a conventional garage. Also more efficient because of the dual entry/exit platform design, so the robotic system can still work on depositing or retrieving the next car while someone else is parking or pulling out. It's also far more secure and safer than a traditional garage. I wish I could go back to a system like that.
I also wish people would in general be a bit more positive when folks come around with new ideas. But I guess positivity might be too much to ask for given the tenor of comments on this blog...
Uber will be gone by the time the building is delivered.
7:57 AM I actually agree with you. Read some of the reviews of new buildings in the area and it sounds like maneuvering around garages can be a challenge with narrow aisles and ramps.
The automated system eliminates the problem. With autonomous cars near, why not automated parking as well?
I am surprised how downtown Bethesda resist change. i.e. the LEDs at the Chase Bank, etc. No one can do anything unique without someone complaining. Perhaps people with too much time on their hands.
8:09 AM Agreed. A small, vocal minority seem to resist change and don't understand that they've bought homes in an urban area.
Please don't move into downtown Bethesda or an adjacent neighborhood and ask the entire city to turn off its lights at 9pm.
"The result is that there is less activation of the streetscape today than there was in the pre-Metro days on Woodmont south of Black's Bar + Kitchen, with the exception of the Bethesda Row area."
Woodmont Avenue did not exist south of Old Georgetown Road "in the pre-Metro days", Mr. "Lifelong Resident".
8:33: Black's is not south of Old Georgetown Road, Saul Alinsky. Did you get out of that meeting you've been in all morning, and now trying to start a battle in the comments? Stay on the topic of the article or leave.
"One wonders what happens to this garage in the future once the building is turned over to the unit buyers' condo board. How much does specialized maintenance on a relatively-rare contraption like this cost per year? Who pays if a car is damaged by the machine?"
Finding answers to those questions is your homework project this week.
"There will be only 77 backs to bear the cost of any major repair or other building issue that comes up in the decades to come."
Weird phrase. But the number of slots in the "contraption" would be proportionate to the number of units, so the cost would come out equal per unit for larger properties. So the small size of this property isn't really relevant.
Saith Dyer: "Black's is not south of Old Georgetown Road, Saul Alinsky."
But in your article, you said "There is less activation of the streetscape today than there was in the pre-Metro days on Woodmont south of Black's Bar + Kitchen, with the exception of the Bethesda Row area."
By including "the Bethesda Row area", you are referencing the entirety of Woodmont Avenue south of Black's Bar + Kitchen, including the portion south of Old Georgetown Road. The latter did not exist in "pre-Metro days".
Wonder if Dyer was upset when Outback shut down on Woodmont?
Really, the only change in the "activation of the streetscape on Woodmont Avenue south of Black's" was the replacement of Woodmont Corner with the Lionsgate. The first floor of the Lionsgate has been very disappointing compared to what used to be there, but I'd love to hear what BtB proposes to improve that.
Here is my modest proposal: Bring back the KB Baronet!
Better Call Saul
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Yep
This seems like it could be a nice urban fill project. Certainly very close to the Metro. I think its still true that anyone who spends even $600 K to $1.5M would want at least one parking space deeded to their condo. Apartments could certainly do well with less that one space per unit, but condo sales would likely be harmed without parking.
It is quite odd to hear Chase Condo owners, that live in a 12 story condo tower, complain about a proposed neighboring 12 story condo tower. Its OK for them to invest and live there, but no one else can do the same right next door! Too much building, too much congestion! The realtor told me that my views to the north would never be blocked!
It would be nice if they offered to set the building back from the abutting property line, at least on upper floors, to get more tower separation. Maybe they can go 12' higher if they add more MPDU's (and add more market rate units month top) and create a larger setback with more windows, instead of a nearly windowless party wall.
The folks on the south side of the Chase already had views blocked when the Edgemoor condos went up next door.
People still bought condos on that side happily with obstructed views when the condo conversion happened at the Chase, so it's not the end of the world for those on the north side. Hopefully they'll feel better about it.
Really only the front units facing the metro are safe from being obstructed because of the courtyard.
The difference here is that this new build has zero setback, and therefore would be only 25’ from the many north facing units in the Chase. I would think they should provide at least a token 10’ setback for upper parts of the tower, which would create a 35’ tower separation. This would allow larger windows on their south wall, which would no longer be considered a party wall.
On their west facade, also right on the property line, windows are fine, as the only face the Chase pool and tennis courts. I even suggest they could obtain an perpetual easement from the Chase to permit larger windows to improve the facade, which would have enhanced views of the pool, tennis courts and some nice open sunsets.
Doing these simple changes, and increasing the MPDU’s ratio from the required 15% to 17.6% would allow them to add 12’ of additional height, and perhaps 8 more units (3 of which would be MODU), which might make up for the reduced area caused by a modest southern setback.
I think it would be a much better building if it had nice windows on all sides, and not need two massive land mostly windowless party walls. They would get a taller building, with more presence, and with a more vertical massing, and perhaps be a bit more neighborly.
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