Formula for downtowns: Talk to the community

Residents’ input has been a key ingredient in redevelopment projects

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette With a ‘‘Silver SprUng” billboard advertising downtown Silver Spring’s redevelopment as a backdrop, two women talk Saturday on Ellsworth Drive, an area dominated by new restaurants and retail. Click here to enlarge this photo Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette Movie buffs stand — and even sit — outside the American Film Institute’s Silver Theatre for a Saturday showing. The Colesville Road venue has been a popular draw, as well as a historical complement to the new restaurants and retail in Silver Spring’s redeveloped downtown.

However, coming up with a plan for an area where people want to work, visit and live that also fits the surrounding community can take time. And the retailers and employers have to go along with it, too.

In some cases, it takes help from the public sector. It takes communication between developers and community members. It can take time; it took more than 20 years for officials and developers to create an adequate plan to revitalize downtown Silver Spring.

In downtown Wheaton, developers have focused on adding residential and office space. New townhouses have been built by the Metro station. The mall, Westfield Wheaton, recently underwent a renovation that brought in several new stores.

In downtown Silver Spring, developers hoped to make the area a destination. Apartments and condos have been built, along with a town center with a variety of restaurants, stores and a movie theater.

Both concepts work well for the communities they serve. But there’s no set idea as to what’s best for Wheaton and Silver Spring’s downtowns, or any others, said Joe Davis, director of the Wheaton Redevelopment Program.

‘‘The best way to get a pulse — the best way is to actively ask people,” Davis said.

Wheaton has two committees made up of community members who advise officials. ‘‘One of the keys to redevelopment is that the community has to be involved,” Davis said.

Marian Fryer, a Wheaton resident and small business owner who serves on several advisory committees, said if community members aren’t involved in the process, development might not meet residents’ needs. ‘‘That’s one of the reasons why I’ve been so active.”

What’s in store Some projects ahead for Silver Spring: DSW Shoe Warehouse Z Pizza Fuddrucker’s Old Dominion Brewing Company

In Wheaton, she said, residents and workers need safe ways to cross Georgia Avenue and access Westfield Wheaton. The area needed more residential units and ways to retain the flavor of small businesses. Community members expressed those concerns to county officials and developers.

Attending advisory meetings takes time, Fryer said, but is worth it.

Residents, developers team up

In Wheaton, a developer and residents were able to work together and select a plan they felt ultimately worked best. ‘‘That collaboration was exciting,” said Artie Harris, vice president of the Bozzuto Group, which is working on several development projects in Wheaton.

‘‘It’s important to have that perspective in order to be able to keep it a community,” Fryer said. ‘‘We have an opportunity to be Wheaton, to be different from Silver Spring, to be different from Rockville.”

Greenbelt-based Bozzuto has been active in Wheaton’s redevelopment since the late 1990s, when it put in an unsolicited proposal to build over the Metro station, Harris said. At that time, the proposal wasn’t granted because Metro wasn’t developing the site, but Bozzuto and Bethesda-based developer EYA, formerly known as Eakin⁄Youngentob Associates, acquired the former Tuesday Morning site on Georgia Avenue and split it.

Bozzuto built 243 apartments and EYA built townhomes in a response to the need for more residential development.

Toward the end of this month, along with the Housing Opportunities Commission, Bozzuto will begin building a mixed-use development with 173 residential units as well as retail space over Wheaton’s Kiss and Ride, Harris said. Thirty percent of the units will be affordable. In about two years, the group plans to build an office building over the bus station on the west side of Georgia Avenue.

The group listened to the community’s suggestions when creating plans, Harris said, keeping in mind that Wheaton, with its large number of retail and restaurants, needed more residential and office space. ‘‘You don’t want to be a cookie-cutter community.”

Several stops and starts

Likewise, in Silver Spring, which is much further along in its redevelopment, steering committees advised officials and developers.

Several plans to revitalize Silver Spring emerged over the past two decades, led by developers and politicians who hoped to transform Silver Spring. Before the current redevelopment began to take shape, two major large-scale plans were considered and rejected mainly because developers didn’t believe retailers would rent space in the buildings that had been proposed.

Many credit the role of community activists who opposed the projects that didn’t get built and kept encouraging county officials and developers to consider development on a smaller scale. Those residents attended several years’ worth of meetings, telling developers and county officials what they did and didn’t want to see.

Both the business and civic community played a role in the development of the downtown, said longtime Silver Spring business owner Charles Atwell. When developers were considering putting the American Dream mall in Silver Spring’s downtown, some of the members of those advisory committees even visited the Mall of America in Minneapolis and West Edmonton Mall in Canada, which were seen as prototypes for the Silver Spring mall. Members of the Ghermezian family from Triple Five Development made public appearances in Silver Spring, touting a destination shopping center that featured an amusement park, a theme hotel and a wave pool.

Community members spent hours on weeknights and weekends talking about what they wanted to see in Silver Spring, Atwell said. At the time, officials and residents believed that Silver Spring’s rebirth depended on making the development a regional destination. While some residents believed a megamall was inappropriate, others saw it as just what Silver Spring needed. Ultimately, the lack of development interest doomed the project.

Where residents come first

Once the megamall was rejected, residents eventually told developers Foulger-Pratt Companies and Peterson Companies in the late 1990s about the types of stores they wanted to see in a local downtown.

Foulger-Pratt and Peterson had a good idea of what they thought should be in the downtown, said Bryant Foulger, vice president of Foulger-Pratt, and the community confirmed that idea at several public meetings.

The suggestions included traditional town fixtures, like a grocery and hardware store, which Foulger-Pratt and Peterson sought out as tenants. Whole Foods was one of the first stores to sign on to the downtown Silver Spring redevelopment project.

‘‘We felt like the Ghermezian project kind of missed the whole community issue,” Foulger said. ‘‘They took the view that this needed to be an entertainment [center].”

Foulger said his vision — and the community’s — was of a center that would serve and draw in people in the surrounding neighborhoods. People living near downtown Silver Spring had money to spend, he said.

‘‘We had a very clear picture of what would do well and wouldn’t do well,” he said.

The final step in Silver Spring’s downtown renaissance, however, was the county’s ability to bring in Discovery Communications from Bethesda and the American Film Institute to a refurbished Silver Theatre. The influx of workers from a large employer and movie-goers at AFI provided the final impetus for commercial tenants to come to Silver Spring. Tax and financial incentives, as well as large parcels of county-owned land, made it possible to redo Silver Spring’s downtown.

Foulger-Pratt and Peterson did seek out some stores, but other restaurants and retail have come to the area on their own accord, he said, and businesses continue to call and inquire about space.

The development on Ellsworth Drive probably has all the restaurants it needs, Foulger said, and now the company is focusing on retail. DSW Shoe Warehouse will open in July and a day spa will be opening in the space above Macaroni Grill. After that, Foulger said, the town center will be about 96 percent occupied and will be focusing on leasing more ‘‘softer goods.”

When leasing tenants, he said, ‘‘We have to look at downtown Silver Spring not just as our project but the entire area. I’m pleased to see other retail going in the properties around us.”

For instance, restaurants like Taste of Morocco, Ben and Jerry’s and Chipotle have leased space in City Place. A steakhouse is coming to the Lee property on Colesville Road. Clothing store American Apparel plans to open in a building at Colesville Road and Fenton Street, just across from the Ellsworth Drive development.

The downtown was made possible by the partnership developers had with the county, Foulger said. That partnership was critical to the success of the project since county officials assembled the land.

No surplus of county land

But unlike Silver Spring, Wheaton doesn’t have county land available to give to a company to bring workers to the downtown, which is why many Wheaton stakeholders are interested in zoning changes that would allow increased building height. That would allow more space to be created for offices, residences and some retail.

However, the specific stores that come to a community often can’t be chosen, Davis said, since the market influences business owners. However, people can make it known the types of things they’d like to see — and things they’d like to avoid.

‘‘One concern is that there’s too much retail at Wheaton right now,” he said.

When developers determine what to build, they will often use a consultant, Harris said. ‘‘When nothing exists there, it’s hard to determine what is the best product.”

In Wheaton, community members and officials would like to emphasize office and residential development to create more daytime traffic in the community, as well as focus on arts and entertainment.

‘‘I’d like to see mixed-use development,” Davis said, adding legislation that would change the overlay zone would slightly increase height regulations in the downtown and allow opportunity for denser development. That, he said, would allow more opportunity for mixed-use development and bring more people to Wheaton. It also would retain small businesses.

Marketing plays a key

The mall brings people to Wheaton’s downtown, Davis said, but the county and developers need to find a way to get those people to the rest of the community.

That entails creating physical pathways, Davis said, as well as marketing the downtown and its events, like the upcoming Taste of Wheaton. That event draws thousands of people annually and has played an important part in introducing area residents to the neighborhood.

Similar events, like the annual jazz festival, attract thousands of people to Silver Spring.

Events and marketing are important, said Gary Stith, director of the Silver Spring Regional Services Center. Not too long ago, downtown Silver Spring was an area perceived as unsafe with not much to do. And bringing people to the downtown proved difficult at first because not only was the area unattractive, it also was unattended.

‘‘We’d turn everything into an event,” he said, recalling the day the Tastee Diner was moved from its old location — where the Discovery building now stands — to its current location on Cameron Street. Officials turned the moving of the building into a parade.

‘‘There was a perception a lot of people still have of downtown Silver Spring,” Stith said. ‘‘We’ve had to work to let people know what kind of downtown Silver Spring we have now.”