Falkland Chase: Sneak Preview
By Silver Springer • Feb 22nd, 2007 • Category: Real Estate
Flashback to August 2006 and you might remember the beginning of “Falkland Chase under fire“. It was that month the owner and developer Home Properties held a resident meeting announcing plans to demolish the northern section of the historic site for the largest residential project in Silver Spring in recent history. At that time the plan called for 1,050 units, and 70,000 square feet of ground floor retail space including a grocer. The grocer tenant was intended to be Harris Teeter. The Developer listened as some community members suggested ideas like enitre non-smoking highrises.
Since the summer the plans have changed slightly. The developer showed off plans last year at a December, Silver Spring Citizens Advisory board meeting. The residential total was reduced to 1,020 units. The retail to about 50,000 square feet. Harris Teeter is still on the table and has signed a letter of intent according to the developer.
So this brings us back to today, where a design charette of sort
s will be held at 7:30pm in the Silver Spring Regional Center.
To get you in the mood, the Scene has some exclusive photos of this enormous project. A full scale view of the highrises are not shown here, but from an eye-witness account, this is another project that does Silver Spring justice in the architecture department, the detail and effort is visible. The main discussion of the night is expected to be the monolithic nature of the siteplan, but hopefully the community will be able to think outside the box and not be unreasonable with this project.
UPDATE: The website of the architect, Grimm + Parker has updated renderings and a full scale shot of the highrises (top image).
MEETING DETAILS
When: Thursday February 22, 2007, 7:30 PM
Where: Silver Spring Regional Center 8435 Georgia Avenue
For additional information, please contact Kathy Stevens at 301-613-5463 or Phil Olivetti at 301-943-5821 who are both members of the Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board.
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I think it’s kind of funny (and maybe a little sad) how most of the holes in the skyline of your Silver Spring Scene logo are likely to be filled in over the next 5 years. I still remember flying into Puerto Rico as a child and still seeing rain forests throughout the island. Today PR is pretty much a big block of concrete in the middle of the Caribbean. Although SS is already a block of concrete, I kind of like having a few open spaces.
Oh my god, lol… That thing is huge.
I really wish that they would arrange the towers differently…like in a more urban street design manner. They should also pay for different designs for each tower. If they can afford to build almost 1100 units, they can afford to have varying architecture and heights of buildings. Also, why should it be a “gated community” according to the website. I would go to the meeting to voice my opinions but alas I’m in Philly at school. I have a lot to say about it lol.
Silver Springer, are you going to it?
Although there are two very important meetings today (the other with Marylin Praisner about county development), yes I will be there.
So, all the traffic will be coming in and out of that one entrance on E-W Hwy that doesn’t have a light? I hope I’m reading that wrong.
The traffic on 16th Street and East-West Hwy will be a complete nightmare if this project comes to fruition. As a matter of fact, it’s already bad enough now. Like what Terry wrote, I don’t see how residents and shoppers will have an easy time pulling into the busy East-West Hwy corridor.
I’m sure the “Future Purple Line” will solve all of these problems. (Like 30 years from now…)
Wow… I live right where it looks like the pool will be. When Home Properties sent out the letter what…about a year ago, I really didn’t think I was going to be effected!
Any word (or did I just miss it) on when they’re breaking ground/when I need to move?!?!?
Can’t wait to hear what was discussed in the meeting tonight (especially their timetable for discussion). It’s too bad that in a project this size, surrounded by so much residential and pedestrian traffic that they couldn’t have incorporated more than 70,000 sq. feet of retail (but the Harris Teeter is SWEET…we desperately need a good grocery store around here).
I mean the timetable for construction.
Wow. The architecture reminds me of the Edgemoor in Bethesda. I like it, but do we need four of them? And why does the complex step back from East-West Highway? The existing buildings are fairly close to the road. If anything, the buildlings should be away from the Metro tracks. But very nice nonetheless. I think I’ll talk about it tomorrow.
They HAVE to put a light in. It looks like that proposed E-W hwy entrance might be in the same spot as the existing little road up to the parking. If so, it will fairly similar to the new light on E-W hwy at the Giant shopping Center. It’s good for the pedestrians and those trying to make a left out of the shopping center, but a pain in the keister if you’re driving on E-W. The shopping center light and the main intersection light never seem to be coordinated, probably because of the pedestrian cross buttons.
I was hit by a car crossing 16th St at E-W hwy a few years back. Even though I wasn’t seriously injured, it was a terrible experience. The County really needs to pay attention to flow patterns in DTSS, especially given the proposed growth. There are 1000+ apartments in the new development. A busy area is going to get a LOT busier.
I think this development project will end up approved by the county. Why? You have nothing but rental properties along that E-W Hwy/16th Street area. You think tenants in Summit Hills really care about traffic flows in and out of E-W Hwy.
With the new traffic this brings, they are going to have to do something about the conflict of those who u-turn from southbound 16th St on the left turn arrow with the right turn light on west-bound E-W Highway. I would only assume that if anything is done, u-turns would be banned at that intersection, to the detrement of anyone at Summit Hills who wants to go north towards GA Ave or the Beltway from there.
I drive home going south on Colesville every afternoon. It’s 2 lanes and with all the cars turning left it’s functionally only 1 lane. When there’s stopped cars and buses on the right lane it becomes 0 lanes. Do you really think the dumasses that coordinate traffic are going to think this one through?
Updated images of the layout, as well as more pics, can be viewed on The Silver Spring Penguin.
YIKES! Silver Springer, I accidentally typed in your name in the above post!
SORRY!
I really don’t understand why there’s four of the same building. Not only is there no variation in architecture, but being nowhere near any single-family homes, there is no variation in height. Fourteen stories next to the train tracks and across the street from more apartments does not seem ambitious for such a generally ambitious project.
Silver Springer/thecourtyard, any comments on what happened last night?
Sorry, meant fifteen stories.
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YIKES! Silver Springer, I accidentally typed in your name in the above post!
SORRY!
”
It’s been fixed.
“Pennster said…
I really don’t understand why there’s four of the same building. Not only is there no variation in architecture, but being nowhere near any single-family homes, there is no variation in height. Fourteen stories next to the train tracks and across the street from more apartments does not seem ambitious for such a generally ambitious project.
Silver Springer/thecourtyard, any comments on what happened last night?”
Check out the latest article
Silver Springer, you might want to look out that you’re not quoting email addresses when making posts since you probably have access to them all. I see that the last one I posted got quoted by you as well as my IP address. Fortunately, that’s not my full email address as I don’t feel comfortable giving it out all the time, but just for future reference.
Thanks.
Damn! Sorry! I’ll remove it right away!