Park and Planning recommendations eliminates jobs in Silver Spring
By Silver Springer • Apr 24th, 2007 • Category: Real Estate
The planning staff requirements that lead to the elimination of the office component in the Studio Plaza development by Robert Hillerson of Michael, LLC goes to show how outdated current zoning laws are for the central business district. They come from a time when Silver Spring was desperate for anything that happened to come its way. Those times have passed.
The removal of the 146,000 square foot office building is equivalent to 300 jobs lost.
“It wasn’t worth the fight†said Hillerson of trying to persuade the planning staff otherwise. One project can cross a public right of way but the project is crossing a public parking lot between the residential and office components. The planning department considered the mixed-use development as two separate projects instead of one, alienating the office component and eventually killing it because of limitations that forced the developer’s hand.
“Instead of having my 8 story, 90’foot office building, it would go down to 60’[feet]†said Hillerson.
Under the Fenton Village Overlay zone, an optional method project needs to have one third residential or more to reach the maximum height of 90’feet. Because current zoning laws are overemphatic on residential construction, the office component would be scaled back from 90’ feet to 60’feet, which would result in five stories instead of eight, making construction unfeasible.
Park and Planning wanted the office building to be at least one third residential or the developer would loose the benefits of calculating square footage by Floor Area Ratio, which would allow greater heights and density.
With 6,625 units existing and planned for the downtown, what makes sense is to balance that with office development. At three per household, imagine 19,875 in and out of CBD, that’s almost double the current population. Without more focus on employment by government officials and planning staff who favor residential over all other uses what’s in store for Silver Spring in the long-term?
Whats in store for Silver Spring in the long term without more offices…More traffic because the people who move into the residential places will need to go elsewhere to work.
What’s park and planning’s problem? Why don’t they see the same big picture for the future of silver spring that we all have? Let’s fire those no good bums.
I don’t know what their issue is right now, but stop calling it “Park and Planning”. They’re two separate departments now, and it’s been that way since the middle of last summer. The Planning Department is what’s taking care of these projects.
There are many more jobs than housing units in Silver Spring, but the retail supporting both remains a little weak. Not sure if losing an office in this particular location is the end of the world. I am more concerned about homogeneous development project in general. It would be nice if all future housing going up along Fenton had retail on the ground floor.
I would like to see some big boxes down in Fenton Village. That would get traffic moving and revitalize the area. Rockville Pike seems pretty sucessful to me. There’s definitely demand for that kind of retail in the close-in suburbs considering the nearest Montgomery County Home Depot to Silver Spring is all the way in Aspen Hill. Walmart is even further up in Germantown. A big box power center could really get things moving down there.
Rockviller wrote:
Is below-the-Beltway Silver Spring a suburb? Or should it be treated as an urban area?
Actually the nearest Home Depot would be the one up 29 just before Cherry Hill Road. Of course, you’d never find it unless you knew it was there.
And everyone in Silver Spring DOES know it’s there. It’s only 15 minutes from me and I live in Forest Glen. There are several big box stores there, which DO NOT BELONG IN DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rockville Pike is an old-school, auto-oriented, inaccessible and ugly commercial corridor which has HUGE problems, problems which the county is only just starting to try to fix through its wedges and corridors program.
Comment by Pennster
Made Friday, 27 of April , 2007 at 2:41 pm
And everyone in Silver Spring DOES know it’s there. It’s only 15 minutes from me and I live in Forest Glen. There are several big box stores there, which DO NOT BELONG IN DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RE: CUT THE BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Silver Spring DESERVES High End Upscale Retail. How the Heck can you put down Silver Spring like that but yet Arlington has Two Best Buy’s along with other High End Upscale Retail.
You and the other anti-pregressive so called Montgomery County citizens have issues with supporting Big Box and Upscale Retail in Montgomery County because you folx are Threaten that Montgomery County can one day become better than Northern Virginia.
Comment by Pennster
Made Friday, 27 of April , 2007 at 2:43 pm
Rockville Pike is an old-school, auto-oriented, inaccessible and ugly commercial corridor which has HUGE problems, problems which the county is only just starting to try to fix through its wedges and corridors program.
RE: Yeah but that doesn’t stop you from patronizing Businesses in Arlington/Alexandria, Tyson’s Corner, Fair Oaks, Reston, and Dulles/Ashburn/Sterling areas of Virginia.
Comment by Pennster
Made Friday, 27 of April , 2007 at 2:41 pm
And everyone in Silver Spring DOES know it’s there. It’s only 15 minutes from me and I live in Forest Glen. There are several big box stores there, which DO NOT BELONG IN DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RE: Yeah but Arlington has Two Best Buy’s and a Target but yet you want Silver Spring if not Montgomery County to be the Outcast of the DC area if not the Nation.
Got news for you, Mikey. I don’t patronize businesses in Virginia. Second, I would like to have a Best Buy or a Bed, Bath & Beyond plopped right in downtown Silver Spring. Add a Target store too.
But guess what. It’s up to the retailers to decide whether the economics of investing in downtown Silver Spring makes financial sense. If you place a big-box store in the heart of Silver Spring, you have a few issues: traffic and parking spaces. Planners are weary of big-box retail in downtown for this reason.
I would rather have the Home Depots, the Best Buys and other stores farther out where spacing is not an issue.