Posts about White Oak

Genn has been talking to the county about LifeSci Village and Site 2 since 2004, so it's not surprising that they picked Percontee over two out-of-area developers less familiar with the project. But in 2009, he told me that a groundbreaking was "not anytime soon." The Washington Post, meanwhile, says that construction could start within the next two years.

What's changed? Last year, the Montgomery County Planning Department started work on the White Oak Science Gateway Master Plan, which will reinforce LifeSci Village's goal of creating a research hub around the FDA. In addition, the county is studying a Bus Rapid Transit network which could have several lines serving the development.

Though LifeSci Village has the blessing of both the county and local residents, the White Oak Science Gateway concept has its critics. A study from economic consultants hired by the planning department says that it won't work unless it can get a major research institution, though Genn says he's talked to "very prominent" DC-area universities about locating there.

Even then, the consultants say, biotech companies might just continue going to the county's other research and development district, the Great Seneca Science Corridor in Gaithersburg, which Percontee helped develop in the 1980's and where Johns Hopkins University plans their own, similarly-minded "Science City" project.

As exciting as the LifeSci Village proposal is, there remain a lot of questions. Who will provide $3 billion in financing for a research campus without a research institution? Is it practical to build 4 million square feet of commercial space and 4,000 homes in an area with no fixed-rail transit? And will Montgomery County be able to lure biotech companies away from the vaunted "Technology Corridor" along I-270?

East County needs a project like this. But it's not yet clear if LifeSci Village will ever go from being a pretty picture to a reality.

"The scale of FDA's impact is much more modest than anticipated by some supporters," says the report, which cites "limited potential for life science business development" as a result of the FDA's relocation from Rockville, which will bring 9,000 workers to White Oak.

The consultants say that the biotech and life sciences companies that planners want to bring to East County are drawn to the Great Seneca Science Corridor along I-270, where those kinds of businesses are already located.

Landlords in White Oak have already reached out to biotech companies and received little interest about properties in the area, the consultants say, while a survey of 24 life science companies located along I-270 revealed that firms won't move to be closer to the FDA. Many said that being close to the FDA wasn't as valuable as being near other science and technology firms, which provide opportunities for collaboration with their peers. A quarter of the companies said proximity to the owners' houses was a factor in where their offices located.

The InterCounty Connector will make it easier for biotech firms to take advantage of the I-270 corridor's amenities while still having easy access to the FDA, the study notes. "When coupled with the U.S. 29 corridor's road congestion and limited transit service, the [East County Science Center] will have difficulty competing for life science companies in any significant number," concludes the report.

Successful research parks also tend to be affiliated with universities, the consultants found, like the University of North Carolina and the Research Triangle, or Stanford University and the Stanford Research Park in California. Though the University of Maryland is only a few miles away from the East County Science Center, and part of the center was once the university's experimental farm, the school is likely to focus efforts on their own research park, located adjacent to their campus in College Park.

The consultants recommended that the county seek a major research institution or university to anchor the East County Science Center, much as Johns Hopkins University and the Universities at Shady Grove already do at the Great Seneca Science Corridor.

Yet the most significant recommendations made by Partners for Economic Solutions involve changing the East County Science Center from the spread-out office park it is today into a more well-rounded community. They say that massive investments in public transit, like the Bus Rapid Transit system currently being studied by the county, will be necessary to provide an alternative to the area's congested roads. The consultants also suggest that the East County Science Center incorporate some sort of walkable, mixed-use development, including housing, shops and restaurants, and hotels.

East County is "vulnerable to new and existing competition that offers a superior pedestrian experience," say the consultants. The new model for research parks looks like Cambridge, Massachusetts, home to Harvard and MIT, where scientists live, shop and hang out a few steps away from where they work. Johns Hopkins University, who's planning a mixed-use development in the Great Seneca Science Corridor, has compared their project to Harvard Square in Cambridge.

Not only does this put East County in competition with other research centers, but with communities that already offer a walkable, urban environment, like downtown Silver Spring, where pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics is building their headquarters.

The consultants propose creating a mixed-use community at the White Oak Shopping Center, noting that there's an untapped demand for high-end retail and a more attractive shopping environment in East County. However, the shopping center is successful enough now that any redevelopment would have to happen at much higher density to be economically feasible.

Instead, the consultants recommend building at LifeSci Village, a complex of housing, offices, shops and a conference center proposed by local developer Percontee on the site of a concrete recycling plant next to the FDA campus. A development at either of these sites would not only give researchers a place to hang out, but it would serve East County as a whole, which lacks such a place today.

For decades, East County's community leaders have sought to bring the kinds of jobs, retail and other amenities enjoyed by the more affluent west side of Montgomery County. Yet this report suggests that high-paying jobs aren't enough to create a better community.

Ironically, the one thing that could truly make East County a better place to work is the one thing it's fought off for years, as community activists in different neighborhoods have opposed new sidewalks, new housing, improved retail, public spaces, improvements to local transit. Attempts to place shops and housing on the 710-acre FDA campus, which would've helped to create the kind of environment science and technology workers want, were shot down by neighbors fifteen years ago.

The study by Partners for Economic Solutions confirms existing trends that say companies are less interested in suburban office parks, and if East County wants to draw those businesses, it should follow suit. So far, we've thought of the East County Science Center as a place to work. Yet the plan has even more potential if we consider it a place to live, shop, eat, and gather as well. After all, how can we cure cancer if our researchers are spend all their time in traffic driving to and from work?

The goal of the plan, as outlined on its website, is to create a 21st-century vision for the "Cherry Hill/FDA/White Oak area." The main tenets of that vision are a community built around a "bio-tech employment cluster"; a "better jobs/housing balance" in an area with more residents than employment opportunities; creating "more diverse housing options" in the area, and bringing it all together with "efficient transit" and open space.

While previous master plans have taken up to 3½ years to draft, staff will finish the plan on an abbreviated schedule at the behest of the County Council, eager to bring more attention to the neglected communities east of Rock Creek Park. "This is a big master plan, and we only have two years," explains project leader Khalid Afzal.

Those seeking to build in the area were at the open house, including some of the car dealers located on Cherry Hill Road and Jere Stocks, president of Washington Adventist Hospital, which has land for a new facility on Plum Orchard Drive.

Also there were Jonathan Genn and Ayana Lambert, president and general counsel for developer Percontee, who's proposed a large development on Cherry Hill Road called LifeSci Village. "This is exciting because it means something's happening," says Lambert. "It's a step in the right direction."

Transportation planner Eric Graze brought a board showing proposed rapid transit routes in the master plan area, including ones along New Hampshire Avenue, Columbia Pike, and Cherry Hill Road. He explains that the map was largely derived from County Councilmember Marc Elrich's county-wide bus rapid transit plan, currently under study.

One line crossing the Food and Drug Administration campus between New Hampshire and Cherry Hill was an unknown, however. "I have no idea what that is," Graze says.

Planners seemed to outnumber residents at the four-hour-long open house, but those who did stop by could write comments on large boards. Their suggestions were heavily favored towards more development in East County. "Allow high density at the existing shopping centers (White Oak & Hillandale)," wrote one commenter. Another advocated a bus rapid transit line down Route 29.

Because of the plan's abbreviated schedule, some opportunities for community outreach - like an advisory committee made up of local stakeholders - may not happen. That'll be a big concern in White Oak, where reaching out to tenants of apartment complexes or non-English speakers in the area can be difficult.

"We haven't figured out how to get that segment of the population to come out," Afzal says of the area's large immigrant communities.

While drafting the sector plan for the Wheaton CBD - now going before the County Council - planners visited the owners of local ethnic shops to get their opinions and ideas. "We went to them" in Wheaton, Afzal notes. "If you don't have time, we'll come to you."

As with most land use issues, getting anyone involved is difficult regardless of their background. "There's an entire group of people interested in land use, and another group who won't come no matter how much we reach out to them," Afzal says. "Maybe they think we're doing okay."

In concept, it's very similar to the Great Seneca Science Corridor Master Plan, a controversial proposal for dense, mixed-use development west of Gaithersburg that the county passed earlier this year. Though civic activists and smart growth advocates criticized that plan for being too large and too far from transit, they've expressed support for creating a life sciences center here.

Many of the critics of that plan, including Greater Greater Washington, said that White Oak would be a better location for the science planned for Great Seneca. White Oak is simultaneously more accessible to UMD in College Park, Hopkins in Baltimore, and Washington, DC.

But like Great Seneca, the East County Science Center can't just be about doctors and lab coats. It'll hopefully bring more shopping, more housing, and other amenities. If done right, this plan could give East County a town center like people in Germantown or Rockville already enjoy.

Planners won't put markers to trace paper for a while. Right now, they're developing a "scope of work" describing what the plan will include. So far, all we know is that the plan could cover a 1,200-acre area bounded by Route 29, Cherry Hill Road, New Hampshire Avenue, and the Prince George's County line.

Today, that area contains a mash-up of residential, commercial, and light industrial uses. It's divided by the Paint Branch, which feeds into the Anacostia River. More than half of it is taken up by the Federal Research Center, home to the FDA and other government agencies. Though most of the 710-acre campus is undeveloped, local civic associations have opposed adding commercial or residential uses there.

As a result, the plan will focus on re-imagining older commercial and industrial parks in the study area. Local developer Percontee proposes redeveloping its concrete recycling plant on Cherry Hill Road and an adjacent sludge treatment facility called Site 2 into a mixed-use community called LifeSci Village. When completed, the 300-acre development could contain four million square feet of offices and retail, a conference center, and as many as four thousand new homes.

Another candidate for redevelopment is the 1960's-era White Oak Shopping Center, located at New Hampshire Avenue and Route 29 and filled with a mix of chains and mom-and-pop stores. Its proximity to major roads and transit make it a good place for a mixed-use town center, but the mall's suffered from a reputation for crime.

If built out, the plan could revitalize East County, providing the kind of amenities residents have long clamored for. But it could also create new problems, like increased traffic. As a result, there are a few things planners will have to consider as they begin work.

The East County Science Center Master Plan must address transportation improvements. Though the InterCounty Connector will open in 2012, the area will need a network of new, local roads to improve circulation. It'll need to create connections to surrounding neighborhoods, parks, and the Paint Branch Trail, which is inaccessible east of Route 29. And we'll need sidewalks and bike paths to tie all of it together, enabling people to get around without driving.

The plan will have to address the need for rapid transit as well. In its long-term transportation plan (PDF), Montgomery County proposes building a "Purple Line Spur" between Langley Park and White Oak, while Councilmember Marc Elrich's bus rapid transit plan would have multiple lines serving the East County Science Center. Both of these proposals should be vetted as the planning process begins.

The biggest challenge, however, will be reaching out to the area's diverse population. For far too long, the public discourse in East County has been dominated by a small but vocal minority who doesn't represent the whole community. For this plan to truly consider the wants and needs of everyone in East County, we'll have to listen in new ways.

Come out tomorrow for the open house, to be held from 4:30 to 8:30 pm at the Eastern Montgomery Regional Services Center, located at 3300 Briggs Chaney Road.

"This is probably the last of the large tracts the Gudelskys own in East Montgomery County," Genn says. "For them as for us, this is what we hope people will look at in twenty-five or fifty years and way 'What a great thing they've done.' Create a place for people to live and work and have a great time in the eastern part of the county."

LifeSci Village has been compared to "Science City," a similar development proposed by Johns Hopkins University west of Gaithersburg. Skeptics of that project, from Greater Greater Washington to Councilmember Phil Andrews, say it will draw investment away from East County, though Percontee disagrees. "I see it as collaboration," Genn says. "We've already collaborated with Johns Hopkins University in trying to attract businesses and institutes to come and locate in Maryland and Montgomery County."

"It's an asset to get skilled medical professionals coming here," says Genn. "The FDA sees this as a tool to recruit the best scientists to come here. Here are the amenities you have for when you're not at work."

Community leaders support the project. "Stuart Rochester was here," says Genn, referring to the civic activist who passed away in July. He points where I'm sitting. "He sat right in that chair. He said traffic and congestion will happen no matter what is developed, and can we have the best thing possible. He thought this was a responsible vision for the area."

But former County Councilmember Marilyn Praisner, who lived in Calverton for forty years, was skeptical. "Although at first glance the artist's renderings of this proposal may seem appealing, a closer look raises a number of concerns," she wrote in a November 2007 newsletter. "The amount of development proposed for the site would have a tremendous impact on traffic."

With 9,000 workers at the Food and Drug Administration and 3,000 more at the hospital, traffic is a major concern. "The more mix of uses - including residences - on here, the fewer trips people have to take to work," says Genn. "When gas gets up to four, five dollars a gallon, all that will be driving people to walk to work."

Unfortunately, a groundbreaking is "regrettably not anytime soon," says Genn. Architects Torti Gallas and Partners will start work on the final design next summer, while the Planning Department won't draft new master plans for East County and the Route 29 corridor until 2013. "Five years ago, we were trying to get this moving, if not for forces beyond our control. The FDA employees are coming here now. It would've been great to have something for them."

The biggest delay for LifeSci Village, Genn laments, has been unfunded road improvements that must be made before development can proceed. "We put in overpasses, but we've had little to no investment in the Route 29 corridor," he says. "We made it very easy for Howard County development to come down 29, and they got the tax base increase at Maple Lawn, but congestion isn't better." Rather than push people away, Genn continues, we should give them more reasons to come here. "Unless we close off our borders," he says, "we can't stop people from coming through."

For more images, check out this photoset on Flickr.

Sure, more people drive today than take transit along those routes. In fact, virtually nobody takes transit between Tysons Corner and Bethesda for the simple reason that there isn't any. But transportation expansion, whether roads or transit, will primarily serve new commuters, not the existing ones. If no new jobs or housing were coming to our region, we wouldn't be worried about HOT lanes, Purple Lines, or anything else. The current roads and rails move the people who move today. The new infrastructure we build will govern the locations and modes of new commuter growth. If we choose transit, we'll get new transit riders.

Besides, why don't we "have to do something" about Metro crowding? The Metro system is very crowded during rush hours, particularly along the Red and Orange Lines in the Favored Quarter. The Beltway is very crowded around there, too, as are I-66 and I-270. Yet for some reason, leaders talk about "having" to add more car capacity, but not about how we absolutely need to put in more tracks on the Metro or build transit across the Potomac. Why?

When our region adds auto capacity in one place, it creates bottlenecks in another place. Growth in western Fairfax is creating bottlenecks on I-66 through Arlington. The HOT lanes will create a bottleneck at the American Legion Bridge. When the automatic reaction of officials is simply to plan another capacity increase down the line, we start a chain reaction that never ends.

The ICC was "necessary" to get people from Prince George's County to jobs along 270. Then, now that there was going to be a freeway to the Gaithersburg West area, it's "critical" to upzone that for even more jobs. Next, since there was going to be so much job growth there, it becomes essential to widen I-270 to the north. Once there are lanes there and in Virginia, we "have to" add more across the Potomac.

Where does it stop? Loudoun County is now planning even more freeways and expressways up to 10 lanes wide crisscrossing their county, so they can fill in every acre with single-family houses. Where will everyone work? Before long, we'll not only "have to" widen I-66 again and again, but build another freeway crossing through Potomac between the ICC and Dulles—the "western bypass" that road boosters in Virginia have never stopped pushing. Or how about two western bypasses?

Montgomery voters strongly oppose a freeway through Potomac, but they oppose new lanes on the Beltway as well, and leaders are saying we "have to" build it anyway. Maybe this generation of elected officials has no interest in that, but what will happen when the 12- and 14-lane I-270 and Beltway are hopelessly congested?

Leaders are supposed to lead. They are the ones who should be looking to the future and working toward the best vision of the future. A region with three Beltways, with as much development north and west of Dulles Airport as south and east, where Frederick is part of the region's core and middle suburbs are in West Virginia, isn't where we should go. There's plenty of room for economic growth around Metro, inside the Beltway, at Tysons, Route 7 and Springfield in Fairfax, Shady Grove, White Flint, Silver Spring, Wheaton and White Oak in Montgomery, and at every Prince George's Metro station. Leaders in Maryland and Virginia just need to stop saying "we have to" build more freeways and big office parks at the edge of the region, and instead encourage infill development and expand our great transit infrastructure.

Few seem to understand what affordable housing is or where it's available. The majority of the apartments in White Oak and Briggs Chaney are not subsidized, but some may be rented using federal Section 8 vouchers. Subsidized units are managed either by the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, which offers homes for rent or for sale, or the non-profit Housing Opportunities Commission.

Rick Nelson, head of the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, has tried to set the record straight on his agency's proposals. "The problem of crime and drugs is not endemic to affordable housing," said Nelson at the meeting in June. "It's prevalent in communities with a concentration of low-income housing." As a result, the White Oak development would include market-rate homes and workforce housing aimed at households making less than 120% of the County's median income, or $120,000 a year, in addition to traditional MPDUs.

DHCA's first workforce housing project is a condominium, a converted apartment complex in Rockville called the Village at King Farm. Here, buyers on a priority list culled from current MPDU residents, government employees, and "first responders" can purchase large, townhouse-style units at prices ranging from $207,500 to $377,500 based on unit size and household income. They aren't allowed to rent the homes out; when they sell, owners must give 15% of the profits to the County. But in return, they have a home with hardwood floors and granite countertops in a convenient, desirable location near the Shady Grove Metro station.

In White Oak, DHCA is proposing two schemes, one with 93 apartments and another with 77 townhomes. Both plans were created by Torti Gallas and Partners—one of the premier firms doing multi-family homes in the region, if not the nation. These are not only well-laid out but attractive as well. This is not the "affordable housing"—subsidized or unsubsidized—we've seen in East County before, where buildings float in a no-man's land of parking lots and common lawns that are neither functional nor safe. As architect Erik Aulestia explained, the goal for this and any projects like it is to create neighborhoods where "you can't tell the difference between a market-rate subdivision."

The apartment scheme uses less land, but it's a less-than-ideal fit for a site surrounded by lower-density housing in a neighborhood with a strong aversion to that building type. Its two multi-story buildings allow for larger buffers from the street and from single-family homes in the adjacent Sherbrooke subdivision. But it also requires more surface parking, creating a "dead zone" that is neither attractive to be in or easy to defend. In this scheme, a proposed neighborhood green is surrounded by the apartments, forming a space that feels like it belongs to those homes alone.

As I've written before, the townhouse option would be the best fit for the site, providing a transition between the high-rise apartments to the south and the single-family homes to the north. Aulestia referred to the streets in the plan as "friendly streets," designed as much for the car as it is for the pedestrian. Sidewalks are plentiful. Buildings face greens and squares instead of culs-de-sac. The result is an inviting, pedestrian-friendly community - one that identifies with Sherbrooke, rather than turning its back on them. There's even a neighborhood green accessible to both subdivisions.

Rather than trying to stall an attractive, well-designed residential development, White Oak residents should be pushing to improve the area's real blight: the White Oak Shopping Center, a nearly half-million-square foot strip mall across Columbia Pike. Filled with fast-food joints and beauty parlors, it's a place perceived as unsafe after dark where even the Starbucks closed for lack of traffic. Instead of pointing fingers at lower-income residents, this community should be trying to attract what we don't have enough of, like high-end shopping, white-collar jobs, and rapid transit. Those who would buy the high-end homes we want here aren't going to pay top dollar for a location with a horrible commute and nowhere nice to eat.

Passing through White Oak, it's hard to imagine that homes on the winding side streets around it sell for upwards of a million dollars. Or that in the 1930s, developers called this area "a community of country estates" and "aristocratic," attempting to set this area as the more exclusive part of Silver Spring. These neighborhoods, where average household incomes topped $90,000 in the 2000 census, have the demographics that attract steakhouses and bookstores. Not to mention, of course, those with lower incomes willing to consume high-end goods. Just count the number of expensive cars outside the apartment buildings on Lockwood Drive. People want nice things no matter how much money they make, and they sure aren't finding them here. Reducing housing choices in White Oak won't do anything to improve the congestion or lack of nearby amenities that affect everyone, rich or poor.