Wheaton Plaza North Building is another of those golden age holdovers. Completed in 1964, the 11-story building was going to be the tallest office building in Montgomery County when developers Isadore Gudelsky and Theodore Lerner broke ground on the project. Its modified Georgian-inspired architecture cut a sharp appearance, along with the iconic Howard Johnson hotel across University, on the midcentury Wheaton skyline. Architect Arthur L. Anderson, along with Lathrop Douglass and John Bennett, designed the building and the Wheaton Plaza mall it shares the property with.
The building still hosts the medical and government tenants it has specialized in attracting over the last 62 years, and, of course, the mall is still going strong. Alas, Howard Johnson has joined other Wheaton icons like the Anchor Inn and Barry's Magic Shop in the demolition scrap pile. So pour out a HoJo Cola for the obliterated hotel, and, well, you can still get a AAA TripTik...on your phone.
If the mall were to sell for only $136 million, it could be one of the steals of the century. Obviously, the default on the property's mortgage by URW earlier this year, and the associated debt and complications from that, are a drag on any potential buyer. But the 1.6 million-square-foot property is a massive redevelopment opportunity, right next to a Metro station. The profits of redeveloping that as high-density luxury housing would as enormous as the impact on the surrounding residential neighborhood and Montgomery County infrastructure.
