The National Institutes of Health has formally approved a master plan that could bring 3,000 more employees and more than a dozen new buildings to its 310-acre Bethesda campus over the next 20 years.
The NIH issued its Record of Decision on Friday, choosing to go with the proposed alternative that drew criticism from neighbors and county planning officials concerned with traffic and parking capacity. The campus is now home to a little more than 20,000 employees.
NIH said the potential increase in traffic generated by campus growth “would only minimally contribute to the amount of traffic on the roadways in the vicinity of the campus.”
The campus is located just north of downtown Bethesda, between the notoriously traffic-clogged arteries of Rockville Pike and Old Georgetown Road.
“If the campus houses 3,000 additional staff, the impact on morning and evening rushes is estimated to be approximately 12 percent more NIH vehicles. When taking into account that NIH’s contribution to local traffic constitutes only approximately 25% of the traffic, the impact on the community is estimated to be 3%,” read the Record of Decision.
“Furthermore, by the time the capital improvements contemplated under the Selected Alternative are in place, mass transit developments such as the Purple Line and Bus Rapid Transit might well be in place, thereby offsetting the 3% congestion.”
The agency has also said it must retain its 2-to-1 employee to parking space ratio, despite federal standards that push for a 3-to-1 employee to parking space ratio to encourage the use of transit and cut down on single-passenger vehicle trips.
In the Record of Decision, NIH said any parking added for additional staff will be added based on the National Capital Planning Commission’s recommended 3-to-1 ratio.
NIH on-campus parking facilities were 95 percent full, with 9,744 vehicles parked on the campus in the peak hour between 10 and 11 a.m., according to a 2012 study in the agency’s draft environmental impact statement.
That means nearly 10,000 vehicles entered and exited the NIH campus each day.
In October 2012, NIH presented its Master Plan (without the studies in the environmental impact statement) to the Montgomery County Planning Board.
The Board has no binding legal authority over the planned development and parking accommodations, but that didn’t stop some Board commissioners from criticizing NIH’s unwillingness to seek the preferred parking ratio.
“There’s no rational reason that I’m aware of that you shouldn’t have a 3-to-1 ratio by this point,” then-commissioner Casey Anderson told an NIH representative. “With due respect, maybe people shouldn’t live in West Virginia and work in Bethesda.”
NIH officials have been quick to caution that the growth of the campus would happen over 20 years, with the vast majority of the additional 3,000 employees coming from off-campus NIH sites.
The redevelopment portion of the master plan consists mostly of converting old laboratories — some old and prominent enough to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places — into administrative space, while building newer labs with better technology and energy efficiency.
Old parking lots would be consolidated into parking garages and there would be a 3 percent increase in open space on the campus, if the master plan is fully built out.
