Monday, September 8, 2014

BAINBRIDGE SEEKS SWAP OF RETAIL SPACE FOR LARGER APTS. AT 7340 WISCONSIN (PHOTOS)

Developer Bainbridge is asking for a reduction in retail space at its 7340 Wisconsin Avenue mixed-use project, as its site plan and amendments go before the Montgomery County Planning Board on September 18. 7340 Wisconsin will be a 14-story residential building with ground floor retail, and a 4-level underground parking garage. Garage access will be from Montgomery Lane.

However, Bainbridge would like to scale back the planned retail component from the original 15,000 square feet to 5,500 SF - a substantial reduction. The architecture - particularly the way the multi-story segments of the building are laid out - is fairly impressive. One has to be disappointed with the low building height, at a project located between an eventual 3 rail transit station entrances (2 Red Line, 1 Purple Line). There are only so many plots of land near the Metro station, and once they're developed, the potential for an appropriately greater density there is gone for decades.
The pool deck will overlook
 Hampden Lane and
Wisconsin Avenue
The number of apartments will remain at 225, but now with larger units. Bainbridge will offer 15% MPDUs, higher than the required percentage by the County.

Remember the also-impressive "Point Field" LED public art installation I wrote about back in March? Boston artist J. Meejin Yoon's piece is still part of the design.
"Point Field" LED art
by J. Meejin Yoon

I'm not sure that anything can be done to change the height of the building at this point, which is less than the current height limit allows. But the idea of encouraging (if not requiring) taller buildings right at Metro - rather than shifting density to buildings that loom over neighborhoods at the edge of downtown, or worse, entirely into suburban areas like Westbard - was something I had hoped would be addressed in the Bethesda Downtown Plan rewrite. As it stands, this building at Metro will be only 2 stories higher than the 12 stories Capital Properties once believed it could build on Westbard Avenue, which is nowhere near a Metro station. That just doesn't make sense.

Planning staff are recommending approval of the plan and amendments, with conditions.

Photos via Montgomery County Planning Department

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