There's good news and bad news about
Brown Bag. Good news first: the beloved lunch destination is finally returning to downtown Bethesda. The bad news: the return - originally scheduled for yesterday - has been postponed until Wednesday, October 16, 2019. Brown Bag, which used to be in the Apex Building until the Montgomery County Council demolished it, is now located in the ground floor of the Hyatt Regency Bethesda hotel.
26 comments:
Looking forward to seeing Brown a bag return.
Wait, is the new Apex building a Montgomery County project? I thought the previous owner sold it to Carr who knocked it down to coordinate with the state on the purple line and build the nice new buildings that are going up now?
On noes... where will Dyer go for his late night snack.
5:11: The Council approved the plan amendment that allowed its demolition.
My God you are a one note journalist. The county didn’t demo the Apex and that nasty movie theatre, it negotiated a deal with a developer, to incentivize the removal and replacement of the building to create a far better Purple Line Station. The deal gave them 40’ more building height, to raise the allowable height from 250’ to 290’. In exchange, the developer had to build a new wider tunnel and shell for the Purple Line, and a new tunnel for the CCT.
Once again, if an extremely expensive and complicated urban cinema made any financial sense, it would be built. You somehow don’t understand that making this a condition of the approval would have likely killed the deal. We would have been left with a poorly functioning light rail station that would be curved in plan, requiring a dangerously narrow and/or a curving platform. If you have ever been to London, you might have heard “mind the gap” the message the Tube needs to remind folks not to fall into the gap between the curving platform and the straight rail car.
The new Red Line Station also required a massive exhaust vent, that would have been a 130’ tall freestanding shaft. With the new building, it was incorporated in the new construction, with louvers now concealed in the base of the buildings.
So if the county mandated this condition, we would likely be stuck with a dated Regal Cinema, with lovely sticky floors, lousy sight lines, and crowds of rowdy teens talking during “b;ofkbuster” comic book inspired movies. It may have even been enough to kill the whole Purple Line deal.
!!!!! BAD NEWS!!!!!!!
The opening will be delayed by one day.
Robert why are you such a frigging drama queen?
6:13: Wrong! It was two days. No drama, just an update so people know.
6:12: The station size and "smokestack" were talking points to justify demolition of a perfectly-good Apex Building. The Council failed to mandate a replacement movie theater and CCT tunnel under MD 355, due to being under the control of developers who pay for their campaigns.
The new development's ground floor retail space is probably destined to fail, because the developer declined to include a replacement cineplex, costing them about 20000 less people to potentially patronize whatever businesses locate there each weekend. Heckuva job, Brownie!
LOL @ Dyer using the word MANDATE when discussing a new movie theater. Spoken like a true socialists.
"The Council failed to mandate a... CCT tunnel under MD 355 due to being under the control of developers who pay for their campaigns."
Do you realize that MD 355 is a state highway and not part of the Wilson Building site?
Dyer went to ‘elite’ high school. Dyer like really smart with a very stable genius brain
7:20: Totally irrelevant to the matter at hand - County taxpayers will now foot the bill for the CCT tunnel under Wisconsin, instead of the developer. We're being led by very corrupt people, old sport.
7:18: Putting corporate profit over the health of the entire downtown economy - spoken like a true fascist.
The county declined to mandate a replacement cinema because they were aware that it likely would have killed any deal. You realize that they had to pay $105,000,000.00 to buy the building, pay to relocate existing office tenants, had to agree to undertake the enormous demo cost, and add the very expensive cost to build the shell for the Purple Line and a tunnel for the CCT? All these steps were required before they could build anything they could charge rent for. The light rail station andCCT tunnel removed lots of area that could have been used for less expensive parking, or even a modest replacement theater. That theater was indeed shown voluntarily on their initial plans, until they realized the cost, and likely could not find an operator willing to pay the rent to cover their cost.
IPIC in Pike & Rose is a similar type of cinema, built into the base of a new mixed use building, sharing parking with other buildings. The enormous cost to do this is likely why movie tickets are $22.00, and perhaps why the theater is failing. The movie industry and cinema business in generally is in big decline, with very few expensive urban cinemas are being built anywhere in the country. The only viable model that remains seems to be massive one story mega-please surrounded by acres of free parking, on remote suburban land.
The entire downtown Bethesda economy is thriving. Your comments are spoken as a true pessimist. Bethesda Row is now nearly fully leased, except for half of the Lebanese Taverna space, and Kapnos, which is likely tied up in a lawsuit. The base of the Hyatt Hotel is now fully leased. Massive new plans are proposed at 4 Metro Center. Massive plans are proposed at Bethesda Market. Dozens of new retail spaces are planned in the new buildings lining Wisconsin. A new Trader Joe’s in coming to 7900 Wisconsin, and an Orange Theory, and a new coffee shop. Massive new retail is proposed in the 8000 Wisconsin building.
Yes, there is still a bit of churn in the Woodmont Triangle, but this older area always seems to rotate retail tenants. Two new towers will soon line the west end of Norfolk, both with extensive retail.
The Bethesda has never been better.
8:32: "Bethesda has never been better." Wow, I'm assuming you've only moved here this decade, then. Lots of "massive plans" in recent years, and they've all failed. Take note of who is leasing these spaces - substantially down-market from the high-end restaurants and stores they are replacing. More closures are coming in the Bethesda Row area, from what I'm hearing. You can't push a pause button on retail and say we're all set at a given moment.
Pretending the emperor has new clothes is more dangerous than a healthy and candid assessment of the truly bad situation we are in since the nighttime economy task force debacle and closure of Regal Cinemas. And that's before we even consider the failure to attract a single major corporate HQ in over twenty years, or the horrid fiscal situation of the County government.
We're in real trouble, folks.
"Take note of who is leasing these spaces - substantially down-market from the high-end restaurants and stores they are replacing."
You mean like when Williams-Sonoma replaced Parker's?
9:24: That was several years ago. It is now 2019.
Can you cite example(s) of incoming shops and restaurants which you consider "substantially down-market" from what they are replacing?
9:31: LensCrafters, a Goodyear tire shop, Kate Spade certainly wasn't replaced with a brand of that cache and universal recognition.
Maybe he thinks a three story high Anthropology & Co Department Store, Terrain Cafe, Terrain, Amazon Books, Hawkers Asian Street Food, Jeni’s Ice Cream, Matchbox, Neuhaus Chocolate, Philz, Fish Taco, Marine Layer, Framebridege, Serena & Lily, Peloton, Joe and the Juice, Prima, Poke Dojo, LensCrafters, and a sleek new three story high Audi Dealership and many more are down market...
LensCrafter sells mostly very expensive designer frames at the Bethesda store, so I would consider it an upmarket store. Kate Spade was rapidly replaced with Marine Layer, a very expensive and unique shop. I’ll give you the point on Roll by Goodyear, but that space was vacant for years. The Halel Guys is fun, but not as popular as their food trucks in NY. The new Lotus Grille and Bar is quite unique as well.
Robert Dyer6:12 AM
5:11: The Council approved the plan amendment that allowed its demolition
Applying that same logic, would the council also get credit for allowing all new development?
Our discussion of the movie theater issue is showing diminishing returns. Let’s not re-litigate it every week for the next few years.
Reasonable Bethesda residents can agree that the night-time economy initiative has failed, that the liquor monopoly has outlived any usefulness it may possibly have had, and that we are skewing far too heavily residential.
More worrying, arguably, is the failure of the still-new Downtown Plan. Gigantic buildings are going up but the promised creation of an attractive urban landscape is nowhere in sight. McMansions are being built a block or two from Wisconsin Ave that will be torn down in a few years, on the model of the West Virginia Ave project. We are slipping behind Pike & Rose and even Silver Spring.
Don’t you think the area around the Capital Crescent Civic Green is shaping up to be an attractive urban landscape? Once the Purple and Red Line Station constructions are complete, the county can build out the civic space into something that Bethesda Row has never really had, an open public plaza. Perhaps a chance to put some of those park improvement payment funds, now a bit over $12M, to work.
I also see lots of promise for the area centered on the new Red and Purple Line stations near the Elm and Wilson. I think they are calling it Wisconsin Plaza. Not a huge area, but I suspect it will be very lively with all the transit traffic and at least six new retail/restaurant spaces in the Wilson and just across the street in the base of the Metro Tower, which also has an expanded plaza area with a large oval water feature. The landscaping and green roofs over the Purple Line elevator and escalator look like they might help create an iconic plaza, especially if Fox5 puts in their proposed news ticker along the leading edges of the cantilevered roofs.
The Purple Line Station itself could be a cool gateway to the city. A 600’ long wall adjacent to the platform will display a colorful pink, purple and yellow mural behind a perforated metal screen. The perforations are designed to reveal the kinetic “blooming” of cherry blossoms as viewed from the windows of the light rail cars as they pull into the station. I have seen the artists work, and they are very bold and dramatic pieces. Not sure how well the “blooming” will read, but it seems like a clever idea.
Of course the base of the Avocet Tower also looks promising with a tall covered porch, with a waterfall and a suspended interactive light sculpture. The interactive idea is that pedestrians can touch a panel to change the lighting sequences for the large suspended artwork. Of course it will be on noisy Wisconsin, but I see this block developing nicely with three very nice hotels, including the edgy but affordable AC Hotel Bethesda, with a funky lounge/restaurant space in the base.
Of course the Bethesda Market and adjacent green space have great potential to create an attractive urban landscape, and potentially a regional destination if they can create a well sorted food hall.
Although 4 Metro Center is controversial, I think Brookfield with guidance by SOM could really revive the Metro Plaza area.
The pedestrian plazas around the Marriott and 7900 buildings also look promising as interesting urban places.
Lastly, the two towers on the west end of Norfolk seem like they might help kick-start the creation of a great urban street on Norfolk. I know both are required to provide funding to build at least the first portion of the Norfolk Woonerf.
I have listed seven places that I think might add to the attractiveness of the urban landscape. I agree we should stop bickering about movie theaters and night clubs, and try to focus on how the city can advance.
What if they opened a movie theater!~?
6:37 AM: Thank you for an exceptionally informative correction to my lament about the urban landscape. A lot of cool features I never heard of. You make me a lot more hopeful about our future in Bethesda.
6:37/9:56: LOL - How are you, Casey Anderson?
10:02AM
Not Casey, but just a resident of downtown who recognizes how the city is changing in positive ways. Of course things aren’t perfect, and many can always seem to find something to complain about, and even focus on. I for one believe the planning efforts are about to pay off with huge benefits to the pedestrian realm. Yes it will be busier and harder to park. Yes rents for retailers and restaurants will go up. Yes homes will cost more and apartment and office rents will go up. In my opinion, these are all signs of a healthy and growing urban place, and I am fully willing to endure the hassle and cost if downtown Bethesda continues to flourish.
One aside to the plan is that it has a 9,000,000 SF cap, and that once this is reached, development right revert back to a lower base level. This cap has induced a rapid process of redevelopment submissions, and acts as an incentive for developers to assemble land, plan their capers, and get them approved quickly. I think the cap is now slightly over 50% used up. I think the submission of new projects will accelerate even now that fairly soon, the window of density bonus based on meeting planning principles like affordable housing, sustainable design and density transfers, will soon end. This ticking clock of development activity is a smart way to push things along and execute the vision for downtown.
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