Developer Tishman Speyer has secured construction financing for its planned redevelopment of the Mazza Gallerie mall property at 5300 Wisconsin Avenue NW in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase, Washington, D.C. The firm announced this morning that it now has $150 million in financing from RBC Capital Markets, and the necessary District of Columbia construction permits to move forward. Demolition work has already begun at the site of the shuttered mall.
When completed, the new development will feature 320 rental apartments and 90,000-square-feet of retail and restaurant space. The new development will retain the mall's concourse level and underground parking garage. It will include a mix of studio, 1-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, 2-level townhouse and terraced penthouse units. Forty of the units will be set aside as affordable housing.
Tishman Speyer acknowledged the "repositioning" of the neighborhood, which has lost much of its high-end retail over the last decade due to the flight of the rich from Montgomery County to lower-tax jurisdictions in the area, in its press release today. As a result of the shifting demographics, the company has proposed a new combination of boutiques and neighborhood-service-oriented retail, full-service and fast-casual restaurants, and a holdover anchor in TJ Maxx.
The new property has been designed with Danish architecture firm 3XN. “Given its prominent location and expansive Wisconsin Avenue frontage, the redeveloped Mazza Gallerie will serve as a gateway to the Friendship Heights neighborhood as well as the District of Columbia as a whole," 3XN partner Jens Holm said in a statement this morning. "Working with Tishman Speyer, we have designed it with an undulating façade to create movement and visual interest along the Avenue, while also incorporating terraces, courtyards and street-level retail that will offer opportunities for residents and the local community to meet, thrive and mingle.”
“With its prime location above the Friendship Heights Metro station on the border of D.C. and Maryland, the reimagined Mazza Gallerie will blend the walkable amenities of downtown living – including local restaurants, shops, grocery stores and parks – with immediate proximity to several of the region’s long-standing premier suburban neighborhoods,” Tishman Speyer Senior Managing Director Paul DeMartini added in a statement. “We are thrilled to have secured financing and to take these next steps towards making our vision a reality.”
Delivery of the project is anticipated for 2025. Davis Construction and Smoot Construction are the co-general-contractors for the project. 3XN is partnering with Eric Colbert & Associates, which is serving as Architect-of-Record.
Photo courtesy Tishman Speyer
11 comments:
How elegant! Nothing at all like the garbage all over Gaithersburg and Wheaton.
Property developers: is there anything they can't despoil?
Will any of the travertine on the current facade be saved for re-use in another project?
It's being shipped to Palm Beach, to be used in the 1:1 replica of St. Peter's commissioned by a Florida man.
I just hope my REIT isn't backing this, the Redline south of Medical Center is at peril due to unchecked crime and weak prosecution. DC, PG, and now MC are all just as complicit.
3:34 AM
Not to worry, they will hire all the cartoon super heroes to protect us against evil.
"which has lost much of its high-end retail over the last decade due to the flight of the rich from Montgomery County" Robert, I think you need to add to that the property destruction seen in the summer of '20 by Democrat voters in the Friendship heights area - I have pictures of the destruction- is also a cause, and if I were investing, I would stay away. Next time (summer of '24) will be 10x worse.
A police acquaintance of mine once told me "there is only one cop that prevents crime, that's McGruff, our job is not at all to prevent crime." He's right, btw. Their job is to apprehend after the crime. A 'purist' may say that Cops *need* crime: DC cops do have a sort of attitude that Upper NWDC denizens should share more in the burden of unban crime. MC cops are leaning that way as their numbers decline and standards are deteriorating.
Robert, you sound like a broken record. Do you have any actual statistics to back up your assertions? Friendship Heights Village, Friendship Heights DC, Somerset…. are wealthy neighborhoods. Unfortunately, greedy landlords both misjudged the overall culture of the neighborhood as well as the attractiveness to outsiders of the “Rodeo Drive” stores that they, misguidedly, plugged into the neighborhood. Most here are financially comfortable, and spend money to support their continued comfort — but continue to have more old money values than new. And, of course, internet shopping and the pandemic put a dent in many business based on shopping as entertainment.
9:49: Yes, I've posted the statistics before of which lower-tax jurisdictions MoCo residents fled to, and the exact dollar amounts of tax revenue they took with them to each.
Repetition is key in the arena of information - it's how gimmick buzzphrases like "smart growth," "missing middle" and "exclusionary zoning" go from cartel brainstorming session to mainstream vocabulary.
The Democrats ruined malls in 2020 to make Trump look bad! Make America Grate Again!
Between outright thwarting of business and that Chinese Virus the MSM is perpetually self defeating. Look at advertising revenue and all their layoffs! Bittersweet!
Seen a Sunday "Post" lately?
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