White Flint Mall may be no more.
Jonathan O'Connell in the Washington Post writes that that the owners of the mall want to tear the building down and build a "new town" over the next twenty-five years-- a mixed-use plan with residential, retail, and offices. The 31-acre site will have 5.2 million square feet of space, including "1 million square feet offices in three buildings along Rockville Pike, 1 million square feet of retail, 2,500 residential units and a 300-room hotel." The site includes plans for a school, parkland, plazas, and open space. (The plan still has to be submitted to the county, go through approvals, etc.)
Wow. Go big or go home, I guess.
Of course, you can see where I'm going with this-- a comparison to our mall and its place in the downtown plan. The downtown Columbia plan foresees the mall being a center point while other areas are tearing malls down. It makes you wonder which plan will be more successful-- the one that leverages a mall as an anchor or the one that replaces a mall with a new, mixed-use development.
I know it's not really a good comparison-- Columbia Mall is successful and White Flint... well, even O'Connell dubs the mall as "the Rockville shopping destination whose best days are behind it." Anecdotally-- I grew up in Rockville. We never went to White Flint.
But at the same time, there is no shortage of people saying that the mall (in general) are dead. The mall is too dependent on the suburban model, it's a big box surrounded by asphalt, it's not walkable... you get the idea. In this sense, there seems to be no room for the mall in the future imagined by planners. Is this the best idea for an anchor of our downtown? Hmm.
Don't get me wrong. I like the mall. Chris and I were just there today picking up a pre-ordered copy of Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword from Gamestop and getting dinner at Kabob Connection. It was very busy-- lots of people. If the mall-- as a building form or a destination or whatever-- is dying, Columbia Mall is not the example to prove the point.
We'll see. It'll be interesting to look at White Flint and Columbia in twenty-five years.
The plan to tear down White Flint Mall makes more sense for an area like Rockville. It's more crowded than Columbia, more walkable (at your own risk thanks to some crazy drivers!) and the site is only a few blocks from the metro.
ReplyDeleteI think the Columbia Mall works for our area as a destination to be built around rather than in place of.
I'm not sure what it says about me that my biggest takeaway from this post is "Yay, Zelda!"
ReplyDeleteThere was an article in the Sun recently about Owings Mills mall also being deconstructed and reestablished with office, restaurant, etc.
ReplyDeleteI would expect this to happen to Marley Station before it happens to Columbia Mall. While we have had a lot of turnover in the Mall, it is still pretty vibrant.