The builder of a major redevelopment at Rockville’s Twinbrook Metro station says it will lose money building the rest of the project and is asking Metro for a break on its land deal.
According to a proposal scheduled to go before Metro’s Joint Development and Real Estate Committee on Thursday, Chevy Chase-based JBG Cos. “is not willing to continue the project” based on the terms it reached with Metro in 2005.
The 26-acre project, called Twinbrook Station, is a joint development deal in which Metro owns the land and JBG leases it back from Metro and pays for improvements to the land.
JBG has opened a 279-unit apartment building, a handful of retail establishments and a privately operated parking garage at Twinbrook. But a 426-space parking garage it was supposed to start building for Metro riders has not been started.
“Obviously the market has changed dramatically,” said Steven Goldin, Metro’s director of real estate. “The value of the land has gone down and it wasn’t financially feasible for them to proceed with the other phases.”
JBG did not return requests for comment.
Goldin said financial details of the renegotiated deal will not be released unless Metro’s board of directors approves it.
The proposed timeline for the project would delay some development phases by as much as five years.
The multimillion-dollar project is one of several along Rockville Pike that Montgomery County officials hope will attract Generation Y commuters who will flood the local economy with money.
The delay isn’t the first time the land bust in 2008 has jammed up a Metro joint development.
In the fall, Metro approved a one-year extension on the sale of Metro-owned land near the Navy Yard station to the developer of an office building. The builder was struggling to find financing for the project in such a stingy market.
Goldin said Monday that Metro was “in the process of renegotiating a couple other” joint development deals but could not give more details.
“It is very common,” he said. “Just like other real estate projects in general around country.”
