8700 Georgia Ave To Be Razed
By Silver Springer • Jan 18th, 2007 • Category: Real Estate
In a previous article the Silver Spring Scene discussed the 60s era office building that unexpectedly received the “the kiss of death†or better known as the MC-MNCPPC (park and planning) development review signs. The planned development calls for a mixed use project of office, residential and retail.
It was thought that the existing building would somehow be incorporated into the new project. Demolishing a 70’ foot building for a 143’foot building didn’t seem economically feasible…But apparently it is, contrary to other reports and developers hearsay.
The developer and attorney presented their plans at the Economic Development Committee meeting (a branch of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board). Albert A. Foer and family have owned the building since 1985. The building will razed for ground floor retail below 2 stories of office and 11 stories of residential above that. There are plans for a green roof and decreasing other impervious surfaces. The project was filled back in September 2006. This is another example of Park and Planning keeping development out of the public’s eye. By the time development reaches the public, details are already set in stone.
I’ve already expressed my support for the existing structure. I think integrating it is the best compromise. I’ve learned that to be competitive Silver Spring must be distinctive and set itself apart from Arlington, Bethesda and the like. Part of doing this means incorporating the worthy historic structures that the other areas can’t match. This is part of the advantage Silver Spring has over other areas. It developed rather quickly long before the others existed. If this does not happen it will simply get lost in the pack. What positive aspect will separate Silver Spring from the Clarendons, Ballstons and Rosslyns of the world?
A rendering of the proposed project is below in good old “Art Deco Style”. I apologize for the rather bad photography.
Project Details
Developer: 8700 Georgia Avenue, LP\ Albert A. Foer
Architect: SK&I of Bethesda
Optional Method of Development Project
Zone: CBD-2
Height: 143’ft, total of 14 stories
Gross square footage: 133,138 sq\ft with a 5.82 FAR
Office: 21,540 sq\ft
Retail: 4,960 sq\ft
Residential: 103,663 sq\ft, 106 units including 16 MPDUs (15%)
Public Use Space: 5,192 sq\ft or 31.86%
Parking: 115 spaces
The project has not yet been assigned a reviewer. A planning board hearing is scheduled for June or July 2007.
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Woodsider,
Let me make this crystal clear to you:
You bought property in Silver Spring when it was a complete shit hole. You bought property well before we had this Giant Real Estate Bubble. You bought property when the average home value was in the $100K range. Those days are long over. Middle-class earners in the Washington, DC area cannot afford to buy in this market.
I could have bought property in Silver Spring before the year 2000. Unfortunately, I didn’t move here until 2002 when the real estate bubble was in full swing.
The average home price in Silver Spring is in the mid-300K range. I don’t have the income to afford such a property (condos or homes otherwise). Hell, if I had a wife and we had two steady incomes…we still couldn’t afford the median home price in Silver Spring or most areas around the Washington, DC region.
If I bought property in the 1990s on the cheap…I would be wagging my finger and urging everyone to buy as well.
Even after the mortgage deduction, I would be broke from the sky-high mortgage payments, insurance, and property taxes. No thank you.
I will bite when Silver Spring RE prices fall to sane levels.
“Ihateyuppies: so as the vulture, what will you do with your cheaply acquired properties? Sit on them and hope the value price doesn’t go up? I thought not.”
Nope. I see home ownership as a form of shelter…not as an investment. A home is where you can decorate, make renovations, and additions to your liking. No need to get approval from a landlord. A home is where can pay the same mortgage rate each month if you lock in a 30-year rate. No need to worry about rent increases.
As for real estate investment…if I buy a house at $200,000 in 2007 and it sells for $200,000 in 2027…what the fuck do I care?
See…unlike you capitalistic money-grubbers, I would not obsess whether my home value doubles or triples in five years. I am not looking to use my home as an ATM machine to buy expensive cars or take exotic vacations.
A home is a form of shelter. That’s all. I know your stocks are tanking through the shitter. I know the fat bonuses are not coming to your pay checks. So you bank on your property values as salvation. But if buyers aren’t meeting your price…what the fuck will you do then? Whoa, you might have to accept LESS $$$$ than you intended. Wow, the arrogance of home owners never ceases to amaze me.
@woodsider, etc… I’m sure if I bought a few years ago, I’d be happy to see my home’s value rise–my point is, how do you reap the benefits of that, other than having the ability to take out home equity loans? I want to buy a place and live there, not hope prices go up and I can cash out.
@courtyard, no offense meant to bville, but for me, metro accessibility and walkability are important aspects of where I live. If I owned in DTSS, and sold, the places where homes offer more “bang for the buck” are all farther from metro/urban areas. It’s like, “Our waterfront home’s value went up! Let’s sell it and move… away from the water!”
Again, ihateyuppies comes across as bitter, but all the arguments I hear for keeping property values up up up are from people who (a) bought before the boom and paid half what their homes are valued at today (and come off as naive/condescending telling others to buy), or (b) bought later and need prices to go up to justify what they are paying.
Again, I want to buy. I’m exploring it, knowing I missed out on the boom but also knowing I have little choice if I want to live here.
I make enough money to buy property wherever the hell I want to buy property and chose Silver Spring b/c of the diversity and location (with respect to my workplace). I hope the property values continue to go up b/c it would be _ucking stupid to think that anyone would want property values anywhere to go down. That is of course unless you are a sorry sack of jealous crap (that means you ihateyuppies). Oh yeah, and once the bubble bursts… Who cares… I’ll just keep making more money…
Oh yeah, as a linguist with several advanced degrees, I love hearing pretty much all regional dialects. It’s stupid people that are annoying, not their regional dialects.
hahahaha! Chaz, ummm, good point. Listen, ppl need to calm down. Everyone’s making good points. I don’t really understand what Yuppies is saying, but I think I kind of get his anti-materialistic meaning. But the point of modern life, in a lot of ways, is to accrue equity so that you can successfully support a family. That’s what a society is based on … children, not goods. Sure it’s nice sometimes to have expensive things, but ultimately a lot of people are looking to simply have a family, that’s all.
So in that respect, Woodsider is right. If you want to buy — esp. now since the market is so ripe — then just take the plunge, even if you know you can’t afford it. Somehow, if you want to own a home, then you’ll own a home, and if that takes self advancement through your career or multiple roommates, or whatever … bottom line is buy that sucker and you’ll have something rock solid to build on. That’s what I’m doing … I’m gonna be incredibly stretched, but it’s better than throwing my money away on expensive rent each month.
Oh and BTW, there are 21 single bedroom units left in Mica and they want to sell them all by the end of next month. Doubtful, but, that’s the plan.
I don’t work for Mica. I just want to buy there.
Exactly. The problem with the yuppiehater is that he wants to lump everyone who has more than him into the same group he despises.
He doesn’t understand that all homeowners don’t cash out, want to sell, or use their homes as ATM’s….all we want is to see the value of ANY investment rise over the long term and make sensible choices on how to use that money. I guess yuppiehater would deny his child an education if the only way he could pay for it is with some of the equity in his home.
He says we are capitalistic money-grubbers, as if those two always go together. If it wasn’t for capitalists we wouldn’t have the incredible amount of charity given in this country (Gates Foundation, Rockefellar, and tens of thousands more).
He says our stocks are crashing, but if he knew anything about the stock market he’d know that the market has risen considerably in the last two years (i had 12% each year on average) and has finally caught up from the losses starting about six years ago. He has no idea who gets what for bonuses, only that he doesn’t get them. I got a very nice bonus two years in a row.
And finally, home prices in Silver Spring are down only about 3% and projected (in the worst scenario) to fall another 3-5%. This is nothing compared to the 100% run up in prices over the last 5 years. So who is really crying about the loss? Just the small handful of sellers who got in the game too late.
Ihateyuppies said:
“Woodsider,Let me make this crystal clear to you: You bought property in Silver Spring when it was a complete shit hole. You bought property well before we had this Giant Real Estate Bubble. You bought property when the average home value was in the $100K range.
Wrong on all accounts. I bought in 2001 when home prices had already risen 10-15%. I did my research and saw the development that was planned, approved and financed for Silver Spring and I TOOK A RISK and bought a house here. That is what homebuying and any investing is about–RISK. Had you taken a RISK in 2002 when you moved here, you still would have been able to get a good value and would be enjoying the security of considerable equity built in the 3.5 years of appreciation that followed.
Finally, you should know that I moved here from upper NW Connecticut Avenue in(yuppie-haven) Chevy Chase, DC because I couldn’t afford a home there. I didn’t bitch and complain about the prices …I just moved somewhere where prices were more reasonable and attainable. Sure, the retail isn’t as good here, but so what…I have a house that I love and it’s worth more than I paid for it. And no, I’m not in one of those mansions in Woodside.
Perhaps you shoud find your “1990’s Silver Spring” in the many up-and-coming areas that you mentioned in your prior post. You shoud buy something and move there. I say this not to be antagonistic, but to point out that there are opportunities everywhere and at all times…you just have to look for them and try to be ahead of the curve.
Silver Springer,
Back to the original topic, I am heartbroken they are going to raise that building, such a shame!
As for all the real estate bubble talk. My take on the near future is that Developers and Builders will put a hold on the new condo/residential construction until there is “pent up demand” and then you will see the prices rise again. I have seen several Builders put their residential projects on hold for now. People that waited will be sorry for waiting again. It’s all a matter of supply and demand. Builders are not as dumb as you think they are. Don’t wait to buy real estate…Buy real estate and wait. Just my 2 cents.
ihateyuppies said…
Got news for you. The Georgia Ave. corridor from Petworth to Walter Reed Army Hospital is gentrifying. Yeah, those yuppie dollars are going to flow AWAY from Silver Spring. We will see pretty new condos, pretty new shops, pretty new clubs and restaurants. Oh yeah, College Park (Home of the Terps, baby!) is doing a huge makeover that will make the Ellsworth DTSS project look like a cheap cookie-cutter planning job. Oh yeah, yuppies love to sip lattes close to a university setting. Silver Spring doesn’t quite offer an intellectually stimulating environment. Did I mention that Hyattsville is gentrifying too? Yeah, lots of DC suburbs are seeing big developments. You think Silver Spring is that special? That unique?
1/18/2007 10:22:18 PM
That’s the beauty of Silver Spring. It doesn’t have a flagship university, naval medical center, NIH or a wealthy demographic surrounding it to prop it up. It was built out the spirit of entrepreneurship. This is part of the reason why I find Silver Spring fascinating. Somehow over the years it still held its own. If it was any other place it probably wouldn’t exist. To have the amount of commercial development it has is astounding. It has an intangible attraction that somehow makes it desirable.
Silver Spring is tough.
My wife and I, both in our mid-20s, together are just a little over the $100k threshold, and yet we bought a nifty little townhouse (with zero outside help) within walking distance of the Forest Glen metro this summer, and we make it work. Maybe it’s because we are constantly driving to College Park to drink $5 lattes like ihateyuppies.
Would we sometimes like to have more money for other things like we used to? Do I wish I hadn’t had to downgrade my Nats tickets for cheaper seats and fewer games for 2007? Yes, sometimes you have to make tradeoffs to make things work.
Ok, another thing that surprises me. The Canada Dry building and strip mall that now holds Panera were considered historical properties. Parts of their exteriors were maintained in the new/redeveloped buildings on those sites. It doesn’t look from those drawings that the folks razing the Georgia Ave building are doing the same thing. Did the developers at the other site voluntarily save the look (or at least the sign) of the original buildings? Or was it something the County required of them? If it’s the latter, why isn’t the Georgia Ave building getting the same consideration. I like the stone on the lower facade.
“Wrong on all accounts. I bought in 2001 when home prices had already risen 10-15%. “
IHY: Did you know that many home prices in Silver Spring DOUBLED from 2000 to 2005? I think it’s fair to say that most incomes and stock portfolios don’t double every five years. That’s what we call a Housing Price Bubble. Greedy Sellers + Uneducated Buyers=Real Estate Disaster.
“I did my research and saw the development that was planned, approved and financed for Silver Spring and I TOOK A RISK and bought a house here.”
IHY: Buying property is NOT ABOUT RISK. Again, you are thinking along investment return lines. You are thinking ahead 20-30 years and what your re-sale value will become. You think buying property in the Woodside community is a RISK? LOL!!!
Tell you what, buy a dilapted house with a shaky foundation in a high-crime area: Now is that what I call RISK!
“Maybe it’s because we are constantly driving to College Park to drink $5 lattes like ihateyuppies.
Would we sometimes like to have more money for other things like we used to? Do I wish I hadn’t had to downgrade my Nats tickets for cheaper seats and fewer games for 2007? Yes, sometimes you have to make tradeoffs to make things work.”
IHY: First of all, a grande latte at Starbucks costs $3.25. Get that right.
Second, giving up good seats for the Nationals isn’t much of a sacrifice. The Nats will lose over 100 games next season and you know this. They stink…why spend more money on a crappy team in 2007 in an old crappy stadium when you can go all out for Nats tickets in the new stadium for the 2008 season?
And third, if someone buys into this over-priced real estate market, they are sacrificing his cash savings, his retirement savings, his kids college tuition etc. I hear horror stories of young couples stuck with huge mortgage payments. They have to rent out the basement so they off-set the mortgage bills. They have little left over for dining, trips, entertainment, and even having children. This is what happens when you buy in a market where real estate pries are inflated beyond belief.
“That’s the beauty of Silver Spring. It doesn’t have a flagship university, naval medical center, NIH or a wealthy demographic surrounding it to prop it up.”
IHY: That’s also the PERIL of Silver Spring. This community was once a thriving inner suburb of Washington, DC during the 1950s and 1960s. Then, there was economic decay and housing price de-preciation through out the 1970s and 1980s. Without a stable anchor, Silver Spring could encounter another period of business decline and residential flight.
“If you want to buy — esp. now since the market is so ripe — then just take the plunge, even if you know you can’t afford it. Somehow, if you want to own a home, then you’ll own a home, and if that takes self advancement through your career or multiple roommates, or whatever … bottom line is buy that sucker and you’ll have something rock solid to build on.”
IHY: With that attitude, do you wonder why Americans have a negative savings rate? Do you wonder why foreclosure rates hit record levels for the Washington, DC area in 2006? Because un-educated people followed your advice and bought into the Great Real Estate Hype (Scam). Those poor souls (Suckers) took out adustable-rate mortgages because they wanted to get into the “Hot” real estate any way possible. These buyers (IDIOTS) thought that real estate prices would be increasing at 20 percent, 30 percent, or 40 percent annually each year…Forever! The equity would come down the road, right? However, home sale values are DECLINING and mortgage bills are INCREASING. We all know that personal incomes aren’t growing much either. Stocks are flat. Uh oh…we got a problem.
I will continue to pay rent…thank you very much.
Jesus Christ IHY, is there ANYTHING you won’t argue about? You are the most negative person I’ve ever seen on a blog.
ihateyuppies
said…
IHY: That’s also the PERIL of Silver Spring. This community was once a thriving inner suburb of Washington, DC during the 1950s and 1960s. Then, there was economic decay and housing price de-preciation through out the 1970s and 1980s. Without a stable anchor, Silver Spring could encounter another period of business decline and residential flight.
1/21/2007 02:23:42 PM
Even with the flagship university, College Park is no where near the level Silver Spring is. Yet the city council will have you belive it is.
ihateyuppies
said…
You’re right, I don’t believe you.
As a renter looking to buy property, I hope the Silver Spring real estate market crashes to shambles. I could care less about home owners. It’s obvious that you are a home owner and you want your property value to go UP and UP and UP while DTSS continues to blossom. Without DTSS, your house in the Woodside community would be worthless. You know it too. My savings account could almost cover the entire worth of your tiny house like six years ago.
Got news for you. The Georgia Ave. corridor from Petworth to Walter Reed Army Hospital is gentrifying. Yeah, those yuppie dollars are going to flow AWAY from Silver Spring. We will see pretty new condos, pretty new shops, pretty new clubs and restaurants. Oh yeah, College Park (Home of the Terps, baby!) is doing a huge makeover that will make the Ellsworth DTSS project look like a cheap cookie-cutter planning job. Oh yeah, yuppies love to sip lattes close to a university setting. Silver Spring doesn’t quite offer an intellectually stimulating environment. Did I mention that Hyattsville is gentrifying too? Yeah, lots of DC suburbs are seeing big developments. You think Silver Spring is that special? That unique?
And guess what? Soon, the DC area will run out of yuppies to buy these expensive condos and townhouses. Retail activity will decline. Restaurants will go under. You will see your property value go DOWN, DOWN, DOWN. And I will be the vulture picking the meat of a dead carcass.
1/18/2007 10:22:18 PM
RE: You Maryland hating Virginia loving psycho. If anyone on this blog takes your psych BS seriously then its definate that this blog is contaminated with bitter stuck up Maryland hating Confederate mind like bougie trolls from Virginia that is hoping like your crazy arse that Marylands Business Growth shuts down to nothing while your coloniel state of Virginia continues to reap from Maryland’s So-Called Business Loss. But thats ok because one of these days Virginia will make the wrong step and Most of Not ALL of their Businesses jump ship and run back up across the Potomac to the Free State and by then the Maryland Tax Payers will grow a brain and figure out that the Democrats in Maryland was never for representing Maryland the positive way because they were too damn busy trying to help chase businesses from Maryland and help increase Virginia’s Business which will fail and sink under like the titanic.
ihateyuppies
said…
“That’s the beauty of Silver Spring. It doesn’t have a flagship university, naval medical center, NIH or a wealthy demographic surrounding it to prop it up.”
IHY: That’s also the PERIL of Silver Spring. This community was once a thriving inner suburb of Washington, DC during the 1950s and 1960s. Then, there was economic decay and housing price de-preciation through out the 1970s and 1980s. Without a stable anchor, Silver Spring could encounter another period of business decline and residential flight.
1/21/2007 02:23:42 PM
RE: And your Maryland hating arse wants Silver Spring(if not the entire state of Maryland) to suffer from a Severe business and residential decline so you people down in good ol’ Virginia can have something else negative to say about Maryland when you people try to CON newcomers looking to move to the DC suburbs to choose Virginia as a place to live.
Dude (anonymous)…IHY lives in Silver Spring, not in Virginia. And while I think his rants are ridiculous, yours are even more so. At with IHY, you can at least understand what he is trying to say; with you it’s not even comprehendable. What’s your point? N
Anonymous said…
Dude (anonymous)…IHY lives in Silver Spring, not in Virginia. And while I think his rants are ridiculous, yours are even more so. At with IHY, you can at least understand what he is trying to say; with you it’s not even comprehendable. What’s your point? N
1/22/2007 08:58:11 PM
RE: You understand fully with what I said. Its just that you can’t stand the truth. I’m not supprised especially coming from a Maryland hating Virginia loving Yuppie that hates Yuppies that relocate to Silver Spring/Maryland from Virginia.
As they say in the South: “well, bless his heart, he just can’t help himself…goin’ on an’ on like that”. You make no sense man.
Anonymous aka ihateyuppies(Marylanders) said…
As they say in the South: “well, bless his heart, he just can’t help himself…goin’ on an’ on like that”. You make no sense man.
1/24/2007 09:12:08 AM
RE: Keep saying that to yourself Maryland hater.
Silver Spring: Then & Again
by Jerry A. McCoy
Silver Spring Voice
February 2007
Last month marked the 49th anniversary of the opening of downtown Silver Spring’s most important example of Postwar International-style architecture, the 1958 Perpetual Building Association, located at 8700 Georgia Avenue. But the recent posting of two development application signs at that address that call for the razing of the 5-story, 28,848 sq. ft. structure for replacement by a 14-story, 133,138 sq. ft. building does not bode well for the landmark structure’s pending “golden” anniversary.
Perpetual Building Association was founded in Washington, DC in 1881 as the St. George’s Society, a group of poker-playing Englishmen who pooled their resources to help members buy new homes in the nation’s capital. Evolving into Perpetual Savings Bank, the institution went on to become the Washington area’s largest savings and loan. For over a century Perpetual financed the growth of communities throughout the metropolitan region until mismanagement forced its sale in 1991. Today, SunTrust Bank occupies the ground floor of Perpetual’s former Silver Spring office. The remaining floors are leased to a wide variety of tenants, from dance studio Tappers With Attitude to Cameron Medical Group.
Perpetual opened their first Silver Spring office in 1953, leasing space in Silver Spring’s original 1927 Masonic Lodge No. 215, still standing at 8435 Georgia Avenue. Desiring to build a new office that would “serve the people of Silver Spring and Montgomery County,†Perpetual opened a “magnificent new Silver Spring office†on January 13, 1958, at 8710 (now 8700) Georgia Avenue. A half-page advertisement touting the building’s many amenities ran in The Washington Post and Times Herald the day before the doors were opened to the public.
The nationally renowned Bank Building and Equipment Corp. of America, headquartered in St, Louis, Missouri, designed the savings and loan office in collaboration with prominent Washington, DC architect and builder Robert O. Scholz & Co. Cost of the building was the then unheard of amount (for Silver Spring) of $1.5 million ($10.5 million in 2007 dollars). BB & E Corp.’s partnership with a variety of talented architects throughout its history resulted in four of the corporation’s banks being listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Scholz had previously collaborated with BB & E Corp. in the construction of Perpetual’s flagship office, opened in 1953 in Washington, DC at 1111 E Street, NW (since demolished), as well as its Bethesda, Maryland office, opened in 1955 at 7401 Wisconsin Avenue. Renovated in 1988 by Keyes Condon Florance, the Bethesda office was not only incorporated into new add-on construction but also directly inspired its design. Today, these Class A office buildings are collectively known as Bethesda Crescent.
Scholz (1895-1978), a prominent Washington, DC architect and builder, was born in New York and came to Washington in 1918 to work for the U.S. Navy designing yards and dock buildings. Two of Scholz’ most prominent Washington, DC buildings, both originally apartments, are the Gothic Revival-style Alban Towers (1928), located at Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenue, NW (listed on the National Register of Historic Places) and the Art Deco-style General Scott (1940), located at #1 Scott Circle, NW.
The exterior of the Perpetual Building Association’s Postwar International-style design utilized clean, articulated lines and solid surface materials that symbolized permanence and protection. The exteriors of all three of Perpetual’s office buildings featured diamond gray and red Carnelian granite on the exterior of the first two floors and limestone on the remaining three.
Quarried near Milbank, SD, Carnelian granite was formed during the Early Proterozoic age and is some of the oldest stone found in North America. The variegated hues and the polished surface of the Carnelian granite used in the construction of 8700 Georgia Avenue are as bright and durable looking today as they were fifty years ago. Not bad for a material that is about two billion years old! One will certainly not be able to say the same of the surface treatments found on many of the cookie-cutter commercial buildings recently constructed in downtown Silver Spring whose facades are covered with a synthetic stucco popularly known as Dryvit.
An outstanding feature of the building’s exterior is the two-story, inverted keystone-shaped windows, six of which are located on the building’s south side and three on the west side. When standing at the base up these windows and looking up, the five-story structure appears to be much taller than it actually is, lending the building an air of monumentality.
Just as impressive were features found inside of the fully air-conditioned building. Perpetual’s main lobby, accessible from both Georgia Avenue and Cameron Street, was 100 feet long and 51 feet wide with a 21-foot ceiling. A mezzanine overlooked eight teller windows that were designed to eliminate waiting and long lines. Officers’ desks were no longer segregated behind traditionally solid wooden doors but were located out in the open along one side of the lobby, separated from the flow of traffic by low metal railings. And for the female customers, burdened with all of their packages acquired while shopping Silver Spring’s many fine stores, there was a customer lounge designed just for them to serve as “a haven of comfort in a busy day.â€
But what really made the Perpetual Building Association stand out from its competitors was a civic auditorium located on the lower level that was provided as a public-spirited service and available to all civic and community groups who “must meet and decide on important local issues.†And to further assist the community in the democratic process, ample parking for twenty vehicles was provided in the parking lot that wrapped around two sides of the building.
For a building so heralded and appreciated by the Silver Spring community when it opened half a century ago, the prospect of the demolition of the 1958 Perpetual Building Association is extremely disheartening. The Silver Spring Historical Society welcomes dialogue with the building’s current owner to explore ways to adaptively reuse this important Silver Spring landmark and to incorporate it into new construction.
If you can share with the Silver Spring Historical Society any photographs or memorabilia of the Perpetual Building Association, please contact SSHS at P.O. Box 1160, Silver Spring, MD 20910-1160, email sshistory@yahoo.com, or call 301-537-1253. The society’s Web site is http://www.sshistory.org.