They Came to Save Glenmont, Not Bury It

By Sonny Goldreich

The heavy equipment replaced the lightweight speeches in Glenmont Monday, when a demolition crew knocked down a second gas station as part of construction of an interchange designed to speed traffic through the often gridlocked intersection of Georgia Avenue and Randolph Road.

Southbound Georgia Avenue lost a lane for part of the day, following a ceremonial groundbreaking Wednesday that drew more than a dozen elected and appointed state and county officials who vowed that the $74.8 million project will improve life not just for those stuck in rush hour but for the people (like me) who live in the community at the end of the Metro Red Line.

It will be months before workers in steel-toe boots arrive to begin the real job of creating a Randolph bypass by lowering it 25 feet below Georgia. In the meantime, County Executive Ike Leggett headlined the event last week, when a bunch of people in suits picked up shovels to turn dirt in what looked like a long, narrow coffin.

But they came to save Glenmont, not bury it.

They promised that the interchange—scheduled for completion in winter 2016—would encourage redevelopment of the aging Glenmont Shopping Center strip mall, which county planners envision as a pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented town center under a new master plan.

“This project will make a real difference in getting vehicles where they need to go more efficiently—and just as importantly—provide safe crossings for pedestrians and bicyclists,” Leggett said.

County Councilman Hans Reimer said the interchange would help transform the identity of Glenmont, from a car-centered crossroads to a walkable neighborhood.

Sen. Jennie Forehand said the interchange would improve the environment by moving cars that now sit idle and spew exhaust.

Del. Ben Kramer said the project would be a catalyst for redevelopment, recalling how when McDonald’s arrived 50 years ago, “We knew Glenmont was on the map.”

That’s a tall order for a highway project that spent more than a decade in planning stages before it was fully funded with a combination of federal, state, and county money.

The fact is Glenmont is already on the commuter map and that’s part of the problem. The two-block commercial strip and surrounding residential neighborhoods often suffer from standstill traffic as single drivers wait in line to get into one of the two Metro garages; or get through the Georgia Avenue lights on their way to jobs in Wheaton, Silver Spring or DC; or crowd Randolph Road—the Poor Man’s Intercounty Connector—which winds from Rt. 1 to I-270 (where it is called Cherry Hill Road and Montrose Road at the east and west ends).

Glenmont is on the map of the ICC—twice—drawing speed demons from north and east off the toll road. Glenmont is marked as the southbound destination at the ICC’s Georgia Avenue Exit. And Glenmont is marked as the westbound destination at the Layhill Road exit.

 

But the question remains whether the construction of the interchange—which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2016—will help or hurt the area.

That’s a serious issue for the strip mall, a 196,380-square-foot relic that was built in stages from 1956 to 1986. The center has been the focus of county redevelopment goals since before the Glenmont Metro Red Line station opened in 1998.

The area should be a prime target for developers, with mixed-use high-density retail and residential zoning in place under the 1997 sector plan and expanded with the revised plan for the 711-acre study area passed last year. The state also approved Glenmont as an enterprise zone with tax credits offered to encourage new investment.

But the 13 owners of the 19-acre strip mall’s 15 properties have frustrated dreams of renewal, and sat on their hands while many Metro stations inspired intense development around the county and the entire DC region.

And why not? With several multi-generational tenants and property owners, the mall is mostly occupied, providing stable income for a group of passive landlords. Some expressed little interest in redeveloping during Glenmont sector plan deliberations, as I reported for the Gazette last year.

The center is mostly occupied by local small businesses alongside anchors Shoppers, Staples and CVS.

So what happens if the center’s owners again ignore the chance to cash in and another decade passes with no redevelopment after the interchange opens?

One possibility is what happened to Burtonsville Crossing, a now mostly empty strip mall that was laid low by another interchange that opened in 2004 at the intersection of US Rt. 29 and Old Columbia Pike. The nation’s largest strip center operator bought the fully occupied property in 2003 only to see it collapse as tenants fled when the interchange diverted traffic and a mall across the street tripled in size.

Something similar could happen in Glenmont, where two blocks north, the 1960s-era Glenmont Privacy World garden apartment complex has been approved for high-density redevelopment. Plans call for tearing down the 352-unit property and replacing it with a 1,500-unit mix of high-rise and town house units.

And the plan also includes 90,000 square feet of commercial space, room enough for a modern grocery and ten or more small tenants who might want to move down the block from Glenmont Shopping Center.

The new Glenmont interchange will run Randolph Rd. under Georgia Ave.

Leggett doesn’t think that will happen.

“They’ve learned from their mistakes,” he said, in reference to planners of the Burtonsville interchange.

He noted that the new Glenmont project includes a service road for local traffic and other elements to preserve access to the shopping center. 

The interchange will create new turn lanes and ramps and one additional through lane on Georgia Avenue for a total of three through lanes in each direction, according to the State Highway Administration. In reality, Georgia Avenue already has three through lanes going north and south, but during rush hour, one lane effectively becomes a stalled right-turn lane going either east or west on Randolph. Additional improvements for pedestrians include extending the Glenmont Greenway Trail on the west side of Georgia Avenue an additional 900 feet south past Randolph Road and adding new sidewalks.

In theory, this should improve safety and access for pedestrians trying to cross either Georgia or Randolph to get to the strip mall or its imagined town center replacement.

Getting local folks out of their cars could be the key to all the rosy predictions for Glenmont’s future. Right now, almost nobody walks in the area, unless it’s to the Metro. But even that is relatively rare, with Glenmont the least used end-of-the-line stop in the entire subway system.

State transportation officials expect that to change, and they predict the Glenmont interchange will help meet a goal of doubling statewide transit ridership by 2020.

And there, Glenmont already has a major advantage over sparsely-populated Burtonsville, which would still qualify as semi-rural if not for the fact that it sits at a super-highway interchange.

“In Glenmont, we have large numbers of residential units right on top of the shopping center,” Leggett said.

In fact, there are already 3,100 housing units within easy walking distance of the Glenmont Shopping Center, which is more than 10 times the number in the Burtonsville plan area, according to county planners. Glenmont is surrounded by 2,120 garden apartments in complexes that have the opportunity for high-density rezoning similar to Privacy World.

County planners expect the total number of residential units could grow to 8,900 over the life of the new sector plan (including 5,342 apartments and condos), with jobs expanding from the current 873 to 2,350.

So Glenmont is long past the build-it-and-they-will-come stage. It’s more like build-it-while-you-can-they’re already here.