Montgomery Hills Car Wash demolished, but hidden historic cemetery remains

The Montgomery Hills Car Wash at 9500 Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring has been demolished. But buried underneath the landmark business remains an earlier, lost landmark: Mount Zion Episcopal Cemetery. The property has been purchased by the Maryland State Highway Administration for use as a construction staging area for the War-on-cars Georgia Avenue Safety and Accessibility Project. It's certainly disrespectful, to use a burial ground as a staging area. But probably par for the course for today's SHA, which has become heavily politicized over the last decade, responding to the every need of our corrupt elected officials, engineering best practices and basic human decency be damned.

Elizabeth House demolition update in Silver Spring

Demolition continues at the Elizabeth House apartments at 1400 Fenwick Lane in downtown Silver Spring. The existing structure will be replaced by a Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County housing project. It will ultimately deliver 887 total housing units. The demolition permit was issued last September, but here we are today. I continue to marvel at the 21st-century trend of slow, manual demolition in Montgomery County. It's a point of pride, apparently, that we don't rapidly demolish structures with wrecking balls or explosive charges.

Silver Spring hotel being demolished (Photos)

Demolition of the former Hampton Inn hotel at 8728 Colesville Road in downtown Silver Spring is underway. The building has a history of great change, having started life as an office property before its conversion to a hotel. Next-door neighbor United Therapeutics acquired the building in 2021, and is now removing it to allow for the continued expansion of its biotech campus. The controlled mechanical structural demolition is scheduled to continue through the end of May 2024. A noise suppression plan for the demolition was approved by Montgomery County on January 3, 2024.

Silver Spring office-to-apartments conversion underway (Photos)

The buzz in downtowns impacted by the work-from-home revolution is all about converting underused office buildings into housing. This is already happening in downtown Silver Spring. The Guardian Building at 8605 Cameron Street and Georgia Avenue is undergoing just such a conversion. It will essentially double the height of the building when complete, and replace mostly-vacant offices with 177 apartments, and 7496 SF of retail and restaurant space. What you see here is the gutting of the current office structure. The plan long predates the pandemic, having been introduced by the property owner in 2017.

Kensington gas station demolished to make way for new shopping center (Photos)

A vacant gas station at 10619 Connecticut Avenue in Kensington has been demolished. The demolition signals the beginning of construction of the future Kensington Crossing shopping center. Tenants signed for the retail property so far are Mezeh Mediterranean Grill, Buffalo Wild Wings GO, and an M&T Bank branch with a drive-thru. Three retail spaces are still available for lease at this prime property on a major commuter route.

Howard Johnson's Wheaton restaurant and hotel now completely demolished

Only the memories of chicken croquettes, fried clams and orange sherbet remain at the corner of Veirs Mill Road and University Boulevard in Wheaton. The former, and many would argue historic, Howard Johnson's hotel and world-famous roadside restaurant building have now both been completely razed.

The property will become part of the future Wheaton Gateway mixed-use development. In later years, the hotel structure had become a Best Western and Ambassador Apartments, and the restaurant building a mattress store. These were among a handful of extant Howard Johnson's buildings remaining in the state of Maryland.

Demolition of former Howard Johnson restaurant in Wheaton set to begin this week

Demolition of a building most recently home to Mattress Firm, but best remembered as a Howard Johnson restaurant, is set to begin later this week at the corner of University Boulevard and Veirs Mill Road. The Howard Johnson/Best Western hotel building behind it has already been razed. Both are being removed to make way for the Wheaton Gateway mixed-use project, which will include residential and ground floor retail uses.