The Deleted Scenes - Raising the Roof
I took a grainy, poorly framed picture at a traffic light the last time I was in Maryland, between Gaithersburg and Rockville. It was of a new-ish looking strip mall, which for some reason caught my eye as possibly having been something else in an earlier life. I used the picture’s location tag to find out where I had actually been (the only business in the frame was a Qdoba, so not that helpful in mapping a specific location). Here it is on Google Maps: Then I went to Google’s Street View slider to see the historical imagery. And, bummer, there had just been another similarly-sized strip mall on the lot. Nothing to write about here. But hold on a second. I toggled these views back and forth, and the old strip mall sure looks like it sits on the same footprint as the new one. I didn’t think they would have kept the new one so narrow, if it was a complete rebuild. So I figured out the name of the shopping center and googled it. And what do you know, a local blog called Rockville Nights had done some posts following the construction project here. It seems, maybe, a bit workaday for even local news, but I’m glad they tracked it. They note:
Now, sometimes folks who don’t care whether the building is the same building (most people) will use language like “transformation” when they really mean “demolition and replacement.” But that was tantalizing. A little more searching revealed the commercial real-estate company’s online listing for this shopping center. Usually these only have relevant commercial information: square footage, traffic on the road(s) the center fronts, etc. But this time, it answered my question perfectly:
So there it is—that old low-slung strip mall, which, if you look closely, is semi-below grade, had its roof raised and got an all-new façade. That’s a lot of work for a small, aging strip plaza. Perhaps there wasn’t room to build a bigger one. Or perhaps all it really needed was a refresh. The core structure here turned out to be quite adaptable. It does have one other unusual detail: it’s connected to an office building. Here’s Google’s 3D view (it’s out of date, still using imagery from before the strip mall renovation): It’s always fun to raise the roof. Related Reading: Thank you for reading! Please consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help support this newsletter. You’ll get a weekly subscribers-only post, plus full access to the archive: over 600 posts and growing. And you’ll help ensure more material like this! You're currently a free subscriber to The Deleted Scenes. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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