By Daniel J. Sernovitz
Featured in the Washington Business Journal
The Tower Cos. has hired Baltimore-based architecture firm Design Collective for the first phase of its ambitious The Blairs redevelopment in Silver Spring, a 27-acre project slated to begin in summer 2014.
Design Collective will design the first two residential towers of the project, with about 470 market-rate apartment units. Tower has started concept design on the two buildings, to be between 14 and 18 stories tall and to rise along Eastern Avenue along the southern edge of the property.
Tower is also planning to develop an underground parking garage, about 15,000 square feet of resident amenities and a series of private courtyards and public gardens in the first phase of the project. Tower hopes to start tearing down the existing Blair Towers this summer and the first residential building is slated to open in fall 2016.
The roughly $625 million project along Eastern Avenue and East-West Highway will be built in several phases and calls for about 450,000 square feet of retail and commercial space and roughly 2,800 new and existing residential units on full development.