ThayerAvenue.com

Lots of small things (and some bigger) that have been popping up recently…

Outlets, Schmoutlets

It looks like the much-hyped Outlets at Silver Spring that were in the works for Shitty Place aren’t so much in the works. Sounds like a proverbial “stick our toe in the water” approach to see what reaction would be. Well, they got the hype they were looking for. As for actually attracting paying stores to the location, well, that seems to be an altogether different question.

Walter Petrie, chairman of property manager Petrie Ross Ventures, says “There’s a lot of different approaches to this,” he said. “We clearly want to reposition it.” Translation: “We have no clue what we’re going to do with this piece of shit.” Can anyone tell me what Frank the Rabbit told Donnie in the movie theater?

Snyder Needs Money?

I guess Dan Snyder’s infamous SLAPP lawsuit against City Paper’s Dave McKenna means the purse strings are stretched a little thin in Redskins world. Now they’re sending their minions to help replenish the coffers. And the length of the lockout probably isn’t helping matters.

If you know this man, call the Robbery Section of the Montgomery County Police at 240-773-5100 or Crime Solvers of Montgomery County at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477) or 240-773-TIPS (8477).

Off-season ESSCA Nuggets

I haven’t trolled the listserv very much lately, but this past weekend gave us a good message. Someone in the neighborhood (reported as a favor through a listserv member) had a house construction crew wake her last weekend at 6am (word is she lives on Thayer). The reminder:

Montgomery County law is that any power equipment, leaf blowers, mowers, construction, etc. is not permitted before 7am or after 9pm on regular weekdays nor before 9am or after 9pm on weekends/holidays. It is enforced by the Dept of the Environment under the “Noise Control Ordinance” — both the crew and the homeowner who employs them can be fined heavily.

I can hear the construction/improvements work from two different locations on Thayer in the morning. Sure, it’s annoying sometimes, but messages like these make me want to get a gas-powered leaf blower and walk the streets at dawn. Don’t think I won’t.

Last But Not Least

Man Arrested at Starbucks for Public Masturbation

Yes, the Starbucks on Ellsworth. Given the reaction of some people on its preliminary lineup, some will, no doubt, blame The Fillmore.

The Horse is Dead
Last night, the Montgomery County Planning Board voted unanimously against a draft amendment to the Master Plan for Historic Preservation, thus bringing to a close attempts to declare the First Baptist Church at Wayne & Fenton a historic landmark. The most interesting remarks came from Commissioner Norman Dreyfuss:

I’m persuaded by the fact that the HPC [Historic Preservation Committee] had heard all of this testimony from everybody and had reached a conclusionIt seems like they have more historic preservation expertise than certainly I have.

And from Planning Board Chairwoman Francois Carrier:

I’m inclined to defer to the HPC. …their judgment was that there’s no reason to designate this as a historic property.

So, thanks for wasting time and money, historical people. This was already decided by the HPC, but I’m sure the taxpayers in the community as well as the church really enjoyed forking out for the salaries of people to be there. More here courtesy of the Gazette.

See you next year, Chompy
Discovery won’t be putting up the infamous inflatable shark this year to promote its Shark Week, but he should return next year for the event’s 25th Anniversary. In place of Chompy, Discovery plans to, among other things, show Shark Week features on a giant, inflatable screen on Veterans Plaza. I think they should have a late-night showing of Jaws. Anybody with me?

Go to Fenton Street Market Tomorrow
A survey will be going on this weekend at FSM to gather information about spending habits at the market. It seems the bonehead bureaucrats in Rockville are making it difficult for the FSM organizers to have the plaza next year. The market itself doesn’t really fall into the any of the facilities use models they have, and rather than find a way to perpetuate success, they are leaning toward eliminating that which frightens and confuses them. Idiots.

The weather is supposed to be spectacular this weekend. Get out, spend some money, answer some questions, and help keep this where it needs to be – on Veterans Plaza – next year.

This is a letter indicating that Marci Stickle and George French will assume the official role of nominators from the Silver Spring Historical Society (replacing Jerry McCoy) for “Determination whether to prepare Public Hearing Draft Amendment” concerning the historic designation of First Baptist Church at Wayne & Fenton.

If you can’t read it, don’t worry. You can find links to all the documents on the Planning Board web site for the 23 June 2011 agenda under Item 6. Yeah, you heard that right. Beating a (mostly) dead horse. Among those documents, you’ll find a letter from the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission (315K PDF) outlining their 6-2 ruling against the church being added to the Locational Atlas and Index of Historic Sites or included in the Master Plan for Historic Preservation. You’ll also find a staff memo from the Historic Preservation Office (2.4MB PDF) of the Montgomery County Planning Department (M-NCPPC) attempting to rebut all the claims from the Historic Preservation Commission.

This is now going beyond simple historic preservation. It’s not a developer looking to just tear something down to make money. Sure, a developer will make some cash in the long run, but this is about letting these people have the church they need when the facilities they have are crumbling around them. But there’s something else here. If the Silver Spring Historical Society (with other preservation organizations supporting them) loses this battle, they’ll become more marginalized than they ever were, almost to the point of irrelevance. I’d be fighting, too, if I were them. But don’t forget that Dr. McIntosh and the rest of the congregation NEED a new church, and this isn’t helping matters.

At any rate, there it is. Thursday, June 23, 2011 – one week from today. Do with it what you will. And please, for the love of all that is good and holy, someone tell these people that unless they’re using an old Smith Corona (or a monospaced font), they can stop double-spacing between sentences on all these documents.

On Sunday, May 15, the Taste of Fenton Village will be coming to the area bounded by Wayne, Fenton, Sligo, and Georgia. Something like this has been a long time coming, and with the diversity of food in this area, I can’t think of a better place to have such a shin-dig. The parking lot next to Highlands Cafe will be turned into the starting point (complete with a stage and live entertainment) where you can pick up your “passport” that has a list of all the participating restaurants. And it’s just about *all* of them. That means Thai, Burmese, Ehtiopian, American (“new” and old), Italian, Indian, Nepalese, Greek, Latin, Moroccan, Peruvian, Jamaican, West African – you see where this is going.

Each participating restaurant will be offering small plates or appetizers in the $3-5 range. Go. Eat. Get a stamp in your passport. Walk next door. Repeat. I’m hoping that if you get a stamp from every single place you win a prize. Maybe a free membership to ESSCA? Wait – that’s not really a prize. Nevermind.

As mentioned before, there will also be entertainment and activities, and I’m told non-food vendors strategically placed throughout. Unfortunately, this coincides with the Taste of Wheaton, scheduled on the same day. Don’t get me wrong – I love Wheaton and they have a great selection of cuisine, but it ain’t no Fenton Village. The depth and breadth you’ll find here is second to none.

Be sure to thank the Silver Spring Advisory Committee for spearheading this effort, plus Peterson Cos, Montgomery County, and all the participating community organizations and restaurants for their hard work in setting this up.

In other news…

FSM

Don’t forget – the first (and supersized) Fenton Street Market is this Saturday at Veterans Plaza. Weather should be spectacular.

The “Dreary” Section of Georgia Avenue

That’s how they described the area of 8711 Georgia, between the Wachovia Bank and the Social & Scientific Systems Building. The Gazette reports that what was once approved as office space is now a planned development “that will bring 160 residential units, retail space and an outdoor urban oasis to a ‘dreary’ section of Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring.” I used to work in the 8757 building, and while it could use a little “livening up” over there, I can’t wait to see their definition (and execution) of said oasis.

Last, but certainly not least…

My heart goes out to my family and friends in my home state of Alabama because of the devastation they went through yesterday. Watching the videos of the tornadoes ripping through the state made me ill. We seemed to have dodged a big bullet up here in comparison. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

For those of you with some time on your hands this evening, you might think about attending the Historic Preservation Committee Hearing at the Planning Commission. As you may know, the Silver Spring Historical Society is trying to get the building on the Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Designation.

I outlined my thoughts thoroughly on the matter, and I (thankfully) expect the push for historic designation to be crushed. If you’re up for a large download (~20MB) and a thoroughly-detailed argument against the designation (brought to you by the church itself with the help of historian David Rotenstein), I recommend you download the PDF submitted to the Planning Commission. Lots of great stuff in there. Otherwise, the introductory letter is a good overview.

Best of luck to Dr. McIntosh and the rest of the crew.

Last week, I noticed that the National Institute of Dry Cleaning had all its windows removed and signs posted on the doors. Turns out the sign was just a notice of asbestos abatement, but I expect the actual permit signs to follow shortly. I went by last weekend and was amazed at the open access, but I guess that’s not going to last for long.

According to DCMud, Priderock Capital Partners LLC and DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners are building a nine-story apartment complex that will house 210 units and two levels of underground parking. Here’s how it looked back in the day (photo courtesy of Flickr user Sligo20910).

Here’s what we have today (click thumbnails for full size images). Some of the remaining marble around one of the doors is in good enough condition that I’d want to take a slab home. And nice details elsewhere (graffiti notwithstanding). I wonder what they did with the windows that had all the colored panes of glass in them. Those would have been nice souvenirs as well.

Looking forward to the integration of the old façade into the new building.

And a Happy St. Paddy’s Day to ya!

UPDATE (3/17 @ 10:00pm):
Writing this post inspired me to find an old sign I knew I had stashed away – an old internal office sign for the aforementioned building. I found it, as well as the fact that the proper name for this place might be the National Institiute of Cleaning & Dyeing.

The front (colored) plastic is transparent where the letters and artwork are. Underneath that is a textured metal plate with the beveled letters. Plus the great Crystoglass sticker on the back. I assume the window was for a person’s name and this hung outside their office.

At any rate, we now have a building with two names. I’m still investigating, but I’ve turned up some interesting tidbits – including this article from the March 1949 issue of Popular Science.

I’m almost afraid to say it out loud for jinxing it, but last night’s ESSCA meeting had some thoughtful discussion about the development on the site of First Baptist Church. I mean, there was the futile attempt at reuse plans via the Historical Society, but otherwise it looks like, barring any snafus, this thing will actually go forward. It’s a solid development plan and perfect for urban density. There were some people who might have thrown up in their mouths a little during the vote, but I think it was because they knew that so many accommodations had been made that this was the best they were going to get out of this parcel of land.

As for that presentation by the historical society, I have three things to say: (1) Informative; (2) Never gonna happen; (3) Most. Boring. Powerpoint. Ever. If you’re trying to sell a point, you have to do it with some flair, folks. Do not read deadpan from a script. This was right before I fell asleep:

But then I had to wake up to continue the live tweeting. Now for the main recap.

When you compare the new drawings to the old (previous images in this post), you’ll notice height variations in the new rendering while the previous one had a flat top. The thumbnails below will take you to larger images so you can see the detail.

The first image is from the southwest corner of Fenton & Bonifant by the loft condos (which look pretty nice from the outside – anyone live there?). The second image is straight from the south side of Bonifant east of Fenton. As I understand it, the “community” wanted a less-imposing façade on that residential street (nevermind that the church across the street looks like modern brutalist architecture). So the zoning text amendment (ZTA) is to get permission to increase the height on the Wayne/Fenton side of the structure while decreasing it on the Bonifant side.

The other point of contention was traffic in and out of the garage doors you see on Bonifant at the bottom of the second image. The arched door in the center of the image is for resident parking, limited church (staff) parking, and pick up/drop off for the daycare at the church (the building to the right). Some detail:

It’s actually a great development for urban density. I’m psyched about the retail prospects for the first floor, and I think it will generate more foot traffic along Fenton. Once the library is done, we should have a good gateway to Fenton Village.

The third image above shows the top view of the development with the courtyard that runs north/south between Wayne and Bonifant. You’ll also see three (private) deck areas – two on the Fenton side and one on the courtyard side – that sit on top of the first floor retail. Not sure if these are apartment specific or if they’re accessible to all residents. Just not the public.

At any rate, I think you can say hello to your next mixed-use development in downtown Silver Spring. There are still plenty of hearings and hoops to jump through. ESSCA’s approval of the ZTA is just one. The property sits right on the border between ESSCA and SOECA (Seven Oaks-Evanswood Citizen’s Association), and SOECA needs to support the ZTA now. If they don’t, we’re going to have a cage match. Two civic groups enter, one civic group leave.

And credit to D. for the best tweet of the night.

Tonight’s ESSCA meeting (7:30pm at Sligo Recreation Center) should be one of those rare gems where everybody bitches and moans about things and then votes. Part of me expects to see a large scale when I walk in with a duck on one side and a replica scale model of the First Baptist Church development (or the developer himself) on the other.

Renderings courtesy of Torti Gallas and Partners

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the above renderings depict the proposed development for the First Baptist Church lot at Fenton and Wayne. One shows a view from the corner opposite the lot (at Washington Sports Club). The other shows the view from a point south of Bonifant near Easley & Fenton. You can see this is the 6-story section (due to the gradation of Fenton) that allows for parking garage access and loading dock door.

The primary rub: traffic. When I wrote about this over a year ago, there seemed to be three options as to how this would go down:

• Option 1: Continue with this development.
• Option 2: First Baptist Church finds someone with millions to spare – and give – to the church to do all the remodeling necessary.
• Option 3: First Baptist Church abandons the entire space, sells the land to whoever will buy it, and the churches still inevitably get torn down for some other type of development.

During the ESSCA meeting last year, our venerable civic association made some recommendations for improvements to the site plan, and it appears some of those have been entertained, but mitigating the inevitable traffic issues is still proving problematic. Tonight, though, brings an entirely new (and mostly futile) option into the mix, via the Silver Spring Historical Society:

The Silver Spring Historical Society will present  tomorrow evening another perspective on the project plan for the S.S. Baptist Church complex in which our organization proposes partial preservation of the corner 1956 church.

Partial preservation was successfully accomplished with the 1945 Canada Dry Bottling Plant on East-West Highway, now the Silverton Condominiums.  There, the Art Deco vestibule with cantilevered staircase, soda-pop bubble terrazzo floor, Canada Dry illuminated sign, and two elevations of the structure  were incorporated into new construction.

I admit that saving the façade of the Canada Dry building was a great move and it’s really helped the character of the building. The problem here is this: I don’t see how they can support a mixed-use residential/commercial building with the (even partial) exterior of the church. Perhaps reincorporating some of the pieces into the final project could work, but the site plan is way too different.

The developers are presenting their plans at the ESSCA meeting tonight, and then ESSCA will vote on whether to support a Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) to transfer part of the bulk of the project from the Bonifant side to the Wayne side. Also according to the listserv, “a small committee of residents living close to the affected area will also make a recommendation.” You know – because ESSCA can’t create enough of a circus by itself.

We all know how this is going to end up: ESSCA will vote against it. Some want to try to maintain the status quo (which isn’t gonna happen) and others (like me) believe density in urban, transit-oriented communities is a good thing. Traffic, on the other hand, may tip the scales in favor of the duck.

If I can motivate myself to sit through this excruciating meeting, you’ll be able to follow live tweets via @essca.

I’ve been watching the methodical destruction of the old United Therapeutics building at Spring and Cameron Streets the last couple of days. My daughter’s comment: “It’s bigger than a dinosaur, daddy!” I think I need one of these for the backyard.

My next question: What’s going in its place? Anything? Must find master plan…

Live Blogging Kojo in Your Community

Assuming I can get a good wifi signal tonight at the civic building, I may live blog Kojo’s little shindig – complete with snarky commentary. If you can’t make it in person, tune in. Fun begins at 6:30.

When you pay that much for City Shitty Place. Sure, it sounds like a lot, but I think it’s a sweet deal. The posted press release is dated August 11, 2010, but it’s just now making the rounds:

Hutensky Capital Partners acquires City Place Mall

Hartford, Conn. ( August 11, 2010 ) – Hutensky Capital Partners said it has acquired City Place Mall, a 350,000-sq.-ft. shopping center in Silver Spring, Md., from an affiliate of Petrie Ross Ventures for $22.8 million in a three-party deal that included a discounted payoff of 100% of the property’s outstanding debt.

An affiliate of the seller will manage and lease the property and lead the redevelopment process.

“We were attracted by the property’s location in the central business district of Silver Spring, a vibrant urban area with proven retail performance,” said Brad Hutensky, HCP’s general partner. “However, like many properties today, the asset was overleveraged. By providing a big chunk of fresh capital, we were able to find a middle ground for settlement that the lender and borrower could agree to. The result is that we now own a debt-free property that can be redeveloped to meet its full potential.”

Now the $22.8 million question is: What the hell will they do with it? Among the (potentially contentious) recommendations/additions:

• Raze it
• Bed Bath & Beyond
• H&M
• Dave & Buster’s
• Men’s clothing (beyond the 14-18 year-old set)
• Keep the Marshall’s
• Any non-truant-related retail

Feel free to add yours. Maybe we can get a community letter off to the Hutensky boys and have them come speak at an ECCSA meeting. Or not. God forbid anyone be put through that.

Photo by Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post