WHEATON, MD-Washington Property Co. is beginning development on a 232-unit, $75-million luxury apartment house here. The complex will be located two blocks away from the Wheaton metro station on the Red Line, at the site of the former First Baptist Church of Wheaton. The church, which worked with WPC to sell its 50-year-old building, is moving to Olney, MD.

WPC is branding the asset Solaire-Wheaton. It will be the company’s second Solaire-branded apartment, the first being the newly-delivered property in nearby Silver Spring. RBS Citizens Bank provided the construction financing. Clark Builders Group is the general contractor for the project and Gables Residential will provide property management and leasing services when it starts operations. The project is expected to deliver in 18 months. About 90 days before the scheduled delivery, WPC will start pre-leasing.

There have been few class A apartment buildings built for the Wheaton submarket, a blue-collar enclave outside of Silver Spring. Those that have been built though, such as the Archstone project on Georgia Ave., have performed well, WPC president Charles K. Nulsen, III tells GlobeSt.com. “The community receives them well,” he says.

Besides its new apartment community in Silver Spring and the one about to begin at Wheaton, WPC also has plans to build in Bethesda, Nulsen says. The company has submitted a project plan for Downtown Bethesda to build a 144-unit luxury apartment building at 7100 Wisconsin Ave. The price tag would be marked at roughly $50 million. The earliest construction would start on that would be the latter part of 2013, Nulsen says.