Meet North Bethesda Center’s Newest Residential Building

On Monday night, LCOR presented its plans for a new residential building at the 32.5 acre North Bethesda Center. (NRC, Harris Teeter, The Aurora, and Wentworth House are all part of North Bethesda Center.) The new building will be located on Parcel G (and until they come up with a better name, the apartment building will be called Parcel G as well.

This new seven story residential stick-built building will feature 294 one- and two-bedroom homes, including 27 MPDU units, 12.5% of the total. 350 garage parking spaces will be located under the residences. The building’s entrance will face the common green space, and the garage entrance will be located on Wentworth. A lovely courtyard is the center of the new building, complimenting the building’s ‘bold, modern design with a a warm, inviting architecture.’

LCOR hopes to present its preliminary site plan application to the Planning Board by July 31 and begin construction in the third quarter of 2018. Construction should take about two years. With the noisy metro bus depot across the street, the windows in Parcel G will have a high STC (sound transfer coefficient) to boost sound-proofing.

Pedestrian paths, amenities, a clubhouse, plantings, and artistic storm water management are all part of the plans for this new addition to the Pike District. Planters will filter storm water, and they plan to utilize native tree species as much as is feasible.

Most people at the Implementation Committee Monday night were impressed with the plans and look of this new building. However, several community members expressed disappointment that the dog park at North Bethesda Center will disappear when Parcel G is built.

LCOR explained that it is constructing a mid-rise building on Parcel G because the economics don’t work for a high rise building right now the economics of a wood frame building does work right now.

5 comments

anon July 13, 2017 at 8:23 pm

Really should move that Club House to the Marinelli Road side in front of the bus depot. People don’t want to live in front of that.

Local Citizen July 15, 2017 at 10:51 am

This building will be flanked by trouble on three sides. First, as mentioned, one side faces the bus facility. This facility is noisy 24 hours a day. There is no window available that will block out that noise level at such a close proximity. It is terrible. We do not understand why the developer doesn’t realize that this is a virtually unlivable situation. On the west side the building will face the Metro parking garage. Also very noisy, both because of the large volume of cars coming and going as well as because of equipment that is housed there. On the east side, the building will face some sort of drainage site that is poorly maintained (is it maintained at all?) and badly overgrown with weeds and brush, creating a worrisome habitat for pests of all kinds. People in the community have complained for years. Nothing has been done, for years. As for the dog park concern, it is shared by the folks who do not have dogs because without one, the pets are going to “go” everywhere. There are MANY dogs in the community – they shouldn’t be in apartments to begin with but as long as they are, something must be done to protect the humans from having to step in waste at every turn. It’s hard enough now. No dog area — big problem. We think the developer should re-think this entire plan. Why not develop the drainage site area first? That would get rid of the mess, and it would place the new building a bit farther from the noisiest part of the bus depot. Then, hopefully, Parcel G could be developed AFTER the buses are moved ELSEWHERE. Montgomery County, are you listening?

John July 15, 2017 at 1:40 pm

Absolutely agree with everything you have said — hope they will “re-think”!!

Irene July 16, 2017 at 11:44 am

Ditto. Thanks to “Local Citizen” for writing this. Hope the developer reads these posts.

Bruce July 20, 2017 at 10:19 am

From the post–“building will feature 294 one- and two-bedroom homes, including 27 MPDU units, 12.5% of the total.” Uh, no. 27 is 9.2% of 294. I hope whoever made this 3rd grade arithmetic mistake is not involved in the structural design of this building.

Meet North Bethesda Center’s Newest Residential Building