This would make a good location for a fast food restaurant with the drive-thru included. In the background of some of the photos is one of the most famous radio broadcast towers in the D.C. region, now primarily serving as a cell and satellite radio tower.
this entire area is ripe for redevelopment. what's the county waiting on?? more sense in ravaging this area vs westbard...
ReplyDeleteAgreed! They need to raze this and build something fancy or apartment building. It is close to everything. Metro, Mall, the future downtown. Even the eyesore Ambassador apartment right across it will be going down soon.
DeleteThe company that owns this owns property throughout Wheaton, including the old Anchor Inn property where they chose retail.
ReplyDeleteGreen Hill is terrible and have no intention to redevelop. They buy every property that comes on teh market.
ReplyDeleteNot true. This is an old article but worth a read about the vision green hill owner has for Wheaton http://www.justupthepike.com/2012/01/lenny-greenberg-dreaming-of-wheaton.html?m=1
DeleteGreen Hill is terrible and have no intention to redevelop. They buy every property that comes on teh market.
ReplyDeleteSo that may partially explain why more development isn't taking place.
ReplyDeleteNot true. This is an old article but worth a read about the vision green hill owner has for Wheaton http://www.justupthepike.com/2012/01/lenny-greenberg-dreaming-of-wheaton.html?m=1
DeleteDevelopment is fine, but I don't want see Wheaton become a soulless place like Ballston with expensive cookie cutter high rise apartments.
ReplyDeleteHave to wonder if Greenhill will ever put real money into redeveloping properties in Wheaton. Ever since the "punt and fallback" scheme for the Anchor Inn site they haven't built anything but disposable architecture cinder block junk. They will wait until other devs - Bozzuto, Avalon Bay, StonebridgeCarras - do the heavy lifting and then maybe 20 years from now sell all the real estate they've gobbled up in the CBD. It's an inheritance plan for the grandkids:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gazette.net/stories/080206/silvnew193335_31951.shtml
That’s what Greenberg had in mind last month when he told the council that his ‘‘four grandchildren, with a fifth on the way, will deal with [the Anchor Inn site] on their schedule”
Isn't that article from a decade ago? A lot has changed since.
DeleteYep - a lot has changed in Wheaton in the last 10 years. Tons of investment everywhere except the Greenhill properties, many of which sit vacant. And in that article from 10 years ago Greenberg and Karr go on about how Wheaton has missed the cycle, how it's all a zoning problem, how the county makes it impossible to develop in Wheaton — so how do you explain all the other developers that are building? Where are they now that the zoning has changed and the market has picked up? Sitting on buildings that have long outlived their usefulness (like this bank) or building the cheapest strip malls possible.
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