Montgomery County proposes life-sciences development - Baltimore Business Journal:

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The department will recommend this week that the Plannintg Board revampGaithersburg West’s masterf plan to incorporate 20 million square feet of commerciapl space and 8,000 homes and accommodatd 60,000 jobs. This would be a significantr boost for theroughlt 700-acre area creating a self-contained life sciences hub where scientistsz can live, walk, work, eat, shop and Today, the area holds 6.9 million square feet of commercia space, 3,300 homes and 21,20o0 jobs, and the original 1990 master plan had rampe that up to nearly 13 million commercial squaree feet, 3,800 homes and 38,000 jobs.
Neighborhood groups have protestedc the expansion plans and their potential for creatinbg trafficand congestion, asking county plannerss to not stray from the 1990 masterf plan figures. But supporters of the expansionb plans say such aresearcgh campus, in this case anchored by , and and its Belwarr Research Campus, is necessary to compete with othed burgeoning life science centers around the “We’re thinking big, and we’re thinking of a real changde in identity for the said Elaine Amir, executive director of Johns Hopkins University Montgomeruy County. “We’re looking to get noticede by the world.
” Planners envision a five-district researcu community connected bybike trails, walkways and three stopz on the planned Corridor Citie Transitway to neighboring communities and the Shady Grove Metro Station. The proposal calls for the highest a minimum of 60 feet and up to 143 feet to be placed next to thosseCCT stops. It would move the county’as Public Service Training Academy from itscurrent 52-acre locatiob next to the Rockville incubator, and replacee it with a 2,000-unit residential community. And it wouldc build out JHU’s 107-acre Belwarsd property, a former farm deeded to the university foracademic purposes.
By the end of last year, the universityh had proposed building 4.6 million to 6.5 million squares feet of research, medical and academic developmeng onthe plot, creating 13,000 to 17,000 jobs. Nearby residentse had asked JHU to halvrethose plans. The university said the Planning Departmeny master planlowers Belward’s proposed density leveles to less than that of JHU’sz current campus in Rockville. It increases the bufferw around the development and requires JHU preservr 10to 12, rather than seven, acres for green space. “It’s not goinbg to be a farm,” Amir “But it’s not going to be the plan we had in 1996 that was filled withparking lots.
” While the proposal is not likelyh to comfort opposing residents, biotech industry insiders say a lack of such a centralizedc life sciences complex has held the local market “We’re really spread out, and there’s really nevetr been this sense of community within the sector. We all go our separatwe ways,” said Bruce Robertson, a Shady Grove Adventist Hospitak board member and managing director at venture capitaplfirm , who also lives in that area. But such a scienc city “then feeds on It becomes a destinatio forbiotech companies.
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