Plans for a new five-bay fire station in North Bethesda are moving forward following approval last week by the Montgomery County Planning Board.
On Thursday, the board reviewed and unanimously approved a mandatory referral and forest conservation plan for the construction of the White Flint Fire Station during its weekly meeting at Montgomery Planning headquarters in Wheaton. Mandatory referrals are land use, sale, acquisition or development plans submitted by government entities to be reviewed by the board.
Now that the plans are approved and reviewed, the project is in the county’s hands. At 1:30 p.m. on April 21, the County Council’s Public Safety Committee will review all Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service projects in the county’s Capital Improvement Program, according to the office of councilmember and committee chair Sidney Katz. With upcoming county budget decisions to be made for fiscal year 2026, the project could stay on its current schedule of starting construction in mid-2026 or face delays.
The new station is to be built at 11920 Chapman Ave., a few blocks from the North Bethesda Metrorail station and near the Pike & Rose mixed-use development, Montrose Crossing shopping center and several multi-family apartment buildings.
According to planning documents, the proposed station will be a one-story building with five apparatus bays on the corner of Josiah Henson Parkway and Chapman Avenue. The station will include dormitories, private bunk space, administrative offices and meeting/training rooms. The station is also planned to serve as a police substation.
The plans include several sustainability features such as solar panels incorporated into the roof, solar canopies over the station’s police parking lot and electric vehicle chargers for visitors and staff, according to planning documents. The station will have electric chargers for fire and rescue and police vehicles to accommodate a future fleet conversion to electric vehicles.
Board Chair Artie Harris applauded the sustainability elements of the project during Thursday’s meeting.
“I also love that you’re putting solar on the roof and solar in the parking lot,” Harris said. “I wish all the schools and public facilities would have things like that when it’s practical.”
A long time coming
According to County Council President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4), the fire station project has been included in the county’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) since 2015.
Construction at the site, which is within Stewart’s district, is expected to begin in mid-2026, with completion in 2029, according to a County Council report. However, a difficult budget year could result in more delays to the project as the council discusses the full CIP in the coming months.
The project was initially included in the 2015-2020 CIP because the county was anticipating an increase in development and population density in the North Bethesda area, and therefore an increase in calls for service for the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service (MCFRS), according to Stewart. However, the county has since determined that calls for service in this area have not increased as anticipated a decade ago, partly because new residential buildings have fire suppression systems and younger demographics moving to the area, she said.
Despite a different outcome than expected, the county is still looking to move the project forward, Stewart said, noting that a number of housing projects for older residents are being planned for the area.
By building the station, the county also aims to supplement Rockville Fire Station No. 23 at 121 Rollins Ave., which has three bays and is “extremely undersized to meet the current response time requirements,” according to the 2025-2030 CIP.
The CIP also recommends relocating the Rollins Avenue fire station to the new station after it is built. However, county Fire Chief Corey Smedley told Bethesda Today in mid-March that the department is advocating to keep the station.
“[With] the growth that’s coming, it’s going to be an added challenge and we need to make sure that that station remains,” Smedley said.
Despite the project delays, the community has kept its eye on the project, including the Pike District Partnership, a non-profit organization focused on North Bethesda’s economic development.
In the Pike District’s March newsletter, the nonprofit shared it recently sent a letter to county Department of General Services Director David Dise and MCFRS Division of Operations Chief Gary Cooper in support of renaming the station as the “North Bethesda Fire Station.”
The change would align with the Metrorail station’s name change from White Flint Metro station to the North Bethesda Metro station and would “better reflect the community’s identity,” the nonprofit said in the newsletter.
“This is a meaningful step in ensuring consistency across our neighborhood’s key landmarks,” the nonprofit said, adding that the Western Montgomery County Citizens Advisory Board also backed the change.
Project cost increases
In early March, the council’s Public Safety Committee reviewed several amendments to the county’s 2025-2030 CIP regarding three fire station renovation and construction projects, including the planned White Flint Fire Station.
The committee recommended the approval of a $6.9 million increase in the cost of the White Flint station project, which would bring the total to nearly $48.8 million, according to the council report. The cost increase stems from the council’s decision last year to defer the start of construction to fiscal year 2027, which begins on July 1, 2026, the report said. Now the council must vote on whether to approve the increase.
“As long as the full council votes to keep it moving and takes that recommendation, then we anticipate around 2029 to be able to get completed with the construction and work toward occupying the structure,” Smedley said.
According to the report, the project was added to the county’s CIP with an original cost of $27.8 million. The project has been delayed for years due to “fiscal capacity,” the report states, although the design of the project began in October 2023 and was completed in December 2024.
According to Stewart, delays also stemmed from redesigning the station to be more environmentally sustainable.
