Woodmont Avenue in downtown Bethesda will be closed between Miller and Bethesda avenues on or about Sept. 4 for approximately 20 months.

The road will be closed as part of a project by Stonebridge Carras of Bethesda and PN Hoffman of Washington, D.C. The companies are building two residential buildings and ground-floor retail on two public surface parking lots, 31 and 31A.

The section of Woodmont Avenue will be closed to vehicles and pedestrians for construction of an underground parking garage, said Rick Siebert, chief of the division of parking management for the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. The garage will include 940 public spaces and 290 private parking spaces.

The Capital Crescent Trail will remain open, wrote Jane Galbraith Mahaffie of Stonebridge Associates in an email.

A sign at Wisconsin and Woodmont avenues will mark the road closure and cars will be directed to make a u-turn; but vehicles heading north on Woodmont will be able to make a right onto Miller Avenue, she wrote. Turns onto Leland Street from Woodmont Avenue will not be allowed.

Vehicles heading south on Woodmont will be able to turn right or left onto Bethesda Avenue.

Woodmont must reopen within 24 months, Siebert said.

Although traffic and parking patterns are being disrupted by the project, the end result will be more public parking and beautiful new buildings, he said.

“I think that’s a great advantage,” he said. “No one says there is not going to be some pain. Traffic’s being disrupted and current parking patterns are being disrupted.”

People will adjust to the new traffic patterns, said Ginanne Italiano, president and chief executive officer of The Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce.

“Yeah, there’s some pain that everybody is going to have to adjust to,” she said. “But we have been through this before.”

jablamsky@gazette.net