Germantown, MD – July 27, 2015 (GERMANTOWNPULSE.NET) – The Montgomery County Planning Board approved the preliminary plans that would transform the existing Germantown office park into a mixed-use development by introducing up to 485 multi-family residential dwellings in three buildings and additional retail space.

The project, which was unanimously approved at the Planning Board meeting last Thursday, July 23, will be built on Milestone Center Drive, which is located just north of I-270 and west of Ridge Road in Germantown, between Ridge Road and Dorsey Mill Road. The office park is the current home of WeatherBug headquarters, and offices of URS and Digital Receiver Technology, among others.

The project, submitted by Frederick-based Matan Companies, under the applicant name W-M Milestone Holdings VII, LLC, calls for three seven-story buildings with 485 new dwelling units and 28,250 square-feet of retail space.

One building would be erected between two existing office buildings on Milestone Center Drive and would be comprised of approximately 171,560 square feet of residential space or 154 units and 8,250 square feet of street level retail, according to planning documents.

The other two seven-story buildings will be located at the western end of the complex and feature a pedestrian bridge on the second floor to allow residents to access the swimming pool located on the lot of the northern building. All the buildings are designed as “podium” style structures consisting of two-story bases with five stories above, according to documents filed with Planning Board. 

One building will consist of 204,074 square feet of residential, or 192 units and 10,000 square feet of street level retail, while the other will be comprised of 156,051 square feet of residential or 139 units and 10,000 square feet of street-level retail.

To gain approval, the applicant must provide that 12.5 percent of the residential units will be “moderately priced dwelling units.

The site is located along two of the proposed routes for the Corridor Cities Transitway, which the State of Maryland first proposed in 2012. The transitway is a 15-mile Bus Rapid Transit line that would run from Shady Grove Metro Station in Gaithersburg to Clarksburg, along a route that would run parallel to the proposed MD-355 Corridor BRT network. The CCT is not yet part of the County’s FY15 –FY20 Capital Improvements Program.

In April, the Planning Board received an initial briefing on a proposed new bridge over I-270, which would run just to the north of the proposed residential/retail project in Milestone Center Drive. The Dorsey Mill Road bridge, which has been part of the master plan for Germantown since 2009, will connect Century Boulevard on the west side of I-270 with Observation Drive on the east side.

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