W.C. & A.N. Miller has revealed its plan to redevelop part of the parking lot at its Shops at Sumner Place property at 4701 Sangamore Road in Bethesda into an apartment building. The Apartments at Sumner Place would be 5 stories and 57' tall, and house 132 rental apartments, 20 of which would be Moderately-Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs). Parking would be provided in an underground parking garage at the rear of the building (facing the Sumner Village condos). Amenity common areas in the building might include a fitness center, party room and an outdoor terrace.
A new curb cut will be added to Sentinel Drive beyond the existing one, near the property line with Sumner Village. It will be used for loading dock access. From the renderings shown, the building will block the view of the shopping center from the units in Sumner Village that will be directly behind it.
W.C. & A.N. Miller also revealed that it has future plans for the part of the parking lot along Sentinel Drive where a drive-thru ATM is currently located. A rendering shows that area being replaced in the future by a new retail building, a daycare facility, and a playground. A second pad site retail building facing the new Apartments at Sumner Place across the main driveway through the parking lot is also shown for a future phase. It would take some of the parking currently used by Safeway customers.
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| Phasing plan showing future retail buildings, daycare facility and playground (far left and center) |
As I reported last week, a required public meeting on the proposal will be held tonight, April 13, 2023, at 7:00 PM at Capital Workspaces (located over the Safeway at The Shops at Sumner Place) at 4701 Sangamore Road, Suite 100N. A Montgomery County Development Review Committee meeting on the plan is scheduled for April 25. W.C. & A.N. Miller currently hopes to formally submit its Preliminary Plan and Site Plan for the project to Montgomery County in June or July.
A public hearing on the plans would be expected to be held by the Montgomery County Planning Board in October or November 2023. There is not yet a timeline for the groundbreaking or delivery of the project.
Images courtesy W.C. & A.N. Miller/Faik Tugberk, Architects Collaborative
9 comments:
I'm impressed by your aerial photography. You really walked, er, flew the extra mile for your readers.
I dunno --apartment projects are like a diet consisting solely of PB&J sandwiches. It's as perfunctory as it's possible to get. "I've got to put *something* in my stomach, but I don't know how even to boil an egg. Guess it's peanut butter, again." It's construction for the sake of saying you built something, not for the purpose of responding to a need. . . other than the "need" to make developers ever richer. What about the idea of *not* building anything unless it's actually necessary?
It seems odd that they are not proposing any retail on the ground level of this new apartment building, facing the parking lot. You know, like most mixed-use buildings. I don’t know anyone who would enjoy living on the ground floor of this project, facing a huge shopping center parking lot only about 10 feet from a busy internal drive. Assume you would have the window blinds in your living and bedroom areas closed 100% of the time. Parking below grade for the apartments makes sense.
I can see this from WC & AN Miller’s point of view. As retail banking goes online, understandable to want to monetize unused pad parcels (often leased to banks) and other excess land. My only concern here is the addition to area traffic (long run, this could be significant) and the adequacy of parking. That said, the longer-term plan (apartment building, additional retail, day care facility and park) seems appropriate to the site.
The plans for Sangamore should be considered in the context of added development at Westbard (~650,000 square feet, including 300 homes), in downtown Bethesda (3.9 million square feet under development), and in Friendship Heights (1+ million square feet underway), for a total of 5.5 million square feet. And that’s before ~3 million square feet zoned and as yet unbuilt in Bethesda plus Westbard, and Thrive 2050’s plan for a River Road growth corridor from the Beltway to the DC line.
Exacerbating the traffic issue in the area is Montgomery Parks’ proposal to close 2 lanes of traffic on Little Falls Parkway so that a 1.5 acre linear park can be built.
Development proposals should be considered in the context of nearby development approved and underway, rather than in isolation. Unfortunately, approving projects as if they were being developed in isolation seems to have been the approach of Montgomery County’s Planning Department, Planning Board and County Council.
The result: creeping overdevelopment and gridlock.
"It's construction for the sake of saying you built something, not for the purpose of responding to a need. . . other than the 'need' to make developers ever richer."
What on earth are you talking about? Developers only make money if they are building something that meets a need. If no one lives here then obviously the developer and lender will lose tens of millions of dollars.
As long as the Safeway gets replaced by a Trader Joes, this parking situation will be normal, since it will be cramped, congested, scarce, and maddening. The parking is all concentrated by the CVS and Starbucks as it is, and half the CVS parking is disappearing. This seems like a plan developed by people who have not spent any time there. If I was a current tenant, I'd be pretty upset at how it will drive away current clientele
"What on earth are you talking about?"
I'm talking about our not needing to bring even more people into the area. We're already chock-a-block, as any attempt to get anywhere quickly confirms. As 9:42 aptly points out, "creeping overdevelopment and gridlock" are the result of projects like this. By building more housing units, you invite more people to the area. "If you build it they will come." We don't need more people, thank you. We have quite enough already, and we're being served ever worse by our infrastructure and gov't services. Stacking more people on top of each other does nothing to solve those problems. The quality of life in the area has eroded immeasurably over these last 50 years, and it owes exclusively to the gratuitous abandon with which property developers have excreted their "craft" on every parcel into which they can sink their talons.
The way to stop the nauseating spiral of overcrowding is to stop creating additional residences in those overcrowded communities. There is no right to live in a particular place. That's not NIMBYism, so save your breath. It is a recognition that the lifeboat is full. We are not under an obligation to accommodate however many people desire to live in lower Montgomery County, anymore than a theater is obliged to accommodate concert fans in excess of the venue's maximum seating capacity, a hotel to house guests when all rooms are already booked.
That's what on Earth I'm talking about.
Amazing. This guy moved to the area 50 years ago and now thinks he can call "dibs" and everyone else on the planet can just eff right off. "That's not NIMBYism" - not only are you a NIMBY, you're an egregiously selfish one at that. If you don't like that the world has passed you by then that's your problem. This housing isn't for you - you're likely to be gone before it's even built. Land use policy is inherently forward-looking. Someone complained about overcrowding when your subdivision was built, too. Luckily, we didn't listen to that NIMBY, either.
I live in Sumner and have no issues with this.
I only wish they added more retail!!
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