BETHESDA, MD-The long-stalled but still quite ambitious one-million-square foot Rock Spring Centre project here just got a shot in the arm: DRI Development, which took over the project in 2008, is partnering with Peterson Cos., to get the retail portion moving. Under their agreement, Peterson will be lead developer for the 300,000-square foot retail and entertainment components and DRI will be lead developer for the office, hotel and residential uses.
“We needed to figure out how to break the project up so we didn’t do office first,” Taylor Chess, SVP of Retail for Peterson, tells GlobeSt.com. The two firms figured it out, he notes—and now retail will be the first out of the gate. Peterson is self-funding the pre development work now but expects to go to market for construction finance, he adds.
Bill Miller and Alex Walker from Transwestern Retail are leading the retail leasing effort for Rock Spring Centre. “Now our focus is to have it 50% pre-leased before we break ground.” Chess says he expects to reach that milestone before the end of the year.
Rock Spring Centre will, at completion, feature approximately 210,000 square feet of retail 550,000 square feet of class A office, 90,000 square feet of entertainment uses including a multi-screen movie theater, a 200-key hotel, and 161 residential units. The project is slated to open in Spring 2014.
The site is located on a 54-acre parcel of land owned by the Camalier/Davis Family. It is bounded by Old Georgetown Road, Rock Spring Drive, Rockledge Drive and the I-270 spur. It is also located next to Rock Spring Park, a 5.25 million square foot office park that is home to the global headquarters for Lockheed Martin and the corporate headquarters for Marriott and Coventry Health Care.
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