Gazette.Net: Willco drops Silver Spring office plan for residences

Rendering from Colliers International Construction has started on Waterloo Crossing, a 66,000-square-foot, two-building medical office project in Columbia, with delivery expected next summer.

This story was corrected on Oc.t 12, 2012. An explanation follows the story.

Willco Cos. has scrapped plans for an office building in favor of residential space in downtown Silver Spring, marking the latest delay to add commercial space to the Georgia Avenue corridor.

The Potomac developer has filed an amendment application with the Montgomery County Planning Board to build a 292-unit residential building at 8621 Georgia Ave. The 1-acre site currently a surface parking lot has a long history of commercial use, including 34 years as the first home of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which moved to Howard County in 1976.

Willco won approval for a 190,000-square-foot office building in 2009 and had planned to begin construction once it lined up a major tenant. But faced with weak demand for new office space in downtown Silver Spring, the company applied this month for a residential amendment to its project and site plans.

Its basically the same building envelope being used as the office building, said Brian Donnelly, an engineer with Macris, Hendricks, & Glascock, a civil engineering and land planning firm working for Willco.

Willcos change of plans marks the latest in a series of delays of filling in development gaps in downtown Silver Spring north of Colesville Road.

The property is 75 feet north of Colesville Road, next to land owned by Lee Development Group, which won approval in 2008 for a class A office building and hotel adjacent to the Fillmore music hall the company completed last year.

There is no market right now for more office space, Bruce H. Lee, president of Lee Development, said in a recent interview.

Lee can afford to wait for tenants to come calling because the company lined up an unprecedented and controversial 15-year development window when the Montgomery County Council approved the Fillmore project in 2008.

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Gazette.Net: Willco drops Silver Spring office plan for residences