Downtown Silver Spring in Silver Spring, Maryland, is a 22-acre mixed-use suburban downtown revitalization project. "Silver Spring’s core was at one time a non-descript area of parking lots, aging retail, office buildings, and boarded-up storefronts. It is now a thriving, mixed-use town center within an arts and entertainment district," writes John Marcolin, a Montgomery County planner.
Developed from Maryland’s Smart Growth policies, the “first ring” suburban project is the result of a public-private partnership. It involved the creation of retail, entertainment, office, and public spaces and multi-family housing units, as well as four vibrant, revitalized main streets that are safe and pedestrian-friendly.
The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence 2005 selection committee stated:
"Downtown Silver Spring project worked with the architecture of the Discovery Center and its public park, the commons, and the Veterans Plaza on axis with the transit center."
Totaling $1.3 billion in investment, the revitalization has resulted in more than one million square feet of retail space including movie theaters and restaurants in a restored historic Art Deco building. The American Film Institute and the world headquarters for Discovery Communications are housed in newly developed office spaces. Located adjacent to a Metro stop, the project provides a transit-oriented model of redevelopment in a suburb serving a diverse population.
Similar Projects
30 Years of Scripps College Campus Stewardship
Claremont, California
Scripps College was first designed in 1927—a jewel of a California Mission– style institution in a small-town setting.
TLC: An Approach to Activate Downtown Rockford
Rockford, Illinois
After decades of abandonment, downtown Rockford is finally coming back. Rockford, a mid-sized city in north-central Illinois about 90 miles northwest of Chicago, is not unlike many other Midwest cities its size.
Sulphur Dell
Nashville, Tennessee
Just north of downtown Nashville, a 90- acre void of parking and low-rise industrial buildings separates the city’s central business district from the revitalizing Germantown neighborhood.