In the News...Pike & Rose

Federal Realty Investment Trust's 24-acre Pike & Rose project already offers a lively mix of places to eat, shop, live and work within its initial phase of development.

Mid-Pike Plaza, a 1960s shopping center on traffic-choked Rockville Pike, has undergone a radical makeover. Federal Realty Investment Trust, the developer of Bethesda Row, has transformed the aging suburban retail strip into an urban-style enclave within walking distance of the White Flint Metro station.

Known as Pike & Rose, the 24-acre project already offers a lively mix of places to eat, shop, live and work within its initial phase of development, which was largely completed last fall. A 174-unit mid-rise apartment block called Persei is about 97 percent leased and the Pallas, a high-rise housing 319 more apartments, will open in June. Nearby is a four-story, LEED-certified office building with Bank of America and Merrill Lynch leasing about half the 80,000-square-foot structure.

Among the two-dozen stores and restaurants now open are Summer House Santa Monica and Stella Barra pizzeria. Carluccio’s — part of a chain of Italian eateries and markets started by British chef Antonio Carluccio — will open this fall. Completed amenities include a fitness club and the eight-screen iPic movie theater. A 240-seat live performance venue run by the Strathmore music center, called AMP, opened in March.

“We wanted the first phase to stand alone as a new center for nightlife and entertainment in the county while construction of phase two was underway,” said Evan Goldman, Federal Realty’s vice president of development.

Representative of a larger shift to smart growth in the suburbs, Pike & Rose is the first project to be built under the new zoning and land use guidelines of Montgomery County’s White Flint Sector Plan. The planning effort involved an unusual partnership of six developers, including Federal Realty, which are typically more competitive than cooperative. These landowners agreed to pay a 10 percent property tax to fund the infrastructure required for the redevelopment of the White Flint area, including the newly built Grand Park Avenue at Pike & Rose. This taxing mechanism is the first of its kind in Montgomery County.

The second phase of Pike & Rose, due to be completed in 2017, will add another 340,000 square feet of retail, 462 more apartments and 104 luxury condos set atop the 177-room Canopy hotel run by Hilton.

Federal Realty spent about $250 million on the first phase of Pike & Rose and is financing the entire project using its own capital, rather than relying on loans or a development partner. As a publicly traded real estate investment trust, the company typically retains its projects rather than selling them after completion.

Pike & Rose incorporates various design elements conceived by about 100 consultants – architects, landscape architects, interior and graphic designers – so the development appears visually diverse as if built over time. As Goldman notes, “The creative team worked hard to design a project filled with art, placemaking, cultural amenities and unique architecture so that the individual elements collectively create an identifiable sense of place that is more than simply the sum of those parts.”

Pike & Rose

• Address: 11580 Old Georgetown Road, Rockville
• Developer: Federal Realty Investment Trust
• Project size: 24 acres
• Estimated cost:$250 million for the first phase

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/print-edition/2015/05/01/pike-rose.html?ana=twt