Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 10:23 a.m. April 11, 2025, was updated at 10:29 a.m. April 14, 2025, to correct the location of the new Montgomery County fiber hub, which is on Fairview Road.
Construction of a new 675-space public parking garage in downtown Silver Spring has begun under a partnership deal between Montgomery County and the biotechnology company United Therapeutics Corp., according to a company spokesperson Rick Abbruzzese.
The company, headquartered on Spring Street in downtown Silver Spring, is building the roughly $25 million garage at 8615 Georgia Ave. in exchange for its acquisition of the county’s Spring Cameron Garage to help expand its footprint.
Plans for the new garage faced criticism from the Montgomery County Planning Board in July when members reviewed a mandatory referral submitted by the county’s Department of Transportation. Mandatory referrals are plans that are submitted by government entities for any type of land acquisition, sale, use or development activity, according to Montgomery Planning. The board reviews plans on an advisory basis and can deny a project or approve it with or without comments.
Board members expressed frustration that housing construction was not a key element of the proposal. Chair Artie Harris noted the location of the new garage is near the Silver Spring Transit Center Station on the corner of Wayne Avenue and Colesville Road and in an “optimal location for housing.”
According to a December 2023 county press release announcing the partnership with United Therapeutics, the site of the new parking garage includes a parcel designated for a future affordable housing development.
Despite its frustration, the board approved the mandatory referral and sent a letter outlining its concerns about the development to County Executive Marc Elrich and the county’s transportation department.
About eight months after the referral plans were approved, United Therapeutics received a commercial building permit in mid-March to construct the garage at a cost of $24.7 million, according to the county’s Department of Permitting Services database. Montgomery Newsletter first reported the issuance of the permit.
According to planning documents, the Georgia Avenue garage will include a green roof or solar panels and decorative fins will cover the façade of the building to provide screening of the parking levels. In addition, the garage is poised to include 3,000 square feet of ground-floor space intended for retail and commercial use.
The garage site was a former surface parking lot and loading alley for surrounding offices and businesses, including The Fillmore. Abbruzzese said site excavation began in late January but he did not provide details about the timeline for the garage construction or when it will be completed.
A county partnership
The project is part of a partnership valued at more than $100 million between the county and United Therapeutics Corp. that will transfer county ownership of the 1,344-space Spring Cameron Garage at 8700 Cameron St. to the biotechnology company whose headquarters are at 1000 Spring St. in Silver Spring.
Through the land-transfer deal, United Therapeutics expects to expand its footprint in downtown Silver Spring by 40% and build a facility that could realize the company’s goal of manufacturing transplant organs, according to the county press release announcing the partnership.
Under the agreement, United Therapeutics will construct the parking garage at the site on Georgia Avenue. In addition, the company would relocate the county transportation department’s parking operations facility to a renovated facility at 9150 Brookville Road in Silver Spring and provide funding to the county to build a new fiber hub, the release said.
The now-built fiber hub, which replaces a county facility in the Spring Cameron Garage, is on Fairview Road across Spring Street from the parking garage. The fiber hub houses equipment that supports the county’s IT infrastructure.
Once the garage is complete, United Therapeutics is expected to transfer the site to the county. In return, the county will transfer ownership of the Spring Cameron Garage to the biotech company, according to the release. Another term of the agreement requires United Therapeutics to invest at least $50 million in any new facility on the site within 15 years of the ownership transfer.
