Last summer, ULI Washington worked in partnership with the City of Rockville and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) to complete a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) titled “Rockville Town Center: Strengthening Its Vitality.” Sponsored by the City of Rockville, planning staff and public officials were interested in analyzing the city’s Town Center, as well as its relationship with retail throughout downtown Rockville. More specifically, the panel was asked to consider the following elements:

• Design actions to improve the urban environment
• Methods to attract and retain new uses
• Types of uses that will serve the demographic and income profile in the vicinity
• The Town Center’s competition, and how it can differentiate itself from competitors
• Whether existing development density and land use mix are enough to sustain current retail
• Jurisdictional policy obstacles impeding a successful retail environment
• Any major civic and/or economic opportunities that the City should pursue

TAP panelists spoke with staff from Rockville’s planning office, retail owners, larger-scale employers, and residents including those living in subsidized rental housing for seniors. Throughout the day and a half TAP, panelists took the opportunity to walk through the Town Center and downtown Rockville at different times of day to observe changing use patterns. At the conclusion of the TAP, panelists made a public presentation on their findings and recommendations. Attendees include city staff, residents, business owners, and elected officials including the city’s mayor and a number of councilmembers.

To address the many questions posed to the panel, recommendations were divided into four groups; contextualizing Rockville, retail strategy & design, organizing stakeholders, and urgent steps and prioritization. Recommendations included strengthening pedestrian and public transportation connections between the Town Center and nearby Montgomery College, reevaluating parking costs in line with nearby retail centers, rightsizing existing retail options and suggestions for anchor institutions at the Town Center leveraging the existing library and public space. Further recommendations by category can be found in the report.

Recommendations from the panel were well received, and feedback from the presentation was incorporated into the final TAP report, delivered in September 2019

In November, the Mayor and Town Council moved to adopt the recommendations from the report in order to advance the Rockville 2040 Comprehensive Plan.

ULI Washington would like to thank the following panelists for their work on the Rockville TAP:

• David W. Kitchens – Cooper Carry
• Andrew K. Brown – Stanford Properties
• Katie Bucklew – AvalonBay Communities
• Matt Clark – LandDesign
• Sophie Barral – Of Place
• Suzette Goldstein – HOK
• Jill Hunger – Arlington Economic Development
• Walter Ploskon – Niles Bolton Associates
• Chad Shuskey – Washington D.C. Economic Partnership