1200 East West Highway Bites the Dust?
By Silver Springer • Sep 26th, 2006 • Category: Uncategorized
A couple indicators lead me to believe that the project at 1200 East West Highway is no longer a go. First, after making an appearance on the Centex City Homes website it has mysteriously disappeared. Secondly I called the sales office and they told me it was shelved for the foreseeable future due to “construction issues”. The Cityhomes: The Pavilions at Takoma in D.C. and Cityhomes: The Pavilions at Huntington Metro in Alexandria, VA still have the green light. So in conclusion Silver Spring, MD wasn’t lucrative enough and was dumped to pursue the other two projects that are part of the City Homes group (note that they will have to demolish a massive former catering building for the Takoma project).
This is unfortunate because it was one of the better projects that even made the Rating the Projects Best List. This was one condo I was seriously considering to buy if all went well.
Perhaps this gives the MICA a fighting chance?
Oh yeah, by a rather brusque request for acknowledgement, park and planning wants me to tell you all the photos were provided through their site.
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What about the Galaxy?
Nothing can help the Mica…
Centex is committed to this project - probably just a delay to get things in order.
This should be a relately easy spot to rework, shouldn’t it? All that’s there is the old speed shop and auto repair place.
well maybe someone has finally realized there are way too many condo projects in a few block radius. with any luck, maybe we can get someone to put a good Restaurant there.
Good idea! Then we can demolish it for a high rise office building.
The real estate market for condos is tanking in the DC region.
Also…Silver Spring is NOT as lucrative for the higher income professonal market as developers had projected. Silver Spring will NEVER become a carbon copy of Bethesda or Arlington. Yuppies are not rushing to sign contracts to buy condos in SS.
If anything, more yuppies will continue to buy property or rent in already prosperous districts.
Even though more condos on the market will deflate prices, I am glad that developers are getting the message that Silver Spring is a vibrant MIXED-INCOME community with many ethnic groups. I can walk down Ellsworth Street and hear at least 15 different languages spoken: United Nations in Silver Spring. You will never find a community where African-Americans, Latinos, Whites, Asians, Africans are shopping and eating in same establishments.
You don’t get that in Bethesda.
You don’t get that in Arlington.
You don’t get that in Rockville or McLean, VA.
You don’t get that in Lilly-White Upper Northwest DC.
I sincerely hope that developers will finally understand this.
So your saying only white people buy luxury condos? :-p
I agree a nice M-I condo would be welcome I mean truly M-I not slapping in extra MDPUs. A place for first-time home owners of many different income levels.
I think there are plenty of ethnic (non-whites, non fluent english speakers) that would be happy to own a nice condo in SS, for the very reasons you listed, its an ethnic mix and shopping and food that is culturally familiar. I just happen to be one of them(asides the english speaking part, though that is debatable)
Not just ethnic/racial balance but also socio-economic balance. Developers need to think about projects for middle-income residents.
I am sick and tired of RE developers focusing on the high-end market.
The developers are abandoning Silver Spring because they can’t get interest from Yuppies to buy properties. HELLO…there are plenty of hard-working, up-standing people who don’t make SIX figures who would love to be a part of this wonderful community!!!!!
I should change my blog name from “IHateYuppies” to “IHateGreedyStupidRealEstateDevelopers”.
Yuppie Hater–
Apparently you don’t live in my condo– or any of the condos in Silver Spring, because then you’d realize that people of many colors, speaking many languages, are already there and plentiful.
Spend less time on hate ranting.
Sure, you have African-American lawyers, Latino lawyers, Chinese-Americans lawyers, Ethiopian lawyers, Arab-American lawyers. Oooooh…lots of lawyers…that’s a sign of diversity. Wow.
How many people in your building make under $75,000 per year? I will bet a very low number.
It’s good that you can afford the newly-gentrified Silver Spring while high housing prices and rents are driving down racial and socio-economic diversity…not increasing it.
Because of gentrification, black-owned businesses are declining in downtown Silver Spring. Ditto for Latinos as well. Soon, businesses owned by Silver Spring Jewish families will be priced out.
City Place will be remodeled with more upscale shops that cater to people with fatter wallets.
But that’s OK because gentrification is peaking in Silver Spring.
Cheaper rents are on the way. Office vacancies will continue to exist. Crime rates will remain steady if not increase slightly. Some reatailers and chain restaurants will struggle.
It’s called economic balance.
I don’t think the restaurants, chain or otherwise, will start to struggle in DTSS. In addition to being diverse, we also appear to be some eating out kinda people. I LOVE all the choices here and I patronize the businesses.
Ok, here’s a quibble. It bugs me when people use ethnic to mean non-white. My family is white/European, but ethnic as all heck (grandparents were immigrants). We still have plenty of food and customs (as well as a few colorful phrases and curses) from the old country.
Ihateyuppies,
I admire your passion for keeping Moco, etc. diverse racially and socio-economically, but your zeal unfortunately seems to get in the way of accepting this reality: we live in a capitalist economy based on profit.
Developers develop to make money. That is the sole reason why they buy properties build on/renovate them. Why should they HAVE to develop lower to middle income housing when there is an existing supply (i.e older and unrenoved)?
As far as only developing high end units for “yuppies”, there are virtually no true luxury units coming on the market here. The finishes in these products were once considered luxury but are now standard fare. The primary reason for developing “higher priced” units is that land prices dictate what product must be sold/rented in order to make the development work.
i don’t think “i hate yuppies” has been in the majority of the DTSS condos. I’ve been in three, live in one and know plenty of people that work for non-profits, are small business owners, hair dressers, photographers etc. Of course there are lawyers and other white collar profssionals. Thank god, they’re an important part of the magical socio-economic diversity mix most of us crave.
As far as 1200 going…that would be a shame. The picture looked nice.