The Montgomery County Planning Board recently gave preliminary approval to construct a 213-foot-tall tower apartment building at 5500 Wisconsin Ave. in Friendship Heights.
The tower would dominate the local skyline and block views of the sky. It would add 300 to 400 cars and around 100 delivery trucks to overcrowded streets. (The developers project 391 underground tenant parking spaces.)
The board ignored the pleas of the Friendship Heights Village government and of the Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights, which includes the 20 associations that represent all nearby neighborhoods.
Most people who live in this neighborhood are for planned and smart growth. No one supports empty stores, empty parking lots and empty restaurants. The question is, what does Friendship Heights need?
It’s not a 213-foot-tall apartment building.
Friendship Heights could be the home of a major learning center, a center of medical research, the federal offices of companies in the IT/internet industry, a major insurance company, radio/TV/internet broadcasters and much more.
New employers would build on excellence already in Friendship Heights. (From the streets, you can see signs for Microsoft, GEICO, WTOP, WMAL and more.)
Most supporters of the tower seem to feel Friendship Heights needs another 380-unit apartment building as the only way to promote growth. Lured by the gimmick of drawings of fabulous street scenes, and offered only two options — empty stores or fabulous street life — judging by the comments of supporters, most concluded that fabulous street life is better than empty stores.
Smart growth was never considered.
Support for the proposal was based on what I believe are four myths worth examining.
Myth 1: This giant apartment building is essential to revitalizing Friendship Heights.
For four reasons, the commercial core of Friendship Heights has significantly declined: a) regional competition (D.C. waterfront, Rockville, Alexandria, Tysons, downtown D.C., etc.); b) online competition; c) the pandemic; and d) looting during the summer of 2020. I cannot imagine that a single business that closed or moved would have remained had this apartment building been there.
More importantly, around 8,000 people live in the loosely defined Friendship Heights neighborhood (around 5,400 in the village plus another 2,500 in adjacent building and neighborhoods).
Adding about 400 more residents as proposed in the plan (from 380 one-bedroom/efficiency units) would have no effect on the commercial core. In fact, an Irish-themed restaurant and bar and a food hall were already planned for the neighborhood long before this building received preliminary approval.
Myth 2: This proposed 380-unit building is essential to bringing moderately priced housing to Montgomery County to relieve housing pressures.
The developers plan to include about 60 moderately priced units in the building. That will have virtually no impact on Montgomery County’s housing needs. I know that due to the natural forces of aging buildings and regional competition, rental rates in most of Friendship Heights are already coming down.
As a landlord, I would guess that each year, far more than 60 efficiencies in Friendship Heights become moderately priced due to regional competition alone.
Myth 3: This tall apartment tower is necessary for Montgomery County since high-rise housing should be located near Metro stations to achieve countywide transportation-environmental goals.
Many neighborhoods adjacent to many Metro stations in Montgomery County could significantly benefit from a 380-unit apartment building and would not be much affected by 300 to 400 more cars.
Anyone who concludes that the best Metro station neighborhood in Montgomery County for a high-rise apartment building is Friendship Heights could not have visited Glenmont, Shady Grove, Wheaton, and more. This misguided presumption parallels the utterly unreasonable assertion that the new apartment building would be occupied only by 400 bicycle-riding firefighters and teachers who don’t own cars.
Myth 4: The Friendship Heights neighborhood is demographically older than the county as a whole and this super-tall building is essential for attracting a younger demographic.
There is no evidence that tenants in a new building would be younger than elsewhere.
Anyone walking the streets or riding the elevators of this neighborhood will notice more small children, teens, millennials, Gen Xers and every age group. Time has its own way of changing the demographics of any community.
According to the 2020 Census, the median age in Friendship Heights is now 46.7, meaning half of the residents are younger than 46.
I have nothing but respect for real estate investors, developers and law/PR firms hired to advance this proposed high-rise.
As someone who has invested in residential real estate for over 40 years, I know that investors want the highest return possible consistent with their risk tolerance and investment horizon.
Developers face the incredibly complex task of matching real estate investors with land, construction, the marketplace and regulators. Law and PR firms owe it to clients to do the best job possible.
None of these players, however, is responsible for considering the best interest of people in the Friendship Heights neighborhood. That’s the government’s job.
Finally, Friendship Heights presents a complex planning opportunity.
It straddles Montgomery County and the District. For residents, there is no difference between Friendship Heights, D.C., and Friendship Heights, Md.
It includes what the U.S. Census Bureau describes as the most densely populated Census-Designated Place in the United States.
Rather than cram another 300 to 400 cars and a sky-blocking building into this community, someone needs to creatively consider what the neighborhood could be and should be across these jurisdictional lines. This preliminary approval does nothing of the sort.
Roger Cochetti has been a resident of the Chevy Chase and Friendship Heights neighborhoods for over 30 years.
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