Politics & Government

Three Ideas for Wheaton's Town Square

B.F. Saul team presented town square options at Wheaton Redevelopment Advisory Committee meeting.

Wheaton’s town square will be in the current location of Parking Lot 13 and will be larger than the current green patch next to Reedie. Everything else, it seems, is up for discussion.

The B.F. Saul team knew that the town square element would attract the most attention and comment during the redevelopment process. Indeed, a proof of concept sketch up showing the Taste of Wheaton in the proposed location posted on the team’s public relations website ended up attracting both an April Fool’s Day joke and push-back from local residents.

So at Wednesday night’s Wheaton Redevelopment Advisory Committee, the first place where the Saul team publically presented some concepts for the town square, they had cameras on hand - to videotape the explanation of each town square plan to the committee.  The video is coming soon to the website, but it won’t be up for a few weeks.

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The concepts were created by Torti Gallas, the architectural firm on the team, and Michael Vergason, a landscape designer associated with the project, after two meetings with an “ad-hoc” committee, made of up representatives of Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee, WRAC itself, LEDC and other residents and business owners in Wheaton.

Based on feedback from the , and additional feedback from the ad-hoc committee, three concepts of the town square were created.

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General consensus from the ad-hoc town square committee, Looney said, was that the town square should be located in Parking Lot 13. Some other “musts” that Torti Gallas incorporated into the designs:

  • Places for daily activities, socialization.
  • Support/space for Taste of Wheaton and possible Farmers and Flea markets.
  • Seating for lunch - anything from a picnic to takeout from one of the nearby restaurants.

While the location and size is unlikely to change, Looney said that additional meetings and feedback will be held, if necessary, to make sure that the town square is what the area wants

“Wheaton’s town square needs to be Wheaton’s”, he said, adding that it should reflect the people who lived and worked there.

The options share a few things in common: they are all located at the southeast corner of Wheaton triangle, where the current patch of grass and the “Welcome to Wheaton” sign currently sit; they are all approximately the same size - a third of parking lot 13, and the space not reserved for sidewalks effectively doubles the current green space; they all have benches, seat walls and moveable chairs in the design; and they all have connecting elements to Triangle Lane, which the Saul team plans to reconfigure to become more pedestrian friendly road.

Here’s the variations from those elements.

Square (image 1): A square of grass with two raised elements (sculptures, fountain, etc.) at each diagonal point, bordered by trees.

Lawn (image 2): A larger grass area (at its broadest: 130 feet by 90 feet), that slopes down towards Reedie with stepped levels. Trees line three sides of the square with one side (fronting Reedie) reserved for a stone/dry fountatin element. Vergason also spoke about a possible installation of a screen element that would serve as a multi-purpose exhabit, or allow for projection of movies

Grove (image 3): Modelled on town square styles popular in Central America, the plan shows several layers of trees that would let in some light during summer and all light during winter (the trees would be deciduous). The center would be landscaped with soft gravel instead of grass and would have a stage/sculpture element in one corner. Vergason said that actual effect of the trees would not be as dense at eye level as shown in the concept aerial.

While there was not much comment from WRAC members, some weighted the pros and cons of upkeep costs with flexibility.

“Even though I don’t like that much grass,” Eleanor Duckett said, “ I think the lawn has a lot of flexibility."

Looney also mentioned how the town square would likely be connected to the rest of the development. The building that holds the Mid-County Citizens Center would be removed to create an sight and pedestrian access from the Metro straight to the town square, as well as an "urban court" between two office buildings on Georgia Avenue to break up the building's face on the main stretch.

Next up for the project - the "nitty-gritty", as David Dise, director of general services for Montgomery County said, of the business side of the deal - land valulation, and negotiations between Saul, WMATA  and the county.


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