At 8605 Cameron Street, Guardian Building Associates, LLC is proposing to transform the Guardian office building into 177 apartments, and 7496 SF of retail and restaurant space. The applicant claims the building is mostly vacant, not surprising given the County's moribund private sector economy, and the anti-business climate our elected officials have fostered. It doesn't help that every economic development trip the County Council has taken has been to a Communist country.
The Guardian project sketch plan will go before the County's Development Review Committee on May 2. There's certainly a cosmetic improvement in this from what is there today, but Montgomery County needs more boardrooms right now, not more bedrooms.
Great news. A pretty sleepy block is getting ~800 new residents between this and Core. DTSS's (along with most every MoCo submarket not named Rock Spring) vacancy rate is quite low and that sets them up relatively well if Trump's able to follow through on his promises to gut federal agencies. Telecommuting and commercial downsizing trends will also continue for the foreseeable future, so it's good to see there's no glut of vacancies like in other parts of the DMV.
ReplyDeleteDemand for 60+ year old Class C office space is practically nonexistent, at this point - small nonprofits and startups that used to use cheap office space like this now are more often using flexible co-working spaces or working remotely.
It's great news that this building's being redone and added upon. Hopefully, sometime before we all die, Lee Dev. gets off their butt and builds the new Class A office building slated for this block. There's effectively zero Class A space in DTSS that's available, at this point. Building it on spec isn't nearly as dangerous as Lee's pussyfooting would suggest. Ditto for Lee's hotel behind the Fillmore - slated for over 5 years. They waited so long to build it that now across the street Starr Capital said "fuck it" and is building a hotel of their own to meet demand.
"The stool continues to grow shorter"
ReplyDeleteThat's a really gross image there, Dyer.
Also, how many of the rooms in the office building could actually be described as "boardrooms"?
Most sizable companies have a meeting room or boardroom.
DeleteYep, I saw this a while ago and this is great news. Silver Spring is really tranforming into a 24/7 community. The last thing we need is more office space that empties out at 5pm (see:Rosslyn).
ReplyDelete12:17: Smart growth requires jobs being located within Montgomery County, to reduce driving and traffic congestion. Ike Leggett said we're becoming a "bedroom community," as I've been saying for years.
DeleteIt's a legitimate point, but I still think this development is extremely net-positive. The small, 3-generation-old office building wasn't contributing much. Heck, the new apartment building will probably support nearly as many jobs between its staff and telework residents.
DeleteWhen was the last time Dyer worked in an office building?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to this!
ReplyDelete