Montgomery County wants to add two floors, more county agencies and $21 million in construction costs to the county government office building planned for Wheaton Triangle.
County officials on Tuesday said the addition of the two floors would provide for greater efficiencies and allow the Department of Recreation, Community Use of Public Facilities and inspectors for the Department of Health and Human Services to move to the building.
The 14-story building, which was already slated to become the new headquarters of the Planning Department, the parks and permitting services departments, a division of the Department of Environmental Protection and the Mid-County Regional Services Center, would cost $168 million.
Al Roshdieh, director of the county’s Department of Transportation (MCDOT), told members of the council’s Government Operations and Planning, Housing and Economic Development committees that the building is set to be opened in the fall of 2019.
The county has long sought a redevelopment project to help spur economic activity in Wheaton Triangle, an area between Georgia Avenue and Veirs Mill Road near the Wheaton Metro station and anchored by a large county-owned public parking lot.
The office building, which would be owned by the Maryland-National Capital Parks and Planning Commission, is set to be built on part of that parking lot. County officials hope the influx of county government workers can provide more daytime business in Wheaton’s central business district.
The other part of the existing parking lot is set for a 17-story, 204-unit apartment building with an above-ground parking garage from developers StonebridgeCarras and Bozzuto.
The office building will include an underground parking garage with about 400 spaces, ground-floor retail space and a child care facility.
Part of the Wheaton Triangle project is a 35,000-square-foot town square that will be built partially on the site of the existing Mid-County Regional Services Center on Reedie Drive. It will extend from the bus bays entrance of the Wheaton Metro station to the south façade of the county office building.
The county expects to defray some of the office building’s $168 million cost by selling the site of the parks and planning commission’s existing headquarters in Silver Spring for about $15 million.
MCDOT is overseeing the project and Roshdieh said Tuesday that agencies such as the Department of Recreation and Community Use of Public Facilities already work closely together, so it made sense to bring those employees into the Wheaton building.
Montgomery Parks has employees embedded with Community Use of Public Facilities, the county agency that rents out public playing fields and facilities within school buildings.
“I think having them together with us in our building is going to improve the situation even more,” Parks Director Mike Riley said.
County Executive Ike Leggett, in a memo to council members last month asking for the change to the current capital budget, said moving the Department of Recreation from its current headquarters on Bushey Drive in Wheaton would mean cost-savings over the long term since maintenance costs for the older building have escalated.
Leggett also wrote the Bushey Drive site could be redeveloped into an affordable senior housing project.
The county plans to begin some environmental remediation and structural work on the Wheaton building this spring.
