Bethesda Fire Department To Brief Public On Redevelopment Plans Next Month

Bethesda Fire Station #6, via Google MapsThe Bethesda Fire Department’s meeting with neighbors on Monday to discuss the potential redevelopment of Fire Station #6 will be just for neighbors.

But Department Board member Nat Finkelstein said the organization will have a pair of open-to-the-public meetings in September, one on Thursday, Sept. 11 and another on Thursday, Sept. 18.

The Fire Department’s Board is considering redeveloping the site at Bradley Boulevard and Wisconsin Avenue to include a mixed-use commecial project to help pay for a modern fire station facility.

Some in the Chevy Chase West neighborhood just south of the station have said they’ll be against any redevelopment proposal that includes a commercial or retail element.

Finkelstein said the Board hasn’t decided if it will go forward with a redevelopment project or what the project will look like. However, Board members told county planners they were examining a six- to eight-story apartment on the fire station’s current site that climbs down to four stories fronting the block of single family homes on Nottingham Drive. According to planning staff, the proposal also involves a one-story structure to house retail at the very corner closer to the intersection. The new fire station would be built on what’s now a bare spot of grass just to the west.

The meeting on Monday will be just for those residents on Nottingham Drive, Finkelstein said.

The September meetings — the times and location haven’t been set — would be open to the larger Chevy Chase West neighborhood.

Finkelstein said those meetings would not be official pre-submittal meetings, a more formal public meeting required by the Planning Department before projects are submitted for approval.

“I hope everyone can understand, this is something that’s going to be years away,” Finkelstein said. “We haven’t made a decision about what we’re going to do or when we’re going to do it.”

Naomi Spinrad has been leading the Chevy Chase West Neighborhood Association’s opposition to any commercial redevelopment. In a monthly neighborhood association newsletter, she wrote that “Traditionally the neighborhood has coalesced to protect any street or block facing unacceptable development or uses, and we need to rally strongly this time.”

Spinrad is opposed to a commercial redevelopment of the site because she argues it would mean service driveways and entrances on Nottingham Drive, increased traffic and the possibility that county officials would allow more development south of Bradley Boulevard.

Photo via Google Maps

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