Pike + Rose moves closer to completion

Grand Park Avenue, one of several new streets in Pike + Rose. All photos by the author.

Today, the Montgomery County Planning Board reviews plans for a second phase of Pike + Rose. Meanwhile, the first phase of the new urban neighborhood at Rockville Pike and Montrose Road inches closer to completion.

When finished, Pike + Rose will have housing, offices, shops and restaurants, a high-end movie theatre, and a hotel, along with several public open spaces. A redevelopment of a 1960’s-era strip mall, it’ll be multiple times the size of developer Federal Realty’s other projects in the area, Bethesda Row and Rockville Town Square.

According to Evan Goldman, Federal Realty’s vice president of development, the first phase will start opening next year. In the meantime, let’s visit the construction site.

Bricks going in at PerSei.

Back in July, the first of three buildings in the first phase, a 174-unit, five-story apartment building called PerSei, topped out. Units here will start renting late next spring, Goldman says. You can see cream-colored brick going in on one side.

Like many new apartment buildings, PerSei has been designed to look like a block of smaller buildings. The windows on Old Georgetown Road and Grand Park Avenue, one of several new streets, are more modern, with large panes and less ornamentation. But around the corner, the windows have smaller panes and more detail, almost like those on a warehouse.

11800 Grand Park Avenue. The movie theatre and music venue will be on the right-hand side.

Across the street, 11800 Grand Park Avenue, an office building, has topped out as well. It’ll open in fall 2014, along with 150,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space in both buildings. 75% of the retail is already leased and will include a high-end iPic movie theatre, a music venue operated by Strathmore, several restaurants, and a Sport & Health Club.

Pallas (left) and 11800 Grand Park Avenue seen from Old Georgetown Road.

Next door, an 18-story apartment tower called Pallas has just reached four stories. Not surprisingly, it won’t open until the winter of 2015. I’m guessing that gray box in the middle has something to do with parking, but I’m not sure.

PerSei with the strip mall in the foreground.

The new buildings form a striking contrast against the remaining strip mall buildings. While the main building will be completely torn down in Pike + Rose’s second phase, this smaller building closer to the intersection of Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Road could stick around for between 7 and 10 years, Goldman says.

Located on a prominent corner and closest to the White Flint Metro station, this is arguably the most valuable portion of the Pike + Rose site, which is why Federal Realty may want to hold out on developing it. In the meantime, the developer will give this building a new façade and landscaping to help it blend in with the new construction.

If the Planning Board approves the second phase today, what’s called Phase 2A could start construction next year and portions could open within another two years.

Today it’s a parking lot, but it will be Pike + Rose’s future second phase.

With a new street grid and an urban park open, “You’ll have a neighborhood by 2016,” says Goldman. “We’ll have created the sense of place.” The rest of the second phase, along with a future third phase, don’t have a completion date and will be built out as the market demands.

Crossposted at Greater Greater Washington.