Snow in Bethesda

Yesterday we got about 7 inches of snow and sleet in Bethesda, Maryland.  I walked around downtown Bethesda this afternoon (roughly 3pm-4pm) to see how the city is recovering.  Overall, the main roads are in decent shape.  Often at least one of the lanes isn't fully plowed, but there aren't many cars out right now so that isn't a real issue. It may be in the coming days as people go back to work though. A lot of the sidewalks are clear in the downtown area, but not all of them are, especially problematic are along Old Georgetown Road and along Wisconsin Avenue, as well as at intersections where snow has been piled up by plows.

Some snow on Old Georgetown

Old Georgetown Road had at least two lanes clear, but in some places there was still a little bit of loose snow on the road. 

More snow on Old Georgetown

Snow on Wisconsin

 

Walking in the road

The blocked sidewalks and high snow at intersections is forcing these folks to walk in the road on Wisconsin Avenue.  This is dangerous for everyone involved.

Capital Crescent Trail: plowed to the asphalt

Bike Lane

The separated bike lane on Woodmont Avenue had been cleared at some point, but is now covered with snow again.

 

Snowy sidewalk on St. Elmo

Uncleared sidewalk on Woodmont

Not all neighborhood streets are plowed

 

Clearing Bethesda Lane

 

All that snow has to go somewhere, in places it is piled quite high

No Broccoli

 Fresh vegetables were in short supply at Lidl this afternoon.  There was no fresh broccoli in the store.  There was, however, frozen broccoli, whic is just as good for you so I got that instead.

 

 

Bethesda Metro Station construction

 Bethesda Metro Station is getting a new south entrance and connection to the future Purple Line light rail.  Work has been going on inside the station for a while.  On Wednesday I took photos of the status.

 At the far (southern) end of the station a wall panel is removed and you can see the real walls behind it.  The area is open behind the red plywood.  When the station was built they envisioned a future south entrance so left a knock-out panel for it. 

 To give you a sense of scale, at the very center of the plywood is a full-sized door, so I think the opening is 12 feet tall.  It seems a bit close to the tracks for a bridge over the tracks but I guess not. 

False Walls

I never knew the curved concrete walls of the station were removable panels and the real station walls weren't curved.  Here you can see the gap between the real wall and the apparent wall.

The new entrance will be located on Elm Street near Wisconsin Avenue and  will only have elevators, no escalator to the metro station.  A mezzanine will be built over the south end of the platform to allow access to the trains.

 

Fossil extension cord

I can't be 100 percent sure, but it really looks like when they poured the original concrete station walls they left an extension cord there and it left this serpentine outline.

 

Station in July 2025

 Here's how the station looked last July, the concrete panel that has since been removed was still up on the right side of the picture and they were still building the work areas on the platform. 

 

More information:

•  WRA page about their work
•  Montgomery Planning page about the entrance
•  Bethesda Today article about escalating costs

Strathmore View construction

 

Strathmore View office

 Strathmore View will contain 108 townhouses starting from the 1.2 millions and 17 single family detached houses. It is located on Strathmore Avenue near the Academy of the Holy Cross Catholic girl's high school.  In fact, the development is on both sides of the entrance and takes up some of what was the school property. 

Townhouses under construction

 This also replaces St. Angela's Hall which was owned by the Sisters of the Holy Cross and was a group home for retired nuns. The original project was supposed to include a senior living home, but I don't see that on the current plan.  

Single family house 

The first of 17 single family houses has been completed. Most likely this will be the model home. 

Construction of homes

 The Montgomery Planning pdf for the development has more details.

White townhouses

The townhouses in this section have been covered with the Tyvek moisture wrap but haven't been finished yet.

The west end 

The west end of the property along Strathmore Avenue, still bare dirt where more houses will go up.  On the left is Strathmore Ave.

Bike lanes on Fernwood in the Rockspring/Rockledge area

Fernwood north of Democracy

Fernwood Road, near where the new "Grandview" senior living community is going in has been under construction for a while.  There was even a time where one direction was entirely closed.  This is between Democracy Blvd and Montgomery Mall. (Not sure what they call it now, maybe WestLakeField Montgomery ShoppingMallTown?)

 For a while it wasn't clear exactly what they were doing, but now you can clearly see that separated bike lanes are going in.  They were starting to pave them when I went by. (The red dump truck on the left was delivering blacktop.)  

Fernwood and Rock Spring Dr

 Here at the Rock Spring Drive intersection you can get a good look at the new bike lanes. To the left, behind the trees is where the Marriott headquarters was.  One of the new residential buildings can be seen peeking over the trees.

Fernwood and Rockledge

 They are working on what I think will be the main entrance to the Grandview on the left.  Going up the hill (which is the bridge over I-270) the bike lanes are fully in and paved.

The start

 This is facing the other direction on the bridge.  The separated bike lanes start here right behind the arrow sign.  It's a bit unclear how this spot will look when they are done.

Fernwood near Democracy / The other end

They aren't nearly as far along at the Democracy end of Fernwood.  They haven't even gotten the sidewalk replaced.  Since there are 3 lanes of traffic here (two left-only onto Democracy and one right-only onto Democracy. There is no straight to continue on Fernwood, even though just the other day I saw someone go straight here).

Out with the new

They clearly made a mistake at some point, because they were tearing up a newly laid section of curb.
 

 

Bethesda Community Store expansion

Bethesda Community Store porch

 

Call Your Mother moved out of the parking lot of Bethesda Community Store ("Browns") a while ago. For some time the lot was empty with a fence around it, but now they are expanding the original building. Now the building is being significantly expanded. The new version will be over double the size of the old. (Of course, the old building was really, really small)

The wood flooring and supports for the front porch are being replaced.  There isn't very much left of the original building. 

 

Expanding Browns

The original building is just the porch and the left section.  They took out the walls on both sides (and the back I believe) leaving only the floor, front wall, porch, and roof as original.  The rest is entirely new.

The lot

 The store is situated on the corner of Old Georgetown Road and Greentree Road (incidently, Latitude 39 degrees runs through the parking lot). Here is the lot as seen from the parking lot entrance on Greentree Road. Picnic tables and a shed are at the back right and the store is back left. The part with a white roof is all new construction.

Browns from across Greentree

Here is the view from across Greentree road. The black clad construction fence obscures most of what is going on.

As a kid my parents would sometimes take me to Browns to get lunch. I always got a Ham, Lettuce, and Tomato on Rye, it was the best. The store seemed really small even (and it had gray trim, not red). It was really just the deli counter, some snacks, and the cash register.  That version of the store has been long gone and the building has been unused since 2016, Call Your Mother deli had a food truck/trailer in the parking lot starting in 2020 but that's it.
 

Construction on Cheltenham Drive

Construction and CVS

Most of the construction in Bethesda ends up being on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue, but here is some on the east side.  The old Midas auto repair location next to the CVS pharmacy has been torn down.  It will be replaced with a mixed-use residential building with up to 102 residential units as well as up to 8 live/work units. You read the site plan here.

Cheltenham Drive and demolition

 This is a pretty small piece of property, 110 units seems like a lot. The maximum height allowable is 90 feet. The average space per unit works out to only 710 square feet (probably a bit smaller due to walls and hallways).

From behind

 Anyone else remember when Midas was called "Midas Mufflers" and they specialized in replacing (wait for it)...mufflers?

The Pinnacle: North Bethesda construction

Pallas is behind and to the left, Old Georgetown Road in the foreground

The Pinnacle is a senior living building arriving in 2026. It is being built across from Pike and Rose on the corner of Old Georgetown Road and, um, Old Georgetown Road.  When complete it will have 191 units in 17 stories with a mix of independent living, assisted living and memory care.

As seen from Executive Blvd

Executive Boulevard in the foreground, construction behind it.

Pinnacle from Pike and Rose

Old Georgetown Road (the part that isn't also MD-187) in the foreground, construction behind it. It looks like it is 13 stories so far with more to be added.

Pinnacle North Bethesda<

 

 

Beaver in Cabin John Creek

Swimming beaver, Cabin John Creek

Last week I saw unmistakable evidence of a beaver in Cabin John Creek.  I decided to try and take a picture of the actual beaver.  It took me a couple of days to do it since beavers are nocturnal and go to bed right around sunrise, but as you can see, I managed. 

When this beaver noticed me it swam upstream for a bit then, with a splash went under water and didn't come back up.  I believe it swam to it's lodge and decided it was bed time.

Beaver stripped branch

Beavers eat the bark off tree branches, so there were branches without bark floating in the water. This is one of the telltale signs of active beavers. 

Beaver Branch closeup

Here's a closer shot of a branch that a beaver has eaten the bark off of. You can see the gnaw marks on it. 

Beaver eaten tree

A beaver stripped some of the bark off this sapling but left it standing.  You can see a few gnaw marks on it.

 

 

 

 

Electric car charging at Cabin John Park

There are now chargers for electric cars at Cabin John Park near Cabin John Ice Rink and Shirley Povich Field.

The chargers are run by Pepco and branded "EVsmart Life, Fully Charged". They don't have the power level on them, and Pepco's website doesn't list it either. I think they are 50 kw DC fast chargers. That may seem like it isn't very powerful, but, I think they are geared for people who are going to be around for a while enjoying the park facilities.  Not only is the ice rink and baseball field (where Bethesda Big Train plays) just across the parking lot, there are also tennis courts and the Cabin John Trail right there.
 

There are two charging pedestals, each one has a CCS plug and a CHAdeMo plug.  You need to use the SWTCH mobile app or RFID card, or call a phone number to start the charger. 

For those of you who want to charge more slowly, or who can't charge with CCS or CHAdeMO, there are also two Level 2 J-1772 chargers available.  The Pepco website lists the cost of the Level 2 chargers at $0.18 per kWh which is a reasonable price. It doesn't give the power of the chargers, but based on the information they do provide, they appear to be 7.25kW chargers. 

There are four parking spots reserved for charging, 2 for the DC fast chargers and 2 for the Level 2 chargers.  The DC fast chargers cost $0.34 per kWh which is cheaper than most fast chargers (but they are also slower than most fast chargers).  Based on information on their website, these fast chargers have a power level of 45kW, but the nameplate capacity is probably 50 kW.

 

 

 

 

Stratton Place luxury homes: cleared land

Construction at Stratton Place

Stratton Place (also called the Andrus Property) will be a relatively small development of luxury homes build between Greentree Road and I-270.  According to the planning board resolution (pdf link), it "proposes eight (8) new lots by subdividing the rear of seven (7) existing lots, for a total of 15 lots, on a total of 5.38 acres of land zoned R-90. Eight (8) houses will be new, six (6) will remain, and one (1) will be demolished and replaced." However, that changed this time last year and all six of the existing houses on Barnett Road have been demolished.  Confusingly, the planning documents are split between multiple folders, one for 2023 and later and at least one for documents before then. Worse, the interactive development finder map only links to the earlier ones.

 Here is the view from Greentree Road looking towards Interstate 270.  On the right some trees remain in the back yards of existing houses.  In the far distance you can see one of two remaining houses on Barnett Rd.  this entire cleared area was heavily wooded with the exception of the far left where there were houses nestled among the trees.

Frontage on Greentree Road

Greentree Road at the Stratton Place development a new road will enter the development here. To the right, not visible, is the Amalyn development.

 I last posted about Stratton Place in October. at that time they were just clearing the (magnifcant) trees from the property.  Since then they have finished that part of the project, torn down some old houses, and re-graded the land. I also posted before work had begun.

From the back of the property

The current grading is still pretty steep, this is looking from the middle/back of the property towards Greentree Road.  In the distance you can see the Amalyn housing development.

Barnett Road

There used to be 8 houses along this road, six were included in the Andrus property and were demolished, only the first house and the last house remain.  New curbs have also been installed.