A random check of the Woodmont Corner garage across from the new Marriott International headquarters in Bethesda at midday shows why the company and Montgomery County recently expanded the hours the public could use the County-owned parking garage. Now open to the public at 11:00 AM instead of 5:00 PM, the top two levels of the parking deck were completely empty in the middle of a recent day. There were few cars a level below that, either. Marriott had previously leased the entire garage for its employees' exclusive use during business hours, a deal made with Montgomery County long before anyone had ever heard the term, "COVID 19." Many Marriott employees have continued to work from home, and the company's CEO said last fall that he thought workers would enjoy the convivial atmosphere of the new HQ, but that he had no immediate plans to implement draconian measures to force them to do so.
Across Woodmont Avenue, there was very little human activity on the Marriott HQ plaza, or inside the vast, glassed-in lobby. When the early darkness of a winter afternoon falls, and the illuminated floors of the Marriott office tower are highlighted as a result, few people can be seen on any level of the building. By contrast, the adjoining new Marriott hotel and its restaurants and rooftop lounge appear to be very successful so far, which has helped to activate that part of the block after business hours. People may be set on working from home, but cocktails in a private igloo high above downtown Bethesda are still a draw.
18 comments:
My, my --fancy that. Whoever could have predicted?
Perhaps Marriott's employees are making use of the proximal public transportation system, the lure of which was touted by the resort giant as its impetus for leaving an otherwise perfectly functional campus just a few miles away. Meanwhile, the Bethesda community gets to enjoy having those upper deck, long-term parking spots out of commission, unavailable for us to make use of, unless we go to work approaching noon. A fine example of a corporation being a responsible member of the community. Oh, wait -- no it isn't.
Do we know if Marriott is still paying something for the partial exclusive use of the garage in the morning? If so, is the amount they are paying publicly available information?
Good on Marriott for being a generous neighbor. The news, I thought, was that Marriott was all but demanding their people to stop remote working. Clearly, they have not. Good. Greatest secret in the area that this lot is mostly open to the public.
So, no lunch time infusion of diners? Would it ever buoy the evening business, anyhow ?
Downtown Bethesda was really lucky with the timing of its recent office building boom. If the sector plan was delayed by a couple years and the flurry of new construction hadn't broken ground pre-pandemic, there are several large Class A buildings that surely wouldn't exist today - including this one.
As far as I know, Marriott is still paying for each and every parking space in the deck, Monday through Friday, even if they are not used. This is a tremendous influx of parking income for the county to operate, maintain and even fund the construction of the new underground parking deck proposed east of the Farm Women’s Market.
No doubt this is an inconvenience for other the public and business before 11 AM on M-F, but it appears to be a windfall for the parking fund.
If Marriott is not paying for every space in the deck, then the county should allow the public to pay to park there, at least until the deck fills up to the point that is paid for by Marriott. It is also my understanding that Marriott employees parking in the deck are required to for parking each day, and do not receive a parking pass. This is intended to encourage employees to use transit and allows them to pocket their parking reimbursement.
*WHEW!*
Lucky, indeed @8:45. Had the timing been different, we might not have gotten the opportunity for a huge portion of "downtown" Bethesda to lie overbuilt and vacant. Now we can enjoy ample office space sitting fallow, followed by building owners defaulting on loans they can't service since their properties aren't generating sufficient revenue. Desolate buildings are a sure boon to the community. What's the word? "Moribund!"
I do not think "lucky" means what you think it means.
This is crazy. They were assuming that people were going to use Metro.
They should have built an underground garage that they could have shared with the hotel which is right next door. For the valets to park it the costs is $45.00 a day which is nuts.
They did build a five level underground parking deck below both the office building and hotel.
"Now we can enjoy ample office space sitting fallow, followed by building owners defaulting on loans they can't service since their properties aren't generating sufficient revenue. Desolate buildings are a sure boon to the community."
Uneducated take. The buildings are all fully leased. Worst case is there's some subletting to allow even more companies into downtown Bethesda.
The spike in new Class A space attracted several companies to MoCo from other jurisdictions. Other already local companies moved from Class B/C space to allow for redevelopment of their previous buildings, as in the case of Marriott. Ultimately you're talking about billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs. You can call that moribund if you like, but you sound pretty silly.
I just hope that our local, arguably anti business Government can provide the safety and services to keep these businesses here. Retail, tho, is the canary in the mine. The same momentum that brings in Class A growth makes everybody's rent jump, the resultant higher prices, now compounded by the Federal and State incompetence and myopia are strangling consumer, even here in tony Bethesda! And, tony Bethesda is falling victim to all the ills that befall liberal policies that do little, if anything to thwart and punish crime. It's a vicious cycle that our populace doesn't have the resolve or discipline to address, much less see, until it's just too late. Baltimore and DC are not that far away. Who could argue that downtown Silver Spring isn't lost already?
Great pictures Robert!
@8:05, a cursory examination of propertyshark.com would refute your claim:
--Avocent Tower, 3/4 empty
--Clark Building, 2/3 empty
--3 Bethesda Metro Center, 1/3 empty
--Wisconsin Place, more than 1/3 empty
--2 Wisconsin Circle, more than 1/3 empty
--Bethesda Towers, more than 1/3 empty
--Air Rights Bldg, more than 1/4 empty
The list goes on and on, but the point is clearly made. There is a glut of commercial real estate in the area, and the only people for whom this is "lucky" are the construction firms that profited from the contracts and the planning board members who fostered the development to begin with.
Forgive me, @9:57, but Silver Spring has always been a pit, since at least the 1950s. That's not to say Bethesda isn't seeing all manner of crime and unpleasantness that's dulling its luster, [which is fairly recently acquired, considering Bethesda was, in living memory, replete with freight trains, warehouses, and factories; it was nothing more than the commercial center for the perpetually tony Kenwood, Edgemoor, Chevy Chase.] Don't make the mistake of envisioning Silver Spring as once glamorous or upscale, because it wasn't.
"a cursory examination of propertyshark.com would refute your claim"
Listing vacancies in Class B/C buildings does the opposite of refuting my claim. You haven't followed the conversation, clearly.
Avocet (not Avocet) is the only Class A in Bethesda with space available. They most definitely were not "lucky" with their timing like the rest of the recent additions as they broke ground only months before Covid - again reinforcing my claim that all the other Class A buildings leasing up prior to Covid was supremely lucky timing. If those buildings had been delayed by a couple years they would never have been built at all. Billions in investment and thousands of jobs would not have happened.
10:21, our newly enhanced and emboldened thuggery loves 'tony,' what's the initial attraction besides the same mollycoddling police and courts that we share? I bet it's the "business we keep." What comes before money laundering hookah and Hip Hop bars? By then it's too late since we apparently lack sufficient resolve.
We could always move north to say, three Metro stops away, and create a new, temporally safe environment and distinguish it by maybe adding 'North' to its name.
The history is irrelevant, it's about keeping the income machine running thru providing safety a d steering around d poor decisions by allowing the wrong tenants. I maintain Nike is gonna be a harbinger.
@8:22 -- "Avocet (not Avocet)" Is this a koan?
You keep mentioning "thousands of jobs." Other than construction, what jobs are these? This is not a trick question. I ask in confessed ignorance. Marriott certainly is not an example, since they just transferred operations from one part of Bethesda to another. No jobs were brought to the region when that hotel brand swapped Fernwood Road for Wisconsin Avenue. I have heard of no large corporations relocating from other parts of the country to take advantage of these "Class-A" buildings. As well, I gather there isn't much call among bargain-conscious companies to take advantage of any of the less expensive, abundant unoccupied office space that falls under your Class-B and -C headings, judging from how much of it lies unleased/vacant/fallow. Could that possibly have anything to do with the seismic shift the world has seen in the post-Covid-lockdown world, which has conceded working remotely/from home is here to stay; that the Before Times paradigm, of mass 9-5 commuting to offices, is dead and gone for a sizable percentage of the working population? Good thing we were able to build up the area's supply of commercial space, just in time for workers to stop using it!
@8:45/8:05/8:22
"If the sector plan was delayed by a couple years and the flurry of new construction hadn't broken ground pre-pandemic, there are several large Class A buildings that surely wouldn't exist today - including this one."
"Uneducated take. The buildings are all fully leased. Worst case is there's some subletting to allow even more companies into downtown Bethesda."
"Listing vacancies in Class B/C buildings does the opposite of refuting my claim. You haven't followed the conversation, clearly."
"Avocet (not Avocet) is the only Class A in Bethesda with space available."
Fully agreed with all of your points. The Wilson in fact had one of the fastest lease-ups at one of the highest rents in history. JBG's 4747 Bethesda was also fully pre-leased prior to delivery, with only a few spec suites on the market. Yes, those properties definitely were "lucky". As you state, Avocet is really the only one struggling for two reasons:
1) the precipitous drop in office demand related to COVID/WFH
2) the fact that they were at the tail end of the office boom in Bethesda= which had a lot of pent-up demand for trophy space but it's still a finite pool of demand. As a result they've had to settle with the "leftovers". I think Avocet will lease-up (again probably at the expense of the newer Class B/older Class A product in the submarket) but it will probably take a couple years, which is a more standard timeframe.
@11:57am/6:31/4:20
Now we can enjoy ample office space sitting fallow, followed by building owners defaulting on loans they can't service since their properties aren't generating sufficient revenue
--Avocent Tower, 3/4 empty
--Clark Building, 2/3 empty
--3 Bethesda Metro Center, 1/3 empty
--Wisconsin Place, more than 1/3 empty
--2 Wisconsin Circle, more than 1/3 empty
--Bethesda Towers, more than 1/3 empty
--Air Rights Bldg, more than 1/4 empty
The list goes on and on, but the point is clearly made. There is a glut of commercial real estate in the area, and the only people for whom this is "lucky" are the construction firms that profited from the contracts and the planning board members who fostered the development to begin with.
Only one of those building's is recently delivered, and you're basically making the point that the newer properties are outperforming the older ones. And if the new construction didn't happen in Bethesda, those tenants would have ended up in Tysons, Arlington, or DC.
"You keep mentioning "thousands of jobs." Other than construction, what jobs are these? This is not a trick question. I ask in confessed ignorance. Marriott certainly is not an example, since they just transferred operations from one part of Bethesda to another. No jobs were brought to the region when that hotel brand swapped Fernwood Road for Wisconsin Avenue. I have heard of no large corporations relocating from other parts of the country to take advantage of these "Class-A" buildings.
Let's see...Fox 5 moved from DC to the Wilson...enviva relocated and expanded at The Wilson...Orano usa relocated from Tysons to 4747 Bethesda, to name a few...and as I stated above you have to look at the net outcome. Were it not for these new buildings Bethesda stood to lose thousands of jobs to Virginia and DC. As it is Clark and IB relocated to Silverline Center in Tysons and CityRidge in NW DC respectively and a lot more tenants would have followed if not for the new construction. The lack of new jobs in Bethesda and the county (and the taking for granted the jobs we have) can generally be squarely blamed on the county executive
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