Building the road at Amalyn Bethesda (former WMAL site)

 

Construction continues on at the Amalyn Bethesda housing project (at the site of the former WMAL broadcast towers).  You can now clearly see the path of the road  that will connect Greyswood Road and Greentree Road. The road itself will be in the portion of dirt that is about 6 inches lower than the rest (on the left).  Greyswood Rd is just behind the construction equipment in the center of the photo.

One standing and one fallen concrete monoliths with construction equipment in the background.  As far as I can tell, they are not full of stars.  They are the footings for one of the radio transmitter towers that used to be located at this site, most of each of them was buried under the ground with only the top couple of feet exposed. 

 A number of pieces of construction equipment parked in the field near Greyswood Road. In the foreground is a large concrete monolith that was one of the footings for the now-removed radio transmitter towers.

Clearing trees for the road at Amalyn Bethesda

 One of the first things that is being done for the Amalyn Bethesda housing development is to connect Greentree Rd and Greyswood Rd. They have started clearing trees at the end of Greentree Rd to allow for this work to start.

 Here is how Greentree road looks now. All the trees and brush has been removed.  

 This is from the field, looking at the dead-end of Greentree Road. Prior to this, the trees and brush were dense enough that you couldn't see Greentree from here.

 

 For comparison, here is how the end of Greentree Road looked earllier this spring.

Erosion Control at Amalyn Bethesda site

 

Just over a week ago they started doing work on the silt fence that will go around the Amalyn Bethesda construction site.  Now, they have installed the fence.  Interesting to me is that even though they used a giant saw to cut a narrow slit trench (that was plenty wide for the fence), they went over it again with a small excavator and widened it to about a foot an a half.  Then, they put in the erosion controling sediment/silt fence, put the dirt back, and have now put straw on the ground outside the fence.  This fence is supposed to keep any dirt that the rain washes away contained within the construction site.

When the WMAL radio towers were here they were grounded with copper radiating out from each tower.  I believe these copper straps were what was used. They are buried several inches under the soil and go nearly to the edge of the property.  Many of them have been pulled out and in a couple of places parts of the straps are lying on the ground.

Initial site work at Amalyn Bethesda (former WMAL radio tower location)

 Toll Brothers has started doing some site prep work for the Amalyn Bethesda housing development.  This development is located at the former WMAL radio broadcast tower location in Bethesda near the I-270 spur.  They are digging narrow  trenches around the perimeter of where it looks like work will be done.

At recent construction projects (such as the demolition of Woodward High School) I have noticed that the fence around the project is set in a trench and has fabric at the base, this keeps any storm water runoff from filling streams with silt.  It looks to me like that is what is happening here.  Often times the fence is only about 18 inches tall, I hope that is the height they use here (and not a 6 foot tall fence which could totally block access)

The fence harvest came early this year

 Due to the nice weather this week, we were able to harvest the fences a little early this year.  Here they are all stacked up and ready for market.

Construction scheduled to start on the WMAL field (Toll Brothers Amalyn project)

 

Toll Brothers is getting ready to start construction on their Amalyn project which will be over 300 single family houses and townhouses on the former WMAL radio tower field at 7115 Greentree Road in Bethesda, Maryland. This week they stakes sporting flags have been sprouting on the field as they prepare for the work.

They recently sent a letter to residents about the construction outlining the initial work. In it they state they will first be installing tree protection and sediment control features.

The current end of Greyswood Road

Workers will be accessing the property from the Greyswood Road entrance and the first thing they do will be to connect Greyswood and Greentree roads.  Greyswood Road currently dead-ends at a stand of trees, so those trees will have to be horrifically mangled and tragically destroyed cut down and removed. All work vehicles and equipment will be parked on the property and not on any of the streets surrounding it.  Construction should be limited to the hours of 7am to 5pm.

The current end of Greentree Road

As part of the project, some improvements will be made to existing streets, primarily Greyswood Rd.  Greyswood will get some traffic claming devices and some more street trees. New sidewalks will be added along Greentree Road and Derbishire Lane along the proporties frontage. This work is expected to be completed by Fall of this year.
 

proposed site plan from Toll Brothers

The WMAL radio towers are coming down this week

 

After a long delay, the WMAL radio antenna towers on Greentree Rd in Bethesda, MD are scheduled for demolition later this week.  The towers will be brought down in a controlled explosion no earlier than Wednesday November 4th.  The original plan was to demolish them earlier this year, but they hadn't done all the needed conservation work on the site.

All the permits are posted at the entrance to the site. From left to right: Explosives permit, Demoliton permit, Sediment Control Permit, Right-of-way construction permit.

They have the notices posted at several entrances to the field so no one misses them.

The towers are being removed so that the Amalyn Bethesda project consisting of 309 single family houses and townhouses can be built in this area.  In order to get planning board approval they also donated a portion of this field as a potential school site.

This project has been in progress for a number of years.   I first posted about it more than 5 years ago, in July of 2015.

Construction starting at the WMAL field

For the past 5 years Toll Brothers has been planning on redeveloping the WMAL transmitter field located at 7115 Greentree Rd in Bethesda, MD.  They have developed the plans and gotten the approvals, but there hasn't been much in the line of changes on the ground.

This week there have been changes.  They have fenced off most of the field and were actively working around one of the radio towers when I was there.

The field has long had a path running long the edge making a large 1.25 mile circuit that is popular with runners and dog walkers.  The fence impacts this path in a number of places.  From Greentree Road around to Derbyshire lane there are on or two short stretches where you have a narrow spot between the fence and the brush, but these are easily navigated.

From Derbyshre to Renita Lane the fence is far from the path and doesn't cause any problems.

 However, getting from Greentree road to Renita Lane along the I-495 side of the field requires being a bit more adventurous.  The fence is very close to the brush for the whole length.

  While I was there I did see a local resident trimming back some tree branches, so this route may get easier over the next week or two.

What's next?  Before construction starts in earnest, those radio towers need to come down.  They stopped being used on May 1, 2018 so that is not an impediment.  It looks like that is what they are working on and they could come down very soon.

WMAL transmitter building demolished

 The transmitter building that has long stood at the WMAL field on Greentree road has been demolished.  Some months ago the transmitter equipment was moved to a temporary building on the same lot.

 The plan is for the radio towers to be removed and over 300 houses and townhouses put on this 75 acre lot.

 The building was listed on Maryland's inventory of historic properties, but that didn't afford it any special protection against demolition.

WMAL field housing development community meeting

Toll Brothers held a community meeting today about a revised concept plan they are working on for the WMAL radio transmitter field in Bethesda, MD.

The original concept plan was submitted last November and the planning board as well as the fire department had extensive comments on it.  Toll Brothers went back and updated the plan based on those comments, and this meeting was the first chance the community got to see the plan.

The meeting was held at North Bethesda Middle school and was packed with almost every seat taken and many people standing along the sides of the room.

The new plan hasn't changed very much from the old plan (the top link in the story discusses the old plan, I won't repeat it here).  There is still 328 houses, some single family and some townhouses.  There is also still a 5 acre site reserved for 3 years for the county to purchase at fair market value if they desire it.  That reserved area includes some of the mature woodland that they can't build on anyway (and that the county probably couldn't use either).  If the county exercises the option to buy the total number of houses built would be reduced from 238 to 306 units.

Removed from the plan are any mention of a dog park, as well as the wide boulevard running north/south in the middle of the site.  Based on comments from the county, the Greyswood to Greentree interconnection has been straightened out and an access to the neighborhood via Renita lane has also been added (Toll Bros. was clear they would like this to be for fire department access only, possibly by having it gated, but the county has to agree to that).  I understand the county also didn't like the alleys behind many of the houses and how close the houses were to the road, but those concerns don't appear to have been acted on.

In addition to the road access points (three on Greentree, one on Greyswood, and the possible Renita lane access) there would be a pedestrian only access onto Derbyshire, and, if the Renita Lane access were fire department only that would be a pedestrian access as well.

The plan they showed us was just the pretty overview drawing, it didn't have lot sizes or road widths on it, so it isn't clear if any of that has changed.

School enrollment projections for the WJ cluster based on development of the WMAL radio transmitter site.

This property is zoned for the Walter Johnson cluster.  They used the county guidelines for how many students would be added to the cluster.  These projections (which during the questions, several residents suggested were too low) call for an additional 153.2 students.  That rounds out to be 78 new elementary students in Ashburton ES, 38 new middle school students at North Bethesda MS, and 38 new high school students at Walter Johnson HS.

They talked about the scope of the traffic study but said it was not complete.  One of the Toll Brothers representatives promised there would be another community meeting at a yet-to-be-determined date to focus on traffic.  One small piece of useful information they gave was that they estimate in the peak hour, this development will generate an additional 209 trips on local roads.

The site plan makes extensive use of bioswales for stormwater management.  Toll brothers claims that the impact of the development on the Chesapeake bay after the houses are built will be lower than it is today, however I find that claim dubious since it is currently undeveloped forest and grassland.  The bioswales will mostly be on neighborhood association owned land, but some (on the east side) will be on private property easements.  All the bioswales will be maintained by the association.

A line of people waiting to ask questions at one of the two microphones.

After the presentation, the community was given time to ask questions.  People lined up for access to the microphone.  Questions focused on the roads/traffic, the schools, and the size of lots and prices.  People also asked about the environmental impact of the project, such as wildlife, energy efficiency and carbon footprint.

There will be four types of housing on the site, Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs) The pricing formula is set by the county and wasn't discussed, but they will all be townhouses.  The townhouses (not all will be MPDUs) will have two car garages with rear (alleyway) access.  They will start above $900,000.  Some of the detached houses will also be rear-load (alley access to two car garages), these will start around 1.1 million dollars.  There will also be houses with front driveways (and two car garages) on slightly larger lots starting around 1.3 million dollars.

One person asked about the 15 foot buffer between the houses on the east side and existing houses on Corkran Lane.  That will be planted as a water swale, but will be owned by, and be part of the backyard of, the new houses backing it.  Another person asked about the current wildlife in the area, including the sizeable deer herd on the property.  The response was that nothing special was planned, and they expected the deer to move out on their own as development progressed (undoubtedly onto the interstate and into the backyards of existing houses).

One interesting thing I noticed from the questions, is the people who live on the Greentree side of the field think all the traffic from the development will end up on Greentree road, and all the people on the Fernwood side of the field think all the traffic will end up on Greyswood Road.

Updated 4/9 6pm:  changed the number of access points on Greetree from 2 to 3.  A closer look at the plan reveals they plan roads that connect at Barnett Rd, Grubby Thicket Way, and at the current end of Greentree Rd.

Updated 4/14 9:45 am: Toll Brothers has posted  the presentation from the meeting here: http://tinyurl.com/TollBrosPrelimPresentation.

Concept Plan for the WMAL field development

Toll Brothers has submitted their concept plan for the WMAL property showing the roads and other amenities.

Plan Variant 1, without 5 acre public use set-aside

The plan calls for 328 dwelling units, a mix of 40% townhouses, duplexes, and 60% single family detached houses.  There will be 4.39 houses per acre and each house will have parking for 2 cars.  The plan follows a "loosely curvilinear grid" pattern of interconnected streets and pedestrian green spaces.

The property will connect to Greentree road in two places and also to Greyswood road.  It will be possible to drive from Greentree to Greyswood, but it won't be a straight shot, you have to take a turn and loop a bit.  The plan is for the roads to remain private roads and not turned over to the county.  One thing this allows for is for houses to be as close as 10 feet from the road instead of the 25 feet required for county roads.  Preliminary traffic studies indicate that three intersections will require improvements.

Walking trails proposed for the property

The majority of the trees on both the north and south side of the property will be preserved.  There will also be a network of trails that go through the trees as well as through the other greenspaces in the property.  The trails will connect with both Renita Lane and Derbyshire Lane.  Overall, a little less than 30% of the site will be available for recreation and open space.

Other amenity include a dog park that will be open to the public and a new noise barrier along I-495, they note that one may be required along the I-270 spur as well.  The part of the field by Derbyshire Court that gets muddy in the spring is marked as a "Stream Valley Buffer".

Plan variant 2 showing a 5 acre public use set-aside

 They actually submitted two variations on the plan, Plan 1, which has the full 328 units, and plan 2 which includes a 5 acre Public Use Reservation that covers the area around the WMAL transmitter building.  That plan only has 308 units and a single road connecting to Greentree.  This 5 acre reservation would be held for three years to allow for the county to purchase it at market value.  If the county doesn't, the area will be built with 20 houses (so it will match plan 1.)

Toll brothers talks about their plans for the WMAL field

Last night, representatives from Toll Brothers meet with the West Fernwood Citizen's Association to talk about their plans for the WMAL transmitter site. It is nice to see homebuilders engaging nearby residents early in the process and I hope this continues.

A representative from Toll Brothers (far right blue shirt) answers residents questions about the WMAL tower site.

Plans are still being developed, so nothing they said was final, but there were a few useful bits of information that they did have.

Currently the site is zoned R-90, which is single-family, 9,000 square foot lots.  The site is 75 acres, so that works out to about 330 units. They are required to have 12.5% of the units be moderately priced dwelling units (MPDU).  They will most likely take advantage of an MPDU option that allows up to half of the units to be townhouses, but the exact mix of houses to townhouses hasn't been decided.  Adding townhouses doesn't allow for more units on the site, it would come with more open space. Everything they see so far suggests that R-90 is good zoning from a marketing and investment perspective, they don't have plans to request re-zoning (but of course, that could change).

Currently the site is under contract and they expect it to close within 90 days. They have done one of several required traffic studies, some survey work and some environmental evaluation.  They are planning to do a 24 hour noise study today that will assess the noise levels coming from 495.