Here's something you rarely hear in moribund Montgomery County, which has been at rock bottom in the region in job creation over the last decade - a property being converted to office space, rather than office space being converted to residential. It's going to happen in the former Car Wash Coffee shop space at 10700 Connecticut Avenue in Kensington.
No structural changes to the building will be needed for the planned conversion. Car Wash Coffee closed after the start of the pandemic, and did not reopen. Longtime residents will recall this building once having been a Roy Rogers fast food restaurant.
office space? Finally something good out of moco.
ReplyDeleteSarcasm? Entire new office buildings are constantly going up in Bethesda, Rockville, Gaithersburg, etc. This building is meaningless compared to those.
Delete10:33: A few are going up, not many, and the tenants have been mostly disappointing. No major corporation has relocated here in a quarter century.
DeleteRight. In Robert's mind, Volkswagen moving $50K admin jobs to NoVa is amazing, but Astra Zeneca, BioNTech, etc. moving $150K research jobs to MoCo is..."mostly disappointing" and certainly not "major corporations."
ReplyDelete8:57: My analysis is correct, and supported by hard data. As I predicted would happen years ago, Fairfax has now moved ahead of us in biotech job creation over the last 4 years.
DeleteThey've also added several more Fortune 500s, while we have gained none, and lost some.
As I've also said for many years, you can't compete in the region and generate enough revenue by relying on biotech and residential housing development. We pay a lot out in subsidies for biotech, which is the only reason that industry has located here. And housing growth has been proven to generate more expense than revenue for the County.
We're in real trouble, and the first step is admitting we have a problem, and that our elected officials are not the wise and talented leaders our local media thinks they are.
Reasonable people are certainly able to discuss whether MoCo should focus on increasing its commercial growth rate or not or whether MoCo should put more emphasis on diversifying which companies it targets or not. The problem is you constantly try and start the conversation with ridiculous and clearly erroneous claims like "no major corporation has relocated here in a quarter century" or purposefully antagonistic MoCo bashing calling the companies that move here "mostly disappointing" or "moribund."
DeleteYou seem to think you're successfully scoring cheap political points but in reality it comes across as tired and undercutting your own credibility as a serious or thoughtful contributor to the conversation. I appreciate your follow-up comment with a bit more detail.
11:06: I favor a reasonable discussion also. I simply bring up points like no major company relocating here in 25 years because they are major red flags, and are a good reason for people who may not have been paying attention to start taking a hard look at some very serious disadvantages we face competing for jobs in the region.
DeleteI think I have advanced the conversation, because we now have The Post and Empower Montgomery amplifying the talking points that were only being made by me years ago, and even using the term "moribund" now.