Up Georgia Update: Demolition begins at Privacy World in Glenmont to make room for townhouses

By Sonny Goldreich

Workers began demolishing a corner of the aging Privacy World apartments this week next to the Glenmont Metro station, where developers plan to build a townhouse cluster as the first stage of a 1,550-unit mixed-use complex.

The project has been touted as the spark for broader redevelopment along the stretch of Georgia Avenue north of Wheaton, where county officials hope a new sector plan will attract investment in the dilapidated Glenmont Shopping Center and surrounding apartment complexes.

Under a permit issued August 29, three garden apartment buildings and a long-vacant bank site are being leveled at the northeast corner of Glenallan Avenue and Layhill Road. The 9.5-acre site—which includes a wooded lot that abuts a Metro rail storage yard—sits directly across Glenallan Avenue from the Metro, which is the last station on the eastern leg of the Red Line.

A pair of excavator tractors knocked down one apartment building and started work on a second Friday along Layhill Road, just west of the rail yard.

Winchester Homes plans to build 171 four-story townhouses at the corner, including 22 moderately priced dwelling units. Approved first phase construction also allows another 54 townhouses and a six-story, 250-unit apartment building with 4,000 square feet of retail space.

When completed, the new Glenmont Metrocenter complex could occupy 2.5 million square feet of space where the 352-unit Privacy World now stands. If fully built, the 31 acre-complex would include 1,325 multifamily units, 225 townhouses, and 90,000 square feet of commercial space, room enough for an upscale grocery and other retail.

Later construction would include the retail space and three new apartment buildings. Plans call for reserving 14.5 percent of the housing for moderately priced dwelling units.

County planners have been pushing redevelopment of Glenmont since a new sector plan was passed in 1997. It included denser zoning to encourage transit-oriented development next to the Metro station that opened in 1998. The updated sector plan approved this year has been paired with a new enterprise zone that offers businesses state income tax and property tax credits to help create and retain jobs.

But there has been no significant development within a mile of the subway since the Red Line was completed.

The last of the 18 existing Privacy World buildings was completed in the 1960s.

The staged redevelopment of the complex allows for plenty of time for the Glenmont market to adjust to the transformation of Privacy World. According to its website, completion of the last stage of redevelopment will be in 2022.

The new complex will offer as many as 1,550 apartment and townhouses built in six stages over two phases of construction. Developers will preserve 77 existing apartment units while 775 new apartments and townhouses are built in the first phase, according to approved planning documents. The second phase calls for replacing the 77 remaining units and constructing up to 698 new units, for a total of 775 new apartments.

That will allow current tenants to stay in Glenmont. The Privacy World website says "The management will make every effort to offer alternate units in other buildings in the community, whenever possible, for those residents who wish to remain at Privacy World."