White Flint Stands Out in Plans for Rockville Pike

By Miranda S. Spivack
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 20, 2008

This is the second of two parts.

The future of Montgomery County's Rockville Pike begins in White Flint.

The strip-mall neighborhood, at the south end of the pike and near the Red Line Metro station of the same name, could evolve into something more like the walkable Rockville Town Center, with its restaurants, plazas and street life. Or it could remain similar to its current incarnation: acres of parking lots reached through stop-and-go traffic -- congested but profitable for landowners wary of the expense and disruption of a major redevelopment.

Montgomery planners are focusing first on White Flint -- or North Bethesda as developers prefer to call it -- as they tackle a multiyear plan to transform the commercial highway into a string of pedestrian-friendly urban villages connected by a tree-lined boulevard all the way north to Shady Grove. They expect to present a plan for the area to the County Council by next spring.

White Flint is being designed to become the most densely populated new town on the pike and a major center for new office space. Current proposals show the 420-acre area overshadowing downtown Bethesda and Rockville Town Center and dwarfing plans for Shady Grove and Twinbrook.

"We like North Bethesda. We think it is the next downtown," said Robert M. Wulff, a vice president of B.F. Saul, a major development company.

The sector has about 2,400 homes, many of them single-family. The new plans propose up to 17,000 new housing units. Commercial, office and retail space could grow from about 14 million square feet to about 20 million square feet. Some buildings could be 28 stories high or taller, at least 300 feet, and possibly as tall as 500 feet. The tallest in Bethesda is about 18 stories, or about 200 feet.

For Peggy Souza, who lives a mile from the White Flint Metro station in Luxmanor, a neighborhood of single-family houses, the prospect of a new town center is enticing.

"If it's like Rockville Town Center, it would be a vibrant addition to the community. I would really welcome that. It could be a nightmare, but it also could be fabulous."

Several years ago, north of White Flint, the city of Rockville moved ahead with plans to create an urban village, building side streets and seven-story apartment buildings with shops on the ground floor. Although there were expensive false starts and sales have been hampered by the real estate downturn, planners say it is a viable model.

Many say Rockville Town Center has created a new sense of community and sown the seeds of an urban lifestyle for young professionals, empty nesters and those in between.

Christie Anne Short, a Rockville native who teaches fourth grade in a Catholic school, moved to a condo in the new downtown about a year ago.

"Socially, you kind of have everything at your fingertips," she said. "You can easily grab lunch, dinner. There are the movies on the square. It always seems there is a crowd there, and people seem happy."

An added draw is the access to Metrorail, which Short rides to Bethesda or the District to go out with friends. A promised grocery store has yet to materialize, although Rockville officials are pressing hard.

"That's the only down side," said Short, who often parks her car after work and walks to stores and restaurants.

Those who want to transform White Flint into something like Rockville have to figure out what to do about its many strip shopping centers, such as White Flint Plaza, where the parking lot is almost always busy. With a grocery store, a specialty food market, a hair salon and other shops, it provides its owner with a substantial profit.

Kurt Meeske, vice president of construction for Combined Properties, the owner of White Flint Plaza, was upbeat in an interview about redevelopment plans. "We support the vision that the Planning Board has been promoting and working diligently on," he said. "And we are very confident that there is going to be a great result." The plaza is adjacent to the Lerner-owned White Flint mall, which is also a potential site for a new village.

But in a letter to the Planning Board, Erica Leatham, an attorney for Combined Properties, said it will be a tough sell for the company. She said Combined Properties believes that it would need to increase its retail space by about 20 percent, to about 225,000 square feet, and add 1,600 units of housing to make redevelopment worthwhile.

"The property operates profitably and will continue to do so without heavy investment in upgrades or improvements," the letter said.

Not far from White Flint Plaza, B.F. Saul has been designated the master developer for auto dealer Jack Fitzgerald's properties near White Flint Plaza, where a combination of uses is envisioned. "You can very easily produce nice pedestrian neighborhoods on either side" of the Pike, Wulff said.

Another development company, JBG, is creating such neighborhoods on the Pike's west side, at its North Bethesda Market project, said Rod Lawrence, a JBG partner. The plans fit in well with county proposals to urbanize the area, he said.

"What we have already gotten approved matches up nicely with what they are proposing for the future -- walkable, mixed-use communities focused on proximity to transit," Lawrence said.

Just north near Old Georgetown Road, developer LCOR has constructed part of its North Bethesda Center, a high-rise office, retail, hotel and residential project, anchored by a Harris Teeter supermarket.

The planning agency staff, however, is concerned that such piecemeal development needs to be connected. Staff members said it otherwise could cause too much congestion, school crowding and other problems. But those issues could be resolved sooner if a consensus can be reached on a broader plan for the entire area.

The Planning Board hopes to send a master plan for White Flint to the County Council by next spring.

"White Flint can be the economic engine for the county," said Perry Berman, a former county planner who is representing clients in the area. "It can be equal to the scale, character and atmosphere of the best urban centers in the country."