Council Balks At Olde Towne Plaza Plan

The City Council and members of the community Monday night told staff and an architect in charge of designing a public plaza in Olde Towne to go back to the drawing board.

The plan for the Olde Towne Plaza redevelopment at the corner of E. Diamond and S. Summit Ave. calls for a building that officials worry would block the view of the rolling stock exhibit at the Gaithersburg Community Museum.

The building and plaza would be built on what is known as the Fishman site.

The Mayor and Council voted to authorize the redevelopment in September 2010.

On Monday night Vic Bryant, the Vice President of Planning and Landscape Architecture at Macris, Hendricks, and Glascock, briefed the council on their plans before their preliminary site plan review begins.

The site, she said, is a "challenging" one due to the grade variation.

But the Council members raised issue with the building placement, saying it blocked the view of the city's rolling stock exhibit.

Council woman Cathy Drzyzgula also worried that the service entrance to the proposed building would be adjacent to the museum.

City Planner Lauren Pruss said the service entrance would be fully hidden from view and used during off-peak hours.

Mayor Sidney Katz worried that the parking lot on the site now acts as a de facto right turn lane for traffic on northbound S. Summit Ave. turning right onto E. Diamond Ave.

Large trucks trying to make that turn, he said, would roll right over the corner of the plaza, putting pedestrians in danger.

He stressed that improvements to that intersection needed to be made, and if it didn't happen with this redevelopment project, it would be difficult to do in the future.

But Assistant Director of Public Works Ollie Mumpower said improvements to the intersection, such as adding a right-hand turn lane, were impractical and expensive.

Clark Day, an Olde Towne resident and chair of the Historic District Commission, said during a snowfall last year he took photographs of the rolling stock exhibit. They were the most-requested images he took that day, and it would be a shame to disrupt that view with the proposed development.