Clark Enterprises says a park—not a new high-rise building—should be built in the plaza that sits above the Bethesda Metro station and at the busy intersection of Old Georgetown Road and Wisconsin Avenue.
To prove a park would work, the attorney representing Clark recently sent Montgomery County planners a letter detailing similar parks from an architect named Thomas Balsley in New York City, Denver and Dallas that are actively used despite placement in busy downtown areas.
“You asked us to provide you some examples of where parks, plazas and open spaces like the Bethesda Metro Center are successful as active urban parks,” attorney Jody Kline wrote. “Well, it took a while but we not only found appropriate examples for you and your staff to consider, but we also identified the gentleman who seems to have the key for making public spaces abutting or even circumscribed by heavily traveled public streets into popular urban parks with heavy community utilization.”
The letter is a prime example of the type of input planners are weighing before making their recommendations for the Bethesda Downtown Plan, expected to come out later this week.
It’s also the latest salvo in an ongoing feud between Clark Enterprises, which has its headquarters on the Old Georgetown Road side of the plaza, and neighbor Brookfield Office Properties, which hopes to build a high-rise building on the plaza.
Both Clark and Brookfield have hired Rockville-based public relations companies to help present their cases to various community groups and curry favor before the county Planning Board and County Council finalize the new master plan.
In a rare public spat between developers, Clark and plaza neighbors Chevy Chase Land Co. and Chevy Chase Bank fought a 2006 proposal from Brookfield’s predecessor at 3 Bethesda Metro Center.
Then-owner Meridian wanted to build a 16-story office building on roughly the site where Brookfield would like the planning department’s blessing to build a new high-rise.
Clark claimed the building would ruin the views from its own buildings and hurt any chance of improving the public plaza space, which has long been viewed as a failure because of the lack of public use.
Kline told planners that architect David Kitchens, known for his work on Bethesda Row, has used examples from Balsley to inspire “several design precedents” that could reinvigorate the plaza.
They include a park just west of Columbus Circle in Manhattan that Kline said flourished after a children’s play area, a café terrace, better sidewalks, and benches and lawns for sitting were added.
“The Clark Enterprises team feels that this is an excellent example of what can be done, and what needs to be done, in order to make Bethesda Metro Center Plaza a preeminent urban park.”
Brookfield has plans for its own new park that would be built on a spot farther from the intersection on the opposite side of its proposed high-rise. The developer has argued that ground-floor retail in the new building would help bring foot traffic to the park.
