Ourisman Ford demolished in Bethesda (Photos)

The Ourisman Ford dealership at 10401 Motor City Drive has been completely demolished. It has been closed for many years, but was being used for other purposes until earlier this year by the Ourisman auto group, such as vehicle storage. Developer Foulger Pratt will now construct an apartment building on the site. Construction lighting has been set up around the property.

Foulger-Pratt unveils site plan for Ourisman Ford property in Bethesda (Photos)

Developer Foulger-Pratt last night unveiled the site plan for a residential building that would replace the vacant Ourisman Ford dealership at 10401 Motor City Drive in Bethesda, adjacent to Westfield Montgomery Mall. The dealership lot is still used by Ourisman to park excess inventory from its other dealerships. Foulger-Pratt's sketch plan for the project has been approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board.

Attorney Phil Hummel of Linowes & Blocher represented the applicant at the meeting, which was held at the Davis Library. The proposed building would be single-use residential, with up to 350 units, and a height of 75'. An earlier plan approved by the County in 2009, which included ground floor retail and underground parking, was scrapped.

Vehicle circulation plan; garage
and loading dock access will be
from Motor City Drive

The development would have a mix of studio, 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom units. Some nearby residents in attendance at the meeting were concerned that there would not be enough parking. Hummel said the County is now encouraging developers to limit parking to encourage transit use. He cited a future Bus Rapid Transit station planned for the adjacent mall's Transit Center.

Current and future bike and pedestrian
routes on and around the property

"All those White Flint Mall shoppers are coming here now," said one resident. "Home Depot jams their parking lot." Parking is expected to improve at Home Depot once a partial demolition of the strip mall there creates room for additional spaces.

Green and open space plan,
and landscaping

Hummel said that if the site plan Foulger-Pratt is about to submit is approved as expected, construction could begin in Summer 2019, and would take approximately two years to complete.

Ourisman Ford redevelopment won't be mixed-use (Photos)

The Foulger-Pratt redevelopment of the vacant Ourisman Ford dealership at Motor City Drive and Westlake Terrace in Bethesda will not be mixed-use. There's no market for ground-floor retail or dining at the site, and there is a shopping center and Westfield Montgomery Mall within easy walking distance, the developer argued at a pre-submittal community meeting at the Davis Library.

Therefore, Foulger-Pratt will ask the Montgomery County Planning Board to amend the previous approval of 340 units with retail and a 12000 SF restaurant space, and permit instead a residential-only building with 348 rental apartment units. The applicant is highlighting the planned entrance plaza as the focal point for the building, with a small park area, courtyards and leisure trail among the landscape amenities. There will also be a pool for residents.

Grey area left of center is above-grade
parking garage structure

Foulger-Pratt is also asking for permission to replace the previously-approved plan for underground parking with an above-grade parking structure. Their traffic study suggests there will be 84 outgoing trips during the peak of the morning rush hour. Separated 2-way bike lanes are planned for Westlake Terrace.

Traffic circulation plan:
Green is delivery/maintenance,
purple is resident traffic

Although the zoning for the site allows a height of 75', the building is expected to be only 64'. That is intriguing, given that there are no single-family homes or townhomes immediately adjacent to the site. Yet here the Planning Board would approve only 64'. while it approved heights significantly taller than that directly across from single-family homes on Westbard Avenue and Ridgefield Road last year. Once again, it's amateur hour at the Planning Board.

Landscaping plan

The architectural design of the building isn't very clear or defined from the current renderings, but what's there doesn't appear very inspiring, resembling the Home Depot big box store that the building will face across Motor City Drive. Perhaps ground-level renderings with the entrance plaza and so forth will change that impression, but it's getting hard to be optimistic about architecture in Montgomery County these days. There's a legitimate concern that, when this entire area is redeveloped with "stack-and-pack" Soviet apartment blocs, this site could be a dead zone/wall between other mixed-use sites that do have ground floor retail on Westlake Terrace and the mall property.

Sketch plan

VOLKSWAGENS INVADE ABANDONED BETHESDA FORD DEALERSHIP (PHOTOS)

The former Ourisman Ford dealership by Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda was abandoned several years ago. The site has been expected to be redeveloped in the future.

But a swarm of German Volkswagens has appeared in the lot, where the service area has been apparently utilized by an auto repair business temporarily.

Ourisman must still own the site, because these VWs are from Ourisman Volkswagen on Rockville Pike.

So if you're in the market for a VW, I guess you can get a no-sales-pressure look at the exterior in Bethesda right now.

That GTI looks pretty nice.  It's awfully tough to live up to the sports car legacy of the Ford logo on the building behind it, though.

The Ourisman Ford font on the facade certainly brings back memories of many now-closed Ford dealerships, including one that used to be in the area now called... Bethesda Row!