SILVER SPRING, MD— The developer of a mixed-use project in Silver Spring eight years in the making is holding a groundbreaking on Wednesday. It is a mixed-use community totaling 231,000-square feet on the site of the former First Baptist Church on Fenton Street near Downtown Silver Spring.

Besides the 243-unit apartment building and 16,000-square feet of ground floor retail, plans also call for the construction of a new church building, as well as a daycare center, on an adjacent property.

The project began in 2007 when Lakritz Adler Real Estate Investments entered into a purchase contract with the First Baptist Church of Silver Spring. It brought in Grosvenor Americas as its construction partner in 2013. In the intervening six years LaKritz Adler assembled additional parcels from the adjacent Catholic Archdiocese, fought a historic preservation designation for the existing Baptist Church, and negotiated a development and design agreement with the various Silver Spring community organizations in advance of submitting its project plan for approval from the East Silver Spring community, Josh Adler tells GlobeSt.com.

"As part of that process we also obtained approval from the Montgomery County Council to raise the zoning height limit for this location and then obtained project approval and site plan approval."

The company has since dropped out of the project, according to Grosvenor Americas.

Note: This story was updated to expand on Lakritz Adler's role in the project.

Instant Insights /

Groundbreaking for Silver Spring Project on Wednesday

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