New AMP Design Unveiled
August 14, 2007
On Tuesday, August 7, 2007, Fred Nichols and
Phil Perrine, representatives of
Ashton Meeting Place (AMP) held
a public meeting presenting
their new design for AMP.
Some historical perspective: On June
28, the Montgomery County
Planning Board denied approval
for the developer’s then current
design. Afterwards,
representatives of the developer
met with selected members of the
community, including SSARPC
Steering Committee
representatives, and developed a
new, substantially different
conceptual design. More detail
was later added to the
conceptual design and it was
presented to the public on
August 7. Public meetings are
required by the Montgomery
County Park and Planning
Commission before a developer
can submit plans for
consideration. The AMP
developers plan to submit their
design to the Montgomery County
Planning Staff very
soon.
Mr. Nichols said that the design is based on
the conceptual design presented
during the SSARPC testimony
before the Planning Board by
Miche Booz, a local architect
who is on the SSARPC design
committee. Mr. Nichols
indicated that changes to the
details of the design are being
made rapidly and that he would
especially like to have input
from the community during this
phase. The short time frame is
needed in order to keep the
State Highway Administration’s
funding for improvements to the
Route 108 and New Hampshire
Avenue intersection. The AMP
designers will continue working
with the SSARPC design team as
further details are developed.
This meeting was the first time
that the SSARPC saw the more
detailed concepts for the
building design.
The new design is described below.
SSARPC’s design committee
reviewed the plan and had a
number of concerns about the
details of the new design:
-
The bank as a suburban-style site
separated from the corner
green by drive aisles
-
The bank’s “Victorian” architectural style with a tower
-
The preponderance of brick
-
The back of the grocery
store as a blank wall (the
grocery store is now in the
interior of the site)
-
The lack of landscaping
and “rural” materials in the
parking structure
Since the public meeting, the SSARPC
design team has discussed these
issues, as well as pedestrian
paving, landscaping and the
design of the green space, with
the developer’s design team, and
is encouraged by several
possible solutions that evolved
during that meeting.
We encourage you to let the
developer and Montgomery County
Park and Planning staff benefit
from your ideas at this early
stage of the design. Contact
information is found
here.
The New AMP Design
The new site plan can be seen by clicking
here
. The design includes a
green space (approximately
one-fourth acre) on the corner
of Route 108 and New Hampshire
Avenue.
-
East along Route 108 there will be a
restaurant
. The next
building, to the east of the
restaurant, will be a
retail store
. The Route
108 entrance to the parking
area (at the back of the
shopping area) will be east
of the retail store.
-
South along New Hampshire Avenue will be the
Sandy Spring National Bank
and, to the south, another
restaurant
connected to a
retail store
,
which will have a coffee shop with
outdoor seating. South of
the coffee shop will be the
entrance from New Hampshire
Avenue.
All of the buildings are two stories, with
the second story being office
space; there are now no
condominiums. All stores face
onto the main highways.
Parallel parking (subject to
State Highway Administration
approval) is planned along both
roads. There will be a buffer
between the parallel parking and
the traffic lanes.
The “anchor” store will be a
grocery store
,
located inside of the shopping area.
It has been reduced to about
18,000 square feet from the
previous size of 30,000 square
feet. For comparison, the
new Roots on Georgia Avenue is
about 16,000 square feet.
There will be some offices on
top of two of the sides (west
and south) of the grocery store.
More about the new Ashton Meeting Place Design
Ashton Meeting Place
News
Ashton Meeting Place Documents
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