Maybe Silver Spring can toss a few midgets Bethesda’s way

By Sonny Goldreich

Here’s a munchkin dilemma.

Take the subway to watch midget wrestling at Fillmore Silver Spring Tuesday night or hop in the car to hear the Children's Chorus Spring Concert at Strathmore in North Bethesda?

The Micro Wrestling Federation Micro Wrestling Federation likely will be the more mind-searing spectacle.

But the Maryland Classic Youth Orchestras and the Maryland State Boychoir probably will make you feel better about yourself.

Either way, you’ll be supporting Montgomery County taxpayers, who own both Fillmore and Strathmore. But you might choose the latter if you’re charity minded, considering its fluctuating financial status.

It seems the plush concert venue and music education program run by the county-supported Strathmore Hall Foundation has shown wildly uneven income and losses in recent years thanks to vagaries in private contributions and the stock market. Strathmore's IRS Form 990 filings—which are made public for non-profit groups—show it’s on a financial rollercoaster, which can require dipping into its reserves.

The foundation reported net income of $162,701 for fiscal year 2013—which ended June 30—compared to a loss of $745,047 in fiscal year 2012.

That followed net income of $158,065 in fiscal year 2011 and $523,259 in fiscal year 2010. But Strathmore showed a loss of $38,393 in fiscal year 2009 after recording net income of $810,627 in fiscal year 2008.

Where Strathmore is consistent is in repeatedly spending more money than it takes in from its fundraising events.

In fact, Strathmore could have almost doubled its net income last year if it didn’t bother staging its two fundraising events. While the foundation reported $162,701 in net income, it showed a net fundraising loss of $146,805.

That’s a lot of white wine and finger food.

But to be fair, that loss is derived on the IRS form after subtracting $464,674 in contributions from the $707,204 in gross receipts raised at the two events.

And despite all the ups and downs, Strathmore has been able to strengthen its balance sheet since the recession ended. Its endowment fund climbed to almost $4.4 million last year, rising steadily from less than $3.4 million in fiscal year 2009.

Unfortunately, Strathmore’s management doesn’t seem to quite grasp its financial status, based on a comical exchange of misinformation on the BethesdaNow.com website.

A columnist misreported that Strathmore lost more than $2.9 million in fiscal year 2012, the latest year for which the IRS form is available on the music hall’s website.

After the erroneous column ran online May 7, Strathmore CEO Eliot Pfanstiehl, responded with the correct loss of $745,047 reported on the IRS form, which results from subtracting total expenses of $8,568,524 from total revenue of $7,823,477.

But he confused matters further by claiming that “in FY 2013 we were able to turn that financial picture around and posted a $517,763 gain.” Of course, the IRS form clearly shows net income of $162,701.

Unfortunately, the gain Pfanstiehl reported was actually the jump in net assets from 2012 to 2013. That’s the bottom line of the balance sheet rather than the income statement.

As any freshman bookkeeping student knows, the former is a record of assets and liabilities, while the latter shows revenues and expenses.

In this case, Pfanstiehl (or a press flack) is guilty of comparing apples to oranges, or maybe midgets to choir boys.

The takeaway from all this? Maybe midgets might be more edifying at Strathmore. After all, the Micro Wrestling Federation reports that “We recently did a study at 51 venues that we worked with in 2013 and we’ve found that our events increased alcohol sales by 47% in comparison to an average night.”

You can pay for a lot of choir boys with that kind of booze haul.

Apartment demand meets building boom

By Sonny Goldreich

With hundreds of new apartments under construction in the Silver Spring and Wheaton area and hundreds more planned, can a glut be far behind?

Actually, quite the opposite is true.

The reality is that renters have been moving into new apartments almost as fast as developers can build them, especially in the Georgia Avenue corridor of Montgomery County. Despite all the new buildings going up, the vacancy rate has not climbed.

“That’s what everyone’s been talking about. It’s been a big fear in all the sub-markets,” said Bethany Schneider, a research analyst with broker Cassidy Turley. “But everyone we talk to says it’s over-exaggerated.”

In fact, the stabilized vacancy rate stood at 4.3 percent in the first quarter for DC’s Maryland suburbs, tumbling from 5.7 percent in the same period last year, according to the Delta Associates First Quarter 2014 Class A Apartment Report. That’s lower than reported in DC or Northern Virginia for the quarter.

There were some predictions of a slowdown in the DC region’s torrid multifamily housing market as construction permits fell last year. But the area experienced a rebound during the first quarter, with the hottest pace of construction and demand in the Silver Spring and Wheaton areas.

The Exchange at Wheaton Station has rented about
 half its 486 units, says developer Foulger Pratt.

While 491 newly built units hit the market in Silver Spring during the first three months of the year, 255 of them were rented during the same period, Schneider said, citing data from Reis, which tracks commercial real estate markets nationwide. That’s a surge from 2013, when 432 new apartments were delivered for the entire year and 427 renters moved into the buildings.

In the Wheaton/Kensington market, Reis reported that 622 units were delivered during the first quarter and 266 were rented (in this case, all the action was within two blocks of the Wheaton Metro station). That’s after there were no deliveries in 2013.

In Rockville, the only other Montgomery submarket with new apartments during the first quarter, builders delivered a record 814 units, but 439 were rented, according to Cassidy Turley’s 1^st Quarter Multi-Family Snapshot. Cassidy Turley Multi-Family Snapshot 1Q14.pdf

These new apartments are literally changing the skyline and renters are responding favorably.

Bethesda-based developer Foulger-Pratt reported strong demand for its $120 million investment in Wheaton, with the opening of The Exchange, a brand-new 17-story, 486-unit high-rise it completed atop a new Safeway next to the Wheaton Metro last year (Reis recorded the project as a first quarter 2014 delivery). “The Exchange is already nearly 50 percent leased and continues to experience a stronger-than-normal lease-up pace,” the firm wrote to County Council President Craig Rice (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown in support of the Wheaton town center development plan.

The Solaire Wheaton is 45 percent leased after 5 months.

Two blocks south, Bethesda-based Washington Property Co. delivered the 232-unit Solaire Wheaton during the first quarter on the site of the
former First Baptist Church of Wheaton (which moved to Olney and changed its name to Streams of Hope). The $75 million complex is 45 percent leased after five months.

And the projects keep coming. The County Council this month approved spending $144 million on the new Wheaton town center plan. The project—which is a private partnership with developers Stone bridge CarraslBozzuto Group—includes an apartment building with 225 units, 20 percent of which will be affordable at 50 percent of area median income.

The planed center piece of the Wheaton complex is a new 266,000-square-foot public office building that the Leggett administration pushed as a jobs measure to bring high-paying white collar work to a Metro transit employment area that is almost entirely retail. The county plans to relocate from various sites in Silver Spring and Rockville the headquarters of the departments of parks and planning, permitting, and environmental services to the new 12-story building, which they will share with the Mid-County Regional Services Center and 15,000 square feet of street-level retail.

The project will occupy a triangle stretching northwest from the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Reedie Drive, which is now home to a 15,367-square-feet county building and parking space. The plan promises to replace 158 surface parking spaces with a 395-space underground garage and a town square or urban plaza of more than 32,000 square (story to follow on continuing community debate).

Also in Wheaton, DC-based Lowe Enterprises will deliver a 12-story apartment building with 194 units just south of the Metro at 111411 Georgia Avenue.  And at the northern edge of the Wheaton commercial district, Alexandria-based AvalonBay has emptied out tenants of a former BB&T bank building, where the firm plans to build a 322-unit, block-long apartment complex.

Those last three projects underscore the strength of the residential market relative to the weak demand for office space in Montgomery County, where the total vacancy rate in the first quarter was 14.3 percent, according to broker Transwestern. Throughout the Maryland suburbs, the total vacancy rate stood at 15.7 percent in March, which is about double the rate in 2005 during the pre-recession boom in federal and private tenant growth. The Suburban Maryland office construction pipeline was hovering at 1.3 million square feet in March, which is about half the level before the recession.

But if nothing else, the office-to-apartment conversions will help suck up some of the empty non-residential space in the Wheaton area. The office vacancy rate stood at 23.6 percent in March, Transwestern reported.

The loss of office space to residential in Wheaton mirrors what’s happened on a larger scale in downtown Silver Spring, where the amount of office space has actually shrunk since the recession “officially” ended in June 2009 thanks partly to apartment conversions, as I reported in the Gazette of Business last year.

The total Silver Spring office inventory fell to 4,472,139 square feet at the end of the second quarter of 2013, down by 72,538 square feet from the 4,544,677 square feet from the end of 2009, according to broker Jones Lang LaSalle.

The hopeful sign is downtown Silver Spring office vacancies now stand at 11.4 percent, which is second lowest in the county after Bethesda/Chevy Chase, according to Transwestern.

The trend away from office space in Silver Spring will be accelerated when Parks and Planning leaves its headquarters for Wheaton in 2018. Its 35,600-square foot building will disappear from office inventory and will be replaced by a 400,000-square-foot mixed-use complex that will include 360 apartment units and 25,000 square feet of ground-level retail space.

But United Therapeutics is adding 111,724 square feet of office space to its Silver Spring headquarters complex. The biotech firm has grown to more than 200,000 square feet since it originally moved to an 8,000-square-foot building on Spring Street.

At the southern edge of downtown Silver Spring, a groundbreaking is scheduled for June 12 on the Bonifant, a 149-unit, mixed-income, apartment building for seniors as part of the county’s new library project. The 11-story building near the corner of Bonifant and Fenton streets is a joint project of Montgomery Housing Partnership, a private nonprofit developer and Donohoe Development.
The project sits next to the planned Purple Line light rail station, which is expected to break ground in 2016.

Also in Silver Spring, 700 feet from the Metro station, WPC last year completed the 295-unit Solaire-Metro high-rise, which is assessed at $67.8 million. The building—the first in the Ripley District that the county has targeted for redevelopment south of the subway stop—was 95 percent leased within months of its opening. The firm has a pair of other projects planned fronting Ripley Street and Georgia Avenue, where it is considering a hotel, an office building or more residential development.

In January—north of Solaire-Metro—Home Properties delivered Eleven55 Ripley, with 379 rental apartments in two buildings, including a 21-story tower that is the tallest in Silver Spring. The complex had leased 58 units by the end of the first quarter, according to Delta.

Despite all the apartment construction, Silver Spring continues to show strong demand, with average rents rising at an annual pace of 4.2 percent for Class A high-rise buildings, compared to a 2.1-percent drop in Bethesda, Delta reported. Overall, the county showed a 2.9-percent decline in rent. Delta forecast 13,062 units to be completed over the next 36 months, showing a 26-percent increase over the first quarter of 2013. Both the DC and Northern Virginia report single-digit pipeline increases.

So who are all these people renting in Montgomery County?

Researchers point to Baby Boomer empty nesters giving up their big homes and a rush of their Millennial grandkids finally moving out to live on their own.

“There’s a strong pent-up demand—Millennial shadow demand—in the market,” Schneider said. “This could go on for a year or two.”

Others “have recently joined the workforce but are still living with parents. As the economy continues to improve, many of them will move out on their own,” Cassidy Turley reported.

That’s a continental trend, but it is driven locally by the fact that both the boomer and Millennial generations in the DC region have more wealth than the rest of the nation, according to the Delta report. And the trend is just beginning.

“Tens of thousands of prospective renters in the Millennial cohort will continue to join the workforce over the coming decade and to demand flexible housing arrangements that apartments provide. Those in the Millennial cohort currently doubling up or living at home will eventually “age out” (or be nudged out) and look for their own places, further enhancing demand over the long term,” Delta concluded.

Metro plans to demolish and redevelop abandoned Glenmont KFC

Metro’s operator plans to demolish the abandoned KFC next to the Glenmont subway station and seek a development partner.

Montgomery County has left the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA) holding the bag financially since a county Ride-On bus smashed through the fast food restaurant’s front window in May 2011, according to an email message from someone at WMATA passed along to That’s Silver Spring by Ken Silverman, senior legislative aide to County Councilmember Nancy Navarro, D-District 4.(see thatssilverspring.blogspot.com/2014/05/eyesore-of-month-year-forever-in.html)

But the worst eyesore in Glenmont  could soon become Metro’s own little grassy knoll, according to the following WMATA message:

“WMATA has still not been reimbursed by the County for the accident. As a result of the accident, along with the age of the building, it has been determined that it is in such a state of disrepair and structural instability that it is not marketable and it is economically more reasonable to demolish it. WMATA is preparing the property for demolition and is in the process of finalizing the documentation to apply for a demolition permit from the County. Following demolition, the property will sodded/seeded and maintained as a vacant lot pending eventual incorporation into a future joint development effort.”

That’s an optimistic sign from WMATA, which has shown little interest in development in Glenmont since plans were laid 40 years ago to build the station. Passage of a new Glenmont sector plan last year is spurring new discussion of the area’s untapped development potential.  http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/glenmont/

WMATA recently approved turning over a small parcel on the west side of Georgia Avenue next to the Metro garage, where the Housing Opportunities Commission plans to build apartments for seniors. But that’s an idea that’s been kicking around at least since the last Glenmont sector plan was approved in 1997, a year before the station opened.

The new sector plan also carries over the 1997 plan’s endorsement of WMATA teaming up with the Georgia Avenue Baptist Church for redevelopment of their adjoining properties. The church sits at the northern edge of the Metro station on the east side of Georgia Avenue. The church—which was recently designated on the county’s Master Plan for Historic Preservation—has been cited as an example of mid-20^th century modernist religious architecture.

The sector plan design guidelines passed May 1 by the county Planning Board say the church property could still be developed, stipulating that the church itself be preserved and “redevelopment should not obscure any significant features of the historic building.” The guidelines add that any new development should be distinguished from the church and “avoid imitating historic elements as it may diminish the singularity of the historic original.” http://www.montgomeryplanningboard.org/agenda/2014/documents/item10FinalGlenmontDesignGuidelinesMay2014_000.pdf

The church features symmetrical glass window walls and prefabricated concrete perlite panels designed by renowned local architect Charles Goodman.

Whatever WMATA decides to do with the KFC and surrounding Metro properties, any redevelopment would likely follow plans already in the works for the Forest Glen and Grosvenor-Strathmore stations on the Red Line, and numerous subway stops in Prince George’s County and Northern Virginia.

Furniture City opening confuses picture for grocery coming to Plaza Del Mercardo

As grand openings go, Furniture City’s launch in Plaza Del Mercado wasn’t.

The discount store opened in the northern Silver Spring strip mall last month, filling the vacant space where residents have been lobbying for a grocery to replace the Giant Food that closed in 2011. Aside from a few people standing on nearby corners with cardboard signs announcing Furniture City’s presence, little effort was made to draw anyone’s attention.

In fact, even though the store occupies the anchor spot in the 96,000-square-foot mall, it doesn’t even rate mention on the marquee street sign. 

There’s just a big blank space next to CVS, where Giant used to be until it closed after 41 years.

But Furniture City’s presence raises questions about when or whether another grocery store will open in Del Mercado, which is a five-minute ride from the Intercounty Connector to the north and the Glenmont Metro to the south. The mall’s owner, Rockville-based Federal Realty Investment Trust, isn’t saying, at least not publicly for the record.

The firm would neither confirm nor deny information from Montgomery County Councilwoman Nancy Navarro’s office that the mall will be expanded and letters of intent have been signed for a new grocery and a fitness center to occupy the space.

Robin McBride, Federal Realty’s mid-Atlantic vice president and chief operating officer, carefully avoided saying anything concrete in the following email message.

“We have been working closely with Councilwoman Navarro’s office over the past several months on various aspects of improving the tenancy and look of the center. We are excited about the future of the center and how it can serve the surrounding community as we continue conversations with multiple tenant prospects and the county.

Unfortunately we are not in a position at this time to share specific details regarding any development or leasing activity at Plaza del Mercado. Nor can we confirm that any of the information that has been shared in the public realm will result in new tenants or expansions.  As I am sure you can understand, our conversations are on-going and continually evolving with the county. We would not want to share information at this juncture only to have it change.

As a general policy and to protect our tenant's privacy, we cannot comment on on-going lease conversations or tenant leases.” 

Specifically, McBride did not comment on whether Furniture City is on a month-to-month lease, as Ken Silverman, Navarro’s senior legislative aide, said in the following email.

“We have been working closely with Federal Realty to revitalize Plaza del Mercado ever since the Giant closed. After originally saying that they could not find a grocery tenant for the center, I can confirm that they are now planning to renovate the center and have LOI's [letters of intent] with a new supermarket and health club as anchor tenants. They have asked us not to reveal the name of the supermarket because they are still finalizing the lease negotiations. My understanding is that the renovations could get underway as soon as this fall. The furniture store is a temporary, month-to-month tenant that will be replaced when the renovation plan goes into place.”

Navarro’s office has been even more detailed in the past, according to Glenmont Exchange, which reported that Aldi, a discount German grocery chain, will be the new Del Mercado anchor tenant.

The citizens group has reported that Federal Realty “plans to make an announcement soon regarding an Aldi and LA Fitness. In addition, Federal Realty plans on doing a major renovation of the shopping center. There was a hold-up because Starbucks [which has a shop in the mall] has a clause in their contract regarding stores that sell coffee in the same shopping center. This issue has been resolved and as soon as a finalized amended contract with Starbucks can be completed Aldi will be able to move forward. This information was obtained from the office of Councilmember Nancy Navarro.” http://www.glenmontexchange.org/News/Plaza.htm

Of course, Aldi had nothing to say either. Responding to a Facebook inquiry, the firm said only, "We are expanding in many markets and as location decisions are made, we’ll be sharing them with our ALDI fans. Please visit our Grand Openings tab from a desktop computer or internet browser here: http://on.fb.me/1gXFoym to find the ALDI store closest to you and to see a list of our upcoming Grand Openings!"

Federal Realty’s reticence on the matter might reflect the firm’s unsettled plans. The Montgomery County Planning Board in 2006 approved plans to add 29,000 square feet to the mall, which would have allowed Giant to more than double in size to 64,175 square feet, including 10,000 square feet of mezzanine office space.

Instead, Ahold, Giant’s Dutch corporate parent, closed the store as part of a move to shutter underperforming locations. Since then, the 25,000-square-foot space has been occupied by a series of short-term users, including a furniture and mattress store, a seasonal Halloween store, and now, another furniture and mattress store.

Even Federal Realty’s own Del Mercado marketing materials offer little but uncertainty. The firm’s online listing brochure shows Furniture City in the site plan rendering as the anchor tenant even though Giant is prominently displayed in the photos.  http://www.federalrealty.com/media/property_documents/Plaza_del_Mercado_Brochure.pdf

But if you really are looking for a sign of faith in Del Mercado’s grocery future, take a look at the county Planning Department’s 2014 development pipeline released in January. There’s Del Mercado, listed with plans for a 29,043-square-foot addition, including 73 unbuilt retail jobs.  http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/research/data_library/development_activity_data_center/documents/Jan2014Pipeline_RecordLevel.pdf

Mi La Cay now serving banh mi!

The good news is that Mi La Cay is now serving a superior (to the local competition) banh mi sandwich in a nearly foot-long crusty chewy roll.

The bad news is I can’t tell you exactly how good they are because it’s been so long that I ate one that I forgot to tell to them to skip the pork pâté that seems to be the default spread for an authentic Vietnamese sandwich.

Authentic pork I can do without, especially since I’m going to shul for minyan right after I post this. Basically, I’ve pretty much avoided pork for 41 years, since my bar mitzvah.

I hadn’t planned to go to Mi La Cay, which is famous for its crispy “Maryland” fried chicken http://www.gazette.net/article/20130724/ENTERTAINMENT/130729832&template=gazette. The order from my 7-year-old was for chicken curry puffs from Ruan Thai http://www.ruanthaiwheaton.com/. But the carryout wait was at least an hour and I had a schedule to meet.

So I went around the corner to Mi La Cay. I was about to order the usual lemongrass beef and lemongrass chicken with rice when I asked whether they started serving banh mi yet. Didn’t see the sandwiches on the menu, which has been a constant source of disappointment since the restaurant moved to the former Lucia’s location about this time last year.

But they pointed at the white board listing banh mi in front of my face and I put down the menu.

Anyway, at home, the rolls seemed good, based on their resistance to the large sharp knife I cut the sandwiches with. Both my wife and daughter enjoyed this Mother’s Day treat after I picked all the hot peppers out of the packed filling.

I brought home three lemongrass chicken and three lemongrass beef banh mi and a couple of fresh-squeezed lemonades, which cost $37.38, including tax and a $5 tip. That should last for two meals.

Bottom line: Saigonese http://www.saigoneserestaurants.com/  in Wheaton has serious sandwich competition.

Monet Shoppers Mother's Day

Yes, I should have gone to the Arcade Florist in Glenmont but they aren't open on Sunday.

http://www.arcadeflorist.com/mothers-day-flowers-97c.asp?topnav=TopNav

So I went to Shoppers instead.

Eyesore of the month (year? forever?) in Glenmont

So what’s the worst eyesore around the Glenmont Metro station?

Is it the big vacant lot overtaken by weeds at the southwest corner of the busiest intersection in the area? No. This former site of the long-closed Glenmont Elementary School at least serves a purpose. It’s the staging ground for construction of an interchange where Randolph Road will be buried beneath Georgia Avenue so commuters won’t even have to see Glenmont as they speed by to work. Eventually it will be the new home for Glenmont Fire Station 18, which temporarily relocated to Wheaton last month as part of preparations for the interchange construction.

Is it the empty house on Vixen Lane a block behind me, with the blue tarp on the damaged roof that has survived through years of foreclosure actions, the owner’s death, estate short sale listings, and a deal that fell through last year? No, at least the tarp is held in place by a bunch of wooden beams.

Is it the Glenmont Shopping Center, where the multiple owners rent out part of the 500-space parking lot every summer to a furniture dealer who unloads a tractor-trailer and stands a bunch of sofas on their ends to block out drivers’ view of the strip mall? No, at least the Ghetto Stonehenge goes away at some point and most of the 196,380 square feet of retail space is occupied and the Staples, CVS and Shoppers grocery always seem to have more customers than the cashiers can handle.

So who is the worst slum lord with the most visible, most prominently located, most offensive eyesore?

Well, that would be WMATA, the owner of this dump, a boarded-up former KFC next to the Metro station that has been closed for almost three years.

On the front and sides, it’s covered with graffiti. Really uncreative graffiti.

Out back, you can take a dump in one of two toilets amid a bunch of other junk.

KFC abandoned the prime location at 12415 Georgia Avenue, which greets commuters as they pass the last stop on the eastern leg of the Red Line. The fast food chain pulled the colonel’s face of the sign, stripped the equipment and left the site’s fate to the landlord.

This finger-licking grease pit was shuttered in May 2011, when a Ride-On bus crashed through the front window one morning during rush hour.

http://wheaton-md.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/ride-on-bus-crashes-into-glenmont-kfc

And the landlord is the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority, the regional government entity that runs Metro.

I’ve lost track of WMATA’s attempts to sign a new lease for the spot, which the agency acquired in 1982 with KFC as the tenant. The agency seems not to care about the site, except to send somebody by a few times a year to trim the landscaping and spread some mulch.

The property consists of a 3,360-square-foot building on an 18,787-square-foot concrete pad site. It would actually be a perfect location for a daycare center that neighbors clamored for during the process leading to passage of the new Glenmont sector plan.

A for-lease banner went up last year and came down weeks later after a storm left it flapping in the wind. A for-lease flyer was posted at some point on the WMATA website and is still there if you type the address into the search engine. http://www.wmata.com/business/joint_development_opportunities/SilverSpringFlyer.pdf

But the property isn't listed in current offerings.

So does this mean WMATA found someone to open a new fast-food joint or “restaurant space,” as the flyer describes it? Does WMATA have something creative planned? Housing maybe? Probably not, because WMATA has already given Montgomery County a small parcel across the street next to the Metro garage, where the Housing Opportunities Commission plans to build apartments for seniors.

So who knows what’s happening with the old KFC? I never got anybody from WMATA to respond to my repeated inquiries for my commercial real estate column that the Gazette of Business (gazette.net) ended last month.

At this point, I’m just a pissed-off neighbor.

But maybe if enough pissed-off neighbors call, we can find out what’s happening.

Try contacting:

JANELLE ALLADIN-RIEMAN, Principal Realty Specialist

PHONE: 202-962-2139  

EMAIL: REALESTATE@WMATA.COM

STANLEY WALL, Director of Real Estate and Station Planning

PHONE: 202-962-2616

EMAIL: swall@wmata.com

MEDIA RELATIONS

PHONE: 202-962-1051