Good things are happening in Twinbrook, the small community sandwiched between White Flint and the city of Rockville, and planners can take some credit. Three years after the Twinbrook Sector Plan was approved, the area has seen a number of positive changes:
- More housing in an area that lacked housing
- Service-oriented retail, also previously scarce
- Green features, like a bike-share program
- Office construction
The Twinbrook Metro Station makes the community a natural place for growth, particularly residential growth. The Sector Plan calls for more residential units, and they have come.
Residents of the new Twinbrook Commons, in the city of Rockville, are just steps from the Twinbrook Metro Station, making it a green development even without the bike share program and solar-powered trash compactor. Planners set the stage for Twinbrook Commons, a medium-density, mixed-use development, before Rockville annexed the area.
The Alaire is a swank new apartment building a block from the Twinbrook Metro Station.
Beyond residential development, the 18-story landmark Parklawn Building has been a catalyst for spin-off office development. In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided to relocate to the Parklawn Building. The HHS decision provided Twinbrook with a serious jobs boost. Across the street, a mixed office and retail building is under construction, and an agency within the National Institutes of Health is building on the large HHS surface parking lot.
Construction across from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building
Home to one of Montgomery County’s few light industrial areas, Twinbrook’s service industry includes a bevy of practical uses, from kitchen counter fabricators to automotive repair.
Twinbrook’s light industrial area thrives
We were out in Twinbrook recently to film a Montgomery Plans cable show walking tour. Take the tour, with details provided by planner Fred Boyd, to see Twinbrook’s progress.
MP39- Around Town: Twinbrook from M-NCPPC on Vimeo.
Monte
Nice piece, but I’m not sure about this, “Green features, like a bike-share program” — last I heard, Twinbrook is the only Metro station at this end of the Red Line being skipped over for Bikeshare — has that changed?
Valerie Berton
I asked one of our transportation planners about the plans for Capital Bikeshare. You’re right that Twinbrook is not slated to be part of that system. He said: Bikeshare stations are not planned at the Twinbrook, White Flint, or Grosvenor metrorail stations on the western branch of the Red Line.
Note that the bike-sharing I referred to in the post was a private initiative set up by the developer of the Allaire in Twinbrook.