Wheaton’s butterfly effect

Despite being a thoroughly walkable urban location, downtown Wheaton has a few empty parcels of land, particularly on its borders. One such parcel is the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Blueridge Avenue, a ten minute walk north of the Wheaton Metro and currently owned by WMATA. WMATA plans to sell this land to a developer for a mixed-use project including residences, office space, and most importantly (to me, since my house is under a five minute walk from the site) a new modern Safeway in its basement/ground floor.

The Safeway will move from its current location at the intersection of Reedie Drive and Georgia Avenue, literally right above the Metro. The current Safeway was built in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s and is distinctly anti-urban, like many projects of its time. It is now too small for a modern supermarket, and sits behind a surface parking lot. Basically, it suffers all the functional drawbacks of a suburban model (surface parking lot, large footprint) with none of the advantages (large store with lots of product selection).

However, the current Safeway’s largest drawback is its opportunity cost of having such an anti-urban configuration in the middle of a fundamentally walkable urban place, and is also on top of a station for the heavy rail system with the second largest ridership in the United States. As the recent construction of the MetroPointe apartment/condos on the other side of Reedie Drive demonstrate, there is demand for residential uses at that site.

More importantly, downtown Wheaton quite simply needs more people. Neighboring Silver Spring is thriving, in large part due to its high population density patronizing its excellent diversity of businesses. Wheaton has much less diversity, with a majority of restaurants. Few places sell durable goods. That’s largely because of the nearby Westfield Wheaton suburban shopping mall.

In the 1960s, this was the place to be, and put Silver Spring’s department stores out of business. After buying the mall in 2003, Westfield renovated what had become a run-down, undesirable place.

The mall’s revitalization has greatly contributed to the revitalization of Wheaton as a whole. But having just renovated it, Westfield won’t want to redevelop the mall anytime soon. Also, that most of downtown Wheaton is zoned for single use, single story commercial. There are no residences. Not enough people walk past the storefronts. Still, Wheaton has a lot of potential, due to its true urban form and lack of large surface parking lots. It has garages that are tucked away out of sight, like in Bethesda and Silver Spring.

Wheaton has made a little progress with housing this decade, with the first housing since World War II in the Central Business District, the townhouses on University Boulevard and Grandview Ave, which are at the edge of the CBD. The previously-mentioned apartments/condos between the Best Buy and Reedie Drive are the first residential units that aren’t on the periphery of the CBD-zoned area, but rather completely within it.

Once the supermarket moves, Safeway will want to sell its land for a huge profit. When Safeway purchased that land, Wheaton was a tiny town on the fringe of the Washington region. There was no Metro, and no plans whatsoever to extend rail rapid transit underneath its new land acquisition. Whoever buys it will have an opportunity to build something urban that should contain more housing units.

As our experience has shown, the economic vibrancy of a walkable urban place depends on people walking on the streets and patronizing the businesses. With more demand for goods and services, more businesses sprout up. The more businesses in walking distance, the more people want to live there for the convenience and vibrant street life. It’s a beautiful self-reinforcing cycle.

The Gazette recently wrote about negotiations between the Montgomery County Council, Planning Board, and developer, Avalon Bay. Though desirable, urban revitalization is not always pretty, as I’m continuously learning through my work as an activist, I am very positive about the long-range prospects of urbanism in our region. Our nation is currently experiencing rapid change in how we look at ourselves. Walkable cities and towns can be extremely positive forces for cultural and economic progress if managed and governed properly.