The latest evidence of the difference in business climate is the Liberty Place project in downtown Fredericksburg. Once conceived of as luxury condos, the project will now be an 86000 SF office building with ground floor retail and restaurants facing William Street. "We're responding to the market," Liberty Place developer Tom Wack told The Free Lance-Star of Frederickburg, which noted the "strong demand for commercial property" in the city. The developers will offer free parking for the public in a garage connected to the office building (imagine that in any urban center of Montgomery County!) as part of a deal with the city.
The Fredericksburg City Council is set to vote on a memorandum of understanding for the deal tonight. Very few office projects are being developed in Montgomery County. The JBG Companies is constructing a new office building on Bethesda Avenue, but could not find an anchor tenant, and will now move its own headquarters into the building from down the road in Friendship Heights to fill the vacancy.
"Downtown's gotten pretty hot," Wack said of Fredericksburg. The office market is heating up as home construction continues to explode around Fredericksburg, which recently scored the idX Corporation factory that fled Maryland and the Lidl distribution center with 200 jobs (Virginia also won the sweepstakes for the Lidl corporate headquarters).
Every imaginable restaurant can be found in Fredericksburg, as well as the kind of hip breweries our County Council likes to talk about. Stafford and Spotsylvania counties are adding the jobs that will put less cars on the roads into D.C. every morning. And new infrastructure to reduce congestion for the commuters and businesses who make the increasingly-smart choice to locate in the Fredericksburg area.
Meanwhile, the bedroom-community-building Montgomery County Council is - as usual - asleep at the switch.
"Montgomery County has suffered a net loss of jobs over the last decade, and a loss of over 2000 jobs in retail alone since 2000."
ReplyDeleteYou regularly lie, but this one made me literally laugh out loud. How dumb do you think people are?
Anyways, comparing the town of Fredericksburg to MoCo makes no sense, especially when it comes to rate of growth. They're not even remotely the same size nor in the same region. This blog is really getting weak, Robert.
12:01: No lie, just facts. My preference is to note that, according to the 2014 BLS statistics, Montgomery County suffered a net loss of jobs since 2000. But if you prefer to use the 2016 BLS data, it likewise shows a net LOSS of jobs in MoCo over the last decade.
DeleteSo, it's you who are "weak," not me. This article includes Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania County and Stafford County - - and MoCo has fallen behind each one. Sad!
The "last decade" is 2006 through 2016. There was a net GAIN in jobs in Montgomery County during that time. Why can't you be honest for once, Dyer?
Delete10:02: Nope, a net loss since 2005.
DeleteIt's disappointing today to see a Washington Post article about Prince George's County's Hyattsville as an emerging arts destination instead of Montgomery County's Wheaton.
ReplyDeleteWheaton is a gem.
DeleteI'm worried it will become a soulless generic place, like Ballston.
5:08: Especially when you consider that the County Council didn't demand Mitch Rales build his art museum in Wheaton in exchange for the $400 million federal tax shelter they allowed him to create, or pursue the Corcoran gallery when they were seeking a new location.
DeleteI wonder why Montgomery County couldn't convince Pyramid Atlantic to relocate to Wheaton or stay in Silver Spring instead of leave the County and move to Prince George's County.
ReplyDelete