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A new, 250-foot-tall development will soon begin rising out of the ground in Downtown Bethesda.
Stonebridge and its partners celebrated the groundbreaking Thursday for Avocet Tower, an office and hotel project at the corner of Wisconsin and Montgomery avenues.
The $350M project will feature 370K SF of spec office space and a 220-room AC Hotel by Marriott. OTO Development is partnering on the hotel component and JLL is managing the office leasing. Pickard Chilton is the design architect and Cooper Carry is the executive architect.
The development is being built on the former site of the Second District Police Station, after Stonebridge constructed a new police station at 4823 Rugby Road through a public-private partnership with Montgomery County.
"This is an important milestone today for Stonebridge and our partners," Stonebridge principal Doug Firstenberg said in a release. "This groundbreaking represents over five years of working with the county to make this prime site available for redevelopment."
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The office component will feature floor plates from 22K SF to 28K SF with 9-foot ceiling heights. It will have dedicated bike storage, a 4,500 SF conference facility, a 5K SF fitness center and a 7,500 SF rooftop terrace 250 feet above ground.
The project is the third building in Downtown Bethesda's latest wave of trophy office development after the area went years without new office construction. The two nearby projects that have already broken ground, from JBG Smith and Carr Properties, have both achieved strong office leasing ahead of their deliveries and developers have said they see pent-up demand for new office product in the market.
"We anticipate a migration from some D.C.-based companies who see the value and transformation happening here," said JLL's Bernie McCarthy, who is leasing the building with Amy Bowser and Danny Sheridan. "There is most certainly pent-up demand."
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