A new development project aims to give the city of Rockville a town square for the first time in almost four decades.
“Forty years ago the city went through an urban renewal process that tore down its downtown and eliminated the fabric of the community,” said Scott Ross, president of Ross Development and Investment, one of the project’s developers. “For years it languished and really became a strip center and parking lot. Our whole goal is to recreate the fabric of the community.”
Once completed, Rockville Town Square will be a mixed-used community two blocks from the Metro that includes 644 condominium residences, 180,000 square feet of restaurants and retailers. It will be anchored by an open-air town square, providing public space for shopping, walking and gathering. The first occupants of the condos are expected to move in late 2006, with retailers and restaurants moving in March 2007. Currently the retail and restaurant space is about 90 percent leased.
Aside from its retail and residential components, the square will also be home to a new 100,000-square-foot Montgomery County public library and a 40,000-square-foot living arts cultural center called the Rockville Arts & Innovation Center, financed and developed by the city of Rockville.
“The most important aspect for our community is it will create a new heart for the city, a place where people can spend time with family and friends,” said Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo. “It’s really going to be a good model for a transit-oriented development with the Red Line Metro station about a block-and-a-half away.”
Giammo added that the total investment for the project is about $400 million and that funds came from both the private and public sectors. And while the main goal of the town square was to revitalize the center of the community, Giammo said the development “is a project that makes sense for purely fiscal reasons.”
He said that, once completed, the project will generate significant new tax revenue with new property taxes, income tax revenue from the new residents and sales tax.
“We estimate that the city of Rockville will garner about $1.5 million in new incremental tax revenue,” said Giammo. “This is a project that in terms of public investment will pay for itself in about 10 years.”
