Ground-floor retail, eight residences proposed
December 15, 2020 | 10:20 am
December 17, 2020
via Montgomery County Planning Board
The Montgomery County Planning Board on Thursday gave early approval to a Silver Spring construction project that would include a new three-story building with retail and residences.
The proposed project, at the intersection of Piney Branch Road and University Boulevard, calls for a new three-story building with 3,437 square feet of ground-floor retail. The second and third floors would have a total of eight multi-family residences, according to Planning Board documents.
A 3,686-square-foot store selling beer and wine on the property would remain.
The property, at 649 East University Blvd., is near a future Purple Line transit station, and a future Bus Rapid Transit station.
The D.C. area s wealth and stability have allowed its malls to weather the coronavirus pandemic better than many of their national counterparts. But several malls in the area have already been foreclosed on, and more pain is on the way, proving there is no safe harbor from this storm.
Department store anchors have closed in several malls throughout the D.C suburbs, and these vacancies are spurring a new wave of mall redevelopment projects in the region. The scale of the area s redevelopments shows that the future for malls, even the best-performing ones, is poised to come with massive changes.