Demolition of the former Marriott International headquarters building is underway at 10400 Fernwood Road in Bethesda. The company moved last year to a new office tower at 7750 Wisonsin Avenue in downtown Bethesda.
Will a major corporate HQ be taking over the old Marriott property? Nope. Moribund Montgomery County hasn't attracted a major corporate HQ in over 25 years. Instead, the Marriott site will in 2025 become home to...a retirement community. Womp womp. Another humiliation for the 2014-2018 County Council, who were at the helm when the future of this site was determined, and also fumbled away the Discovery HQ during that same term. Heckuva job, Brownie!
9 comments:
First in to say moribund! And the Democrats will blame everything but their own policies, right before they will PRAISE the idea of retirement homes, citing lack of 'affordable' housing. Pretty sure the Master Plan of the area was confident in more taxpaying businesses would sign up - not to be. What a cluster -
"a retirement community"
You really are using that term loosely...this development is a lot more sophisticated than that and is more like a luxury resort than a nursing home...a lot more high-end than say Leisure World.
I'm glad that there isn't a "corporate headquarters" moving to this site. Employment uses need to be concentrated by our Metro stations, just like Marriott did in their relocation.
And yes, it is/was painful to watch the relocation of Discovery to NYC especially since they're now one of the largest media conglomerates in the world after the Scripps and WarnerMedia mergers, but MoCo has been on the receiving end of the some pretty large acquisitions itself.
Marriott acquired Starwood and relocated the staff to the county and Choice Hotels (also relocating within MoCo) recently acquired Radisson and is rumored to be in discussions to acquire Wyndham. Children's Hospital also moved most of their administrative functions to the renovated Discovery building, so that could count as a "new HQ".
But your sentiment that the county struggles to attract business is more or less accurate, and will likely continue to be so while Marc Elrich remains county executive.
7:22: The type of headquarters the office parks along I-270 were intended for was the insular campus-style, such as defense, life sciences, aerospace and tech. So they're not likely to be in urban areas for security and layout reasons - such as research or light manufacturing facilities on-site. That's what this area should be reserved for and actively promoted internationally. But the Council donations come largely from residential developers, so here we are.
I would add that our moribund state predates Elrich's term as executive. Were he to be deposed in 2026 but our policies and strategies not change, his ouster would have negligible impact.
Perfect location for elderly mall walkers to move to
FBI... NOT!
Call it moribund if you want, but this is a fantastic project that will create 650 jobs and a new 1.6 acre public park while adding zero strain to the local school cluster. This is exactly the redevelopment this metro inaccessible site needed.
Seems sad there are some cute deer foxes' rabbits and chipmunks that roam there and for years! Those big, beautiful trees had to be over 4O PLUS years old . Im guessing 42 acres of taxes are way more valuable!! I saw that the new owner is only keeping little less 1 acre of grass...humph... time to move out of this area.
Haha, good one 8:03am. So sad parking lots are being replaced with a park! Won't someone think of the chipmunk who feeds on the vacant lot's trash!
FYI to "Anonymous" above ... Discovery was NEVER going to move to ANYWHERE else in the DC area. PERIOD! David Zaslav never had ANY use for the DC metro area and from the time he was hired in November of 2006, had ALWAYS planned on moving Discovery to his home base of NYC. End of story!
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