Thursday, April 15, 2010

what's up the pike: like the cut of your jib



- Check out this preview of Blake High School's Comedy Night tomorrow, with a performance by Baltimore-based hypnotist Jason Linett, an open mike, and a Last Blake Comic Standing competition They'll also have an open mike and a student stand-up competition with three guest judges, including Blake alumni Dan Reed.

The show starts at 7:30pm; tickets are $8, can be purchased at the door or online, and benefit the Blake PTSA scholarship fund. For more info, e-mail Jack Goble at comedynight at gmail dot com or check out the event's page on Facebook.

- Tonight, the Planning Department's speaker series, ReThink Montgomery, continues this with a discussion on "Infrastructure, featuring panelists Casey Anderson of theWashington Area Bicyclist Association (and a Woodside resident) and planning consultant Richard Layman, who writes Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space. The show starts at 7:30pmat 8787 Georgia Avenue in Downtown Silver Spring.

- If you haven't read this week's Gazette, go out to your driveway and fish it out from underneath the car. Both Good Eatin' and Maryland Politics Watch sing the praises of this week's issue and its triple-header of stories on Wheaton's nascent revitalization. If you're thinking that the 'Wheat needs some big office anchor like Discovery Communications to turn around, I give an explanation why that might not be the case.

- Construction starts on the new White Oak Recreation Center later this month! The new facility on April Lane near Lockwood Drive, will also include a skate spot - meaning that with the forthcoming Woodside Park skate spot, East County kids could have a busy summer. And neighborhood adults are unusually giddy about the possibilities:

White Oak resident Germaine Ferrall has no kids of her own, but was one of the major proponents for a skate spot at the new recreation center. "We have too many multifamily buildings in a very small area," she said. "It's very compressed. ... And where can these children go? If we don't have the facilities for them, they'll start to look for other distractions. So I think the more we do for the kids, the less chance they'll get in trouble."


- I know y'all have been waiting a while to hear my big announcement, so it shouldn't be any trouble to come back here at TWELVE O'CLOCK NOON!!! and find out what it is. See you soon!

2 comments:

Casey A said...

I really appreciate the plug for the bike event with Richard Layman and me, but now the pressure is really on! Better get back to those last-minute revisions to my powerpoint slides . . .

dave in wheaton said...

The redevelopment story in the Gazette was the same one they run every other month or so. Quote from Sandra Talent about Wheaton being ripe for redevelopment. Then 10 paragraphs walking back that notion with the same old laments about multiple property owners and lack of residents and/or office space. Conclusion - it might happen and it might not. This is news?

Particularly strange is no mention whatsoever of the Safeway site that DCMUD wrote about a few days ago. How can this be omitted from this article? And no new info about how the Request for Qualifications process is coming along.

However, the Greenhill article was interesting. This sentence from a Gazette article about the Anchor Inn site (Aug., 2006) says it all:

That’s what Greenberg had in mind last month when he told the council that his ‘‘four grandchildren, with a fifth on the way, will deal with [the Anchor Inn site] on their schedule” unless the zone was amended to allow taller development without review.

I believe Greenhill is a big part of the problem with the pace of redevelopment in Wheaton. His grandchildren are provided for. This is a company that buys property and waits for other more visionary developers to do the heavy lifting. Then, when others have pulled up the market he reaps the rewards. Look at the portfolio in Bethesda. Most of it is in the Woodmont triangle. There are big plans for much of this neighborhood except the block owned by Greenhill. He will just sit on these underdeveloped parcels for as long as it takes for the rest of the neighborhood to rise up around it. At the risk of some hyperbole - a classic slumlord. With Greenhill sitting on 25% of the CBD in Wheaton it might take another 20 years - just in time for his grandkids to take over. And in the meantime the community suffers.