Facing a medical office building that’s less than 50% leased and knowing the light-rail Purple Line would run nearby, physician Inder Chawla says he decided that now was the time to redevelop his property into a 148-unit apartment building.
With the Montgomery County Planning Board’s unanimous approval Thursday of a sketch plan for the project, Chawla’s plans for the redevelopment of the University Boulevard Medical Plaza at 831 University Boulevard East are moving forward.
Chawla, head of acquisitions for Potomac-based development and property management company Sonina Properties, told Bethesda Today on Friday he was excited about the plans moving forward and was hoping construction would begin in early to mid-2026. The project’s development team must next submit a preliminary plan to the board.
“We did some market search and found [that a] multifamily project at that site would really meet the need of the community, and also sort of change the character of that asset there because the building is dated. It was built in the early 1960s,” Chawla said.
The proposed six-story building would house up to 148 apartments with around 18, or 12.5%, designated as moderately priced dwelling units (MPDUs), and would include 115 parking spaces, according to planning documents. The site is near the intersection of University Boulevard, Carroll Avenue and Forston Street, about one-tenth of a mile from the border of Montgomery and Prince George’s counties.
Two future Purple Line stations — the Takoma Langley Station and the Piney Branch Station – are expected to be located about one-third of a mile from the proposed apartment building, planning documents state. In addition, Rolling Terrace Elementary School is about a half-mile from the site and the Takoma Park Spanish SDA Church, Takoma Academy Preparatory School and Sligo Adventist Elementary School sit next to the property.
At Thursday’s board meeting, three neighbors of the proposed project raised several concerns, including possible increased traffic in the neighborhood, less availability of street parking and the location of the building’s proposed entry on Glenville Road.
Spencer Clark, owner of an adjacent property on Glenville Road, told commissioners that he supported the plan to provide housing options to the area in light of Purple Line construction. However, Clark said he was concerned about the “unacceptable negative impact on the Rolling Terrace neighborhood” due to increased traffic on its narrow side streets.
Cynthia Sealls, a 45-year resident of the neighborhood, said the proposed building entrance on Glenville Road would be “inconvenient and unsafe” for existing neighborhood residents and future tenants of the building.
“Our neighborhood has very tight residential streets … having one entry and exit point will be very inconvenient for the residents, they will not be able to get in and out very easily,” Sealls said.
Chawla told Bethesda Today that the project development team’s traffic engineers determined the building’s residents would not contribute significantly to local traffic and that the Glenville Road entrance was the best option for the property.
If the entrance were placed at University Boulevard or Carroll Avenue, “that would be a disaster,” Chawla said. “That would be such an accident-prone, high-risk area.”
Before voting on the sketch plan, board Chair Artie Harris noted his children attended Rolling Terrace Elementary School and that he was familiar with the traffic that came with the morning school rush. However, Harris said he was “jazzed” about the project bringing more housing to the area.
“I go by this area maybe four times a week and that office building — it would be nice if there was housing — and I’m delighted that you’re proposing housing, but I do think that the traffic in that area needs to be really looked at given there’s one way in and out now,” Harris said.
He noted the development team should include a “strong” traffic study when it returns to the board with the project’s preliminary plan.
Board Commissioner Shawn Bartley also praised the project, saying it was a “much needed development” that would be a “genesis of good things to come” in the area.
