As featured in Bethesda Magazine
The development proposal for Marriott International’s new Bethesda headquarters has landed in the hands of county planners.
The Marriott headquarters application arrived this week at the Montgomery County Planning Department. The proposal will go before the planning board after staff members look at it.
The project partners decided to turn in the sketch, site and preliminary plans together to expedite the approval process and get the construction started on schedule, they explained this month during a community meeting. They’re looking to construct a 22-story office building on a batch of properties near the intersection of Wisconsin and Norfolk avenues in downtown Bethesda.
The hospitality chain anticipates moving roughly 3,500 employees into the new headquarters by July 2022, when the company’s lease is up at its current home on Fernwood Road in Bethesda. The redevelopment project also will give rise to a 238-room flagship Marriott hotel next to the office building.
Representatives of Bernstein Cos. and Boston Properties, who teamed up for the project, said they expected to have the hotel ready for business by October 2021.
Bob Dalrymple, a land use attorney involved in the project, estimated that the planning board hearings would take place before the end of 2017.
Also in the past week, the developers released new images of their vision for building the headquarters, the hotel and a mid-block connection between Wisconsin and Woodmont avenues.