Move-in day for Maryland’s newest transit-accessible town center

Rockville Town Square, a 12.5-acre development that has been designed to become the centerpiece of Rockville, Maryland, welcomed its first residents in February. Developer RD Rockville LLC has constructed 644 one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, many of them overlooking a public plaza where daily events and a farmers’ market will be held.
The Square makes up about a fifth of the 60-plus acres that are being redeveloped into a pedestrian-oriented downtown known as Rockville Town Center. The redevelopment is the result of collaboration by the city, Montgomery County, state and federal governments, and three private investment organizations — RD Rockville, Federal Realty Investment Trust, and Foulger-Pratt Companies.
Design guidelines for the Town Center were prepared by Street-Works with the city, county, and Federal Realty. Federal owned a strip shopping center on part of the site; it was razed, and Federal is installing approximately 175,000 sq. ft. of retail and restaurants. The 15-acre first phase involves $264 million of private investment and $88 million of public financing.
Facing the Square is the Rockville Regional Library, which opened last November. Three public parking garages are to be completed by this March. A five-story Rockville Arts and Innovation Center, containing a county-supported business incubator and the Metropolitan Center for the Visual Arts, will open this spring.
The somewhat European character of its central urban space has impressed early visitors. However, some of its connections could use improvement. “Rockville Town Center is within about two to three long blocks of the Rockville Station on Metro’s Red Line,” observes Stewart Schwartz of the DC region’s Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Unfortunately, the high-speed Route 355 (Rockville Pike) passes in between, so most pedestrians travel across an elevated pedestrian overpass and past some 1980s concrete Brutalism before reaching the Town Center.”
An upcoming issue of New Urban News will report on the burgeoning transit-oriented development in the Washington DC region.