Big plans are advancing for the 100-acre site of the former Lakeforest Mall that closed two years ago.
Developer WRS Realty is planning a mixed-use project with 1,600 multifamily units and 1.2M SF of commercial space. And Monday, it announced a partnership with Montgomery County that will make it easier for people to access the property.
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The company and the county reached a deal to build a new transit center that will serve eight bus routes and a planned Bus Rapid Transit network. The county is spending around $5M to purchase the land for the transit center and ready the site for construction, a county spokesperson said.
“Lakeforest Mall was a place where people came together for decades, and this redevelopment gives us a chance to reimagine this site,” County Executive Marc Elrich said in a release. “Building this transit center is critical to this redevelopment process and our forthcoming BRT system.”
The team received approval from the Gaithersburg City Council in September 2024 for the overall redevelopment plan. It filed applications in May detailing the site plans for the first two phases, which are still under review, Bethesda Today reported.
The developer also still needs county permission to demolish the former mall and begin construction, according to the publication.
A WRS executive told The Baltimore Banner it plans to hold an event in the coming weeks to mark the start of construction.
The redevelopment's 1.2M SF of commercial space would be divided between 750K SF of life sciences-related space — such as offices and labs — and 470K SF of new retail.
Lakeforest Mall opened in 1978 and was the largest in the county for years, according to the release. It suffered a series of closures of department stores Lord & Taylor, JCPenney, Sears and finally Macy's, which shuttered in January 2023. The full mall closed two months later.
WRS acquired the 47-acre core of the mall for $22.5M in 2019, and then it acquired the rest of the 102-acre site in pieces over the next three years, bringing the total acquisition cost to $75M, the Washington Business Journal reported.
“This project will bring new life to this area, and we know how important access is to new development,” WRS principal Kevin Rogers said in the county's release. “We welcome this partnership with Montgomery County to build a new transit center to help support the success of this redevelopment.”
