The developer converting a proposed downtown Bethesda apartment building into a luxury condominium project described some of the changes it will make during a required public meeting Wednesday night.
Toll Brothers City Living, a division of Pennsylvania-based developer Toll Brothers, bought the rights to the 8008 Wisconsin Ave. project from Douglas Development in December.
The project is still moving through the Montgomery County Planning Department’s approvals process and Toll Brothers wants to convert it from a 14-story, 140-unit rental apartment building to a 14-story, 106-unit condominium building.
Attorney Emily Vaias, who represented Douglas and is representing Toll Brothers, said Wednesday the new developer hopes to submit a site plan and an amendment to already approved plans to the department in the next two months. Vaias said the developer hopes to appear before the Planning Board and get the project approved this summer.
If that happens, construction on the building could start as early as the second quarter of 2017, according to a Toll Brothers representative at the meeting. The property includes the former Ranger Surplus store and a dry cleaners on Wisconsin Avenue and the beer and wine store on Woodmont Avenue known as “the Beer House.”
The 106 condos would be split between one-bedroom, one-bedroom with a den, two-bedroom, two-bedroom with a den and three-bedroom units. Toll Brothers is proposing that 15 percent of the units be moderately priced, meaning 16 units would be available to renters meeting income restrictions according to county law. Half of those units would be one-bedrooms and the other half would be two-bedrooms.
The project would include a pool deck and clubhouse on the top floor. Other substantive proposed changes from Douglas Development’s plans include a retail space fronting Wisconsin Avenue and more parking—about 60 spaces spread across three parking garage floors.
Vaias said Toll Brothers won’t seek to change the agreement between Douglas and the county concerning the Wisconsin Avenue sidewalk.
Douglas became the first developer in downtown Bethesda to be impacted by the county’s 2013 master plan for bus rapid transit, which requires extra right-of-way on Wisconsin Avenue for a possible but unfunded bus rapid transit system.
Toll Brothers will submit a site plan that includes a 35-foot-wide sidewalk on the Wisconsin Avenue side of its building, which will allow the county room to tear up some of that sidewalk and build the bus rapid transit system, if officials decide to move ahead with that project.
The Cordell Avenue sidewalk will be about 15 feet wide and the Woodmont Avenue sidewalk will range from 17 to 29 feet wide.
