A builder’s efforts to redevelop a Silver Spring apartment complex would destroy a historic property that is a landmark from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal era, according to Montgomery County preservation groups.
Representatives of the Silver Spring Historical Society say the 450-unit Falkland Chase Apartments on Silver Spring’s 16th Street is “one of the most significant historic properties in the county.”
According to Mary Reardon, the group’s preservation chairwoman, it was the second large-scale apartment complex in the country to be underwritten by the Federal Housing Administration.
“Eleanor Roosevelt cut the ribbon on the complex in 1937 because it was a New Deal experiment to provide housing for moderate income people in a suburb,” Reardon said.
“It was built along the garden city principles, which means it follows the contours of the land, saves as many trees as possible and provides green space.”
Developer Home Properties acquired the complex in 2003.
Don Hague, vice president of development for Home Properties, said the company wants to build a high-rise unit on one of the property’s three parcels as part of a redevelopment plan that would provide 282 new, moderately priced housing units.
“If our proposal is approved, we will invest $3 million for the preservation,” Hague said. “We would effectively be preserving 62 to 63 percent of the total units.”
Hague, who will be at a county development committee meeting today to defend the project, said developers believe they will be retaining the more historically significant portions of the property, which officials with the Maryland Historical Trust have said are eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
“The parts that will remain ‘as is’ are the ones that are architecturally truer to the planning and design principles that were popular back then,” Hague said.
Reardon said only redeveloping a portion of the complex is not a satisfactory solution.
“It’s like chopping off one arm and allowing you to keep the other arm,” Reardon told The Examiner.
Regardless of historic designation, construction on the property is barred through next July because additional development would increase the student population of the area beyond the capacity specified in the county growth policy.
