Downtown Silver Spring's Upcoming Wave of Development

Development boom poised to be biggest since the 1960's

Skyline of Downtown Silver Spring in 2012
Photo Credit: Dan Reed via flickr

UPDATED 09/16

With the completion of Fenwick Station this past July and the upcoming delivery of the Residences at Thayer this fall, the current wave of building construction in downtown Silver Spring is now tapering to an end (the publicly-funded library and transit center projects are exceptions). The lull in development will be short-lived however, as downtown Silver Spring is on the verge of seeing yet another development boom in the coming years. This next wave of construction is poised to be even bigger than the last wave, which was already the urban hub's largest in nearly half a century.

A History of Development in Downtown Silver Spring
Silver Spring was originally 'founded' in 1840 when Francis Preston Blair and his daughter discovered a spring flowing with chips of mica on land just north of the Washington D.C. border. Blair later purchased the land surrounding the spring to create a summer estate which he named "Silver Spring." 

By the early 1900's Silver Spring had begun to grow into a small suburban town on the B&O Railroad's Metropolitan Branch. During the 1960's, the growing commercial hub experienced it's first high-rise construction boom, along with other lower county communities. Between 1961 and 1971 an impressive 23 high-rise buildings were constructed in downtown Silver Spring. However, following the boom was a long dearth of building activity, and the downtown area entered into a period of economic decline from the mid-1970's onward. Even the arrival of Metro's Red Line in Downtown in 1978 did little to rejuvenate the area. 

Downtown Silver Spring didn't really see any significant construction activity again until the arrival of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) headquarters in the late 1980's and early 1990's. NOAA's massive complex along East-West Highway added four high-rise office buildings to the urban center's skyline, including two of its tallest buildings. Despite the economic boost brought by the NOAA headquarters, the development lull in downtown Silver Spring continued throughout the 1990's.

The center of Downtown Silver Spring

The Beginning of a Renaissance
At the beginning of the 21st century, signs of new life began to emerge in downtown Silver Spring. Several city blocks near the decades-old City Place Mall were completely demolished to accommodate a new 440,000 sq. ft. outdoor retail/entertainment center. In 2003, Discovery Communications completed construction of its new headquarters in the center of the business district, a move the really accelerated Silver Spring's resurgence. Between 2001 and 2010, nearly 15 new high-rise buildings were constructed in Silver Spring compared to the 6 built during the previous decade .

In addition to the surge of private investment, heavy public investment from Montgomery County, as well as the nationwide 'back to the city' movement, also played major roles in Silver Spring's rejuvenation. However, with the still depressed office market, nearly all of the new development in downtown Silver Spring has been residential (with retail components). Between May 2013 and July 2014 an unprecedented six residential apartment buildings (the same total number of buildings completed over the entire decade of the 1990's!) were completed in Silver Spring.

*Newly constructed buildings of 5 or more stories. Does not include conversions of existing buildings (e.g. office to residential)

The Next Wave
As huge as the recent development blitz has been, the upcoming wave could likely surpass it, and possibly the massive 1960's boom. There are over 20 planned or approved high-density projects currently in the pipeline for downtown Silver Spring, with 12 buildings projected to be completed by 2018. 

Below you can find detailed information on every development project currently in the works for downtown Silver Spring:

*Remember to check my comprehensive Urban Development Map for more details on these development projects as well as every project completed since 2005 in Downtown Silver Spring. 

Bethesda's Building Boom: A detailed list of development activity in downtown Bethesda

Photo credit: BethesdaNow.com 

UPDATED 02/06/15

Since the delivery of a few projects between 2008-2009 (in the midst of the recent recession) there had been no new residential or commercial development projects completed in downtown Bethesda, Maryland. That changed just two weeks ago with the opening of the 17-story Gallery Bethesda apartment building in the Woodmont Triangle district. The Gallery is just the first in a slew of new high-density development projects to be constructed over the next few years in downtown Bethesda.

The vast majority of these projects  are residential in nature, with over 3,000 new apartment and condo units in the pipeline. However, a hotel is also in the works, and even a few office buildings, one of which is already under construction--a rarity in Montgomery County these days and Bethesda's first in over a decade. Nearly all of the projects in the pipeline are within walking distance of the Bethesda Metro station and/or the future Purple Line light rail station promoting transit usage.

THE FACTS
Coming to downtown Bethesda over the next several years:
- 30 projects
...including...
- 16 residential mid/high-rise apartment buildings
- 6 residential mid/high-rise condo buildings
- 5 office buildings 
- 2 hotels
- 1 police station
...containing...
- 4,003 residential units 
- 1,022,000 sq. ft. of office space
- 244,680 sq. ft. of retail space
- 452 hotel rooms

Here's a detailed list of all of the medium/high-density development projects going up around downtown Bethesda along with their current statuses (Remember to click on the photos to enlarge):

Montgomery County thinks urban...except when it comes to banks

M&T Bank in Downtown Silver Spring
Image Courtesy of Adam Fagen

This article one part of a multi-segment series titled The Urban Transformation, which takes a look at how certain public institutions and private businesses are adapting to nascent urban environments

Montgomery County, MD probably utilizes more new urbanist, smart growth principles in development planning than pretty much every other jurisdiction in the DC Metro region (outside of Washington D.C. itself), and more so than most suburban counties in the nation. However, while new walkable, transit-oriented urban centers in the county have been rapidly growing over the past decade or so with the construction of new high-density, mixed-use development built along these principles, it seems that one type of business has stubbornly resisted the urban transformation: bank branches.

The typical template for mixed-use development in Montgomery County's urban centers comprises either residential units or commercial office space (relatively rare in these days of high vacancy rates across the Metro area and limited government and business expansion) above ground-floor retail in mid- or high-rise buildings. When I use the term "retail" I'm encompassing a wide range of businesses such as: restaurants, nightclubs, barbers, supermarkets, pharmacies, bars, bank branches, etc. The combination of uses in these mixed-use developments is crucial to creating a true urban environment where residents can live, work, shop, and play, and the streets are active from dawn well into the night.

For some reason, banks (in Montgomery County's urban areas) have shied away from this type of development, while pretty much every other form of "retail" has embraced it. There are a number of new bank branches popping up in the county's urban areas, but many as traditional stand-alone single-story buildings with parking, rather than on the ground-floor of multi-story buildings. Some of these locations are pretty high-profile and on very valuable plots of land.