Clark Enterprises says it’s willing to help pay for a renovated park at the Bethesda Metro Plaza, the latest move in the company’s opposition to a proposal for a high-rise building on the spot.
Clark, headquartered in a 200-foot high-rise next to the plaza, and Brookfield Office Properties, which owns the rights to the plaza, have for months engaged in a tense public relations battle over the future of the space.
Montgomery County planners recommended allowing building heights of up to 290 feet on the property in a rewrite of downtown Bethesda’s master plan. The plan is now before the county’s five-member Planning Board and also must get approval from the County Council.
Clark Enterprises Senior Vice President Rebecca Owen wrote a letter to the planning board June 29 in which she said the construction giant is willing to contribute money to an effort to make the plaza into a green park space.
She also wrote that Clark founder and CEO Jim Clark, who died in March at the age of 87, wanted to preserve the space “to retain this public benefit for his beloved Bethesda.”
Owen’s commitment that Clark will provide “dollars and leadership to help bring a renovation of the existing plaza to fruition” seems to be a direct response to Brookfield Properties Senior Vice President Simon Carney.
At a planning board public hearing June 24, Carney said Clark’s public relations campaign was presenting the community “with a false choice.”
Brookfield owns the ground lease for the site from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and is proposing what it calls “Bethesda Central Park” on the interior of a new, roughly 200-foot-tall building on the plaza.
Brookfield has also promised improvements to the Metro station bus bay below the plaza as part of the project.
Clark claims that Brookfield’s proposed public space would be smaller and not visible enough from the intersection of Old Georgetown Road and Wisconsin Avenue.
Owen wrote that could result in another underperforming interior public space in downtown Bethesda, similar to nearby plazas at the Regional Services Center and The Original Pancake House (known to many as “Pancake Plaza.”)
Owen pointed to support from the Edgemoor, Kenwood and Battery Park neighborhood groups and more than 400 individual letters of support for Clark’s “Bethesda Metro Park” plan.
Some were apparently inspired to lend their support by a Clark-distributed flier that shows a rendering of Bethesda Metro Park compared to a 290-foot tall high-rise with the message, “Your choice for Bethesda Metro Plaza.”
While not directly addressing the flier, Carney criticized the message during his public hearing testimony.
“Unsurprisingly, many people have chosen the open space,” Carney told the planning board. “The reality, however, is that the new development at the Metro center will achieve both new transit-oriented development and significantly more open space. It is not an either-or scenario.”
A few days after that hearing, District 16 State Dels. Ariana Kelly and Bill Frick sent the planning board a letter in support of Clark’s proposal.
“Across Montgomery County, successful and active urban public spaces are easily visible and accessible from the street, and like the Rockville Town Center and Silver Spring Plaza, downtown Bethesda needs an expansive gathering space for large community events,” the delegates wrote. “Metro Plaza is an ideal location and likely our last chance at a vast greenspace in downtown Bethesda.”
Ariana Kelly, Bill Frick letter to Planning Board on Bethesda Metro Plaza
The plaza space failed to become the central community gathering space
planners envisioned in downtown Bethesda’s last master plan, completed in 1994.
An ice skating rink on the plaza closed. A food court in the building facing the plaza closed and was converted to ground-floor office space.
Brookfield, Clark and county planners agree that the plaza’s current design, including elevation changes, raised planters and a large fountain, make it uninviting.
Owen wrote in her letter to the planning board that Jim Clark was personally involved in creating the plaza in 1980 with Montgomery County, WMATA and a previous owner of the plaza property.
Owen said that Clark helped pay for improvements to the plaza “in exchange for the county transferring the development rights from the plaza’s public space to additional height for the four existing buildings on the Metro Plaza.”
In 2008, Clark Enterprises, the Chevy Chase Land Co. and Chevy Chase Bank fought a proposed 16-story office building from Meridian, one of the plaza’s previous owners, in a rare public spat between developers.
The companies claimed it would ruin views from their buildings and hurt any chance at improving the public space. The planning board rejected the new building, despite planning staff’s recommendation to approve it.
As planners began work on the Bethesda Downtown Plan, Clark hired well-known Bethesda Row architect David Kitchens to come up with potential designs for its vision of the plaza.
With help from Rockville-based public relations firm Maier & Warner, Clark began presenting the proposal to community and civic groups and asking for support.
Brookfield hired Rockville-based public relations firm Chesapeake Strategies and made its own presentations with renderings of a new high-rise and park with ground-floor retail Carney said would help draw people to the area.
June 29 Clark Enterprises letter to Planning Board on Bethesda Metro Plaza
