Maryland mall to become a 'town'

The 30-year-old White Flint Mall on the Rockville Pike in North Bethesda, Maryland, "is going to be deconstructed," says Mike Cohen, the architect for its replacement. "It's not going to be a mall. It's going to be a town."

The Montgomery Gazette reports that representatives of the mall's owner, Lerner Enterprises, intend to replace most of the 850,000 sq. ft. building and surrounding parking structures with a collection of 21 buildings. The company envisions four new office buildings, a 300-room hotel, and 1 million square feet of shopping and restaurants.

"More than a dozen apartment complexes — totaling 2,500 new bedrooms — also would be built along a new grid of streets," the paper said.

A sketch plan is to be completed in December. A makeover of the Rockville Pike has long been under discussion and was approved by the Montgomery County Council in March 2010 on the condition that a series of prerequisites first be met, New Urban Network reported last July.

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