Is Park Potomac Supposed to Be Nice?

[Anonymous]

Here's how Quincy's advertises itself:

At Quincy's, we believe in more than just great food. Our 40 TVs guarantee that your favorite team will always be available to watch with your friends. We show NFL, NBA, all college sports, MLB, NHL, European soccer and of course all the big fights from UFC and Boxing. We have 20 beers on tap and plenty of bottles, so you can enjoy a cold one with your friends while watching the game of your choice.

So OP goes to a full-fledged sports bar on MNF involving the Giants and expects a quiet evening. Never change, DCUM, never change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rockville is not nice.

It's fine. It's clean (thanks to Rockville property tax). We get great city services for those taxes.

But it's definitely NOT exciting. I live near there.

That area has a lot of UMC retirees. Those new builds across the from Quincy's are expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

There is actually a shortage of upscale shopping areas that compare to The Boro, Mosaic, Capital One Center, Tysons Galleria, and Tyson 1. It’s not even close.

And it wasn’t always this way. Clarendon was filled with Payless shoe stores and cheap fabric spots in the early 90s when Bethesda was incredibly upscale by comparison. Times have changed.

Park Potomac isn’t even as nice as the Kingstowne Town Center in south Springfield. In Springfield!!! When a town center in the richest part of what used to be the richest county in America is trailing Kingstowne that is a sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockville is not nice.

It's fine. It's clean (thanks to Rockville property tax). We get great city services for those taxes.

But it's definitely NOT exciting. I live near there.

That area has a lot of UMC retirees. Those new builds across the from Quincy's are expensive.

And this is a problem. The only large scale development in Montgomery County seems to be upscale retirement complexes like the one in the 4H building on Connecticut or the complex across 270 from Montgomery Mall or affordable housing complexes that are subsidized by the county. This is a recipe for economic decline.

[Anonymous]

^ I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not out here saving tons of money from the lack of spending options. A lot of things I guess I get from DC itself and because I work in the city, it’s less out of the way for me than going to Tysons. For example, I get dress shoes from Alden or Allen Edmonds and both are in DC. I just found out there’s an Allen Edmonds in Tyson’s, which is good to know. I do feel more connected to DC living in MoCo than to the nova side, and I think a lot of the county residents feel that way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

You literally have a humongous vacant lot at White Flint Mall that is currently used to train motorcycle riders across from a Whole Foods. It’s connected with a ridiculously oversized parking lot and strip mall with an Aldi. If both the White Flint Mall site and the Aldi strip mall site were developed that is a huge swath of land that can be used for development but neither Amazon or anyone else wants to deal with MoCo’s policies and invest in that area.

Likewise, there are multiple acres above the “North Bethesda” Metro that have sat vacant for decades and only recently were proposed for development in who knows what year. These places would have been developed 20 years ago in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

There is actually a shortage of upscale shopping areas that compare to The Boro, Mosaic, Capital One Center, Tysons Galleria, and Tyson 1. It’s not even close.

And it wasn’t always this way. Clarendon was filled with Payless shoe stores and cheap fabric spots in the early 90s when Bethesda was incredibly upscale by comparison. Times have changed.

Park Potomac isn’t even as nice as the Kingstowne Town Center in south Springfield. In Springfield!!! When a town center in the richest part of what used to be the richest county in America is trailing Kingstowne that is a sad.

Your memory is quite selective. In the 90s, downtown Bethesda had a McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and gas stations lining Wisconsin Ave. "New Bethesda" -- the Bethesda Row area -- didn't exist. Bethesda was about as nice as Clarendon back then, and their real estate values were very similar (I was house shopping during that time).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not out here saving tons of money from the lack of spending options. A lot of things I guess I get from DC itself and because I work in the city, it’s less out of the way for me than going to Tysons. For example, I get dress shoes from Alden or Allen Edmonds and both are in DC. I just found out there’s an Allen Edmonds in Tyson’s, which is good to know. I do feel more connected to DC living in MoCo than to the nova side, and I think a lot of the county residents feel that way

The drive from Bethesda to Alden shoes takes as long as the drive from Silver Spring to Baltimore.

The Fed gravy train is over and MoCo can’t afford to be a bedroom community anymore. It needs to catch up.

[Anonymous]

^drive
Here’s a tip from a ball knower: it’s 30 min door to door with metro from Bethesda to City Center, maybe less depending where you are in the area. Definitely shorter and less stressful than driving to Baltimore. Not a fair comparison

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

You literally have a humongous vacant lot at White Flint Mall that is currently used to train motorcycle riders across from a Whole Foods. It’s connected with a ridiculously oversized parking lot and strip mall with an Aldi. If both the White Flint Mall site and the Aldi strip mall site were developed that is a huge swath of land that can be used for development but neither Amazon or anyone else wants to deal with MoCo’s policies and invest in that area.

Likewise, there are multiple acres above the “North Bethesda” Metro that have sat vacant for decades and only recently were proposed for development in who knows what year. These places would have been developed 20 years ago in Arlington.

This is a very fair point and so is the general comment about MoCo being a bedroom community. I also wish to see the white flint area redeveloped. On the broader economic situation, It’s hard to fight against wealthy residents’ preferences. MoCo was developed before nova and has a more established population. It’s easier to build where there wasn’t much there before

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find everywhere in that area excessively crowded during the day - and small chaotic parking lots - and then desolate at night. I just don’t get the appeal and prefer VA.

I really don’t understand the rugged terrain of the roads.

Driving up Seven Locks at night is basically pitch black and the trees hover over and basically touch each other so you can’t see the sky! The houses seem all dark even if it’s early? Idk

Sure, the 16-lane roads in Tysons/McLean, where every traffic light takes five minutes to change, are so appealing and not at all chaotic :)

Speaking of Tysons, go to Patsy’s back bar to watch a nighttime football game and then go to Quincy’s and report back with your findings.

Maybe go to the Boro to go grocery shopping and get a meal at North Italia or go the Capital One Center and go grocery shopping and get a beer at Starr Hill or a meal at Wren. Then go to Park Potomac to compare and contrast. The differences are incredibly stark, let’s just say. And Park Potomac is supposed to be a nice town center with $900,000 condos and $1M+ townhomes.

This is such a weird comparison. Tyson’s is massive. There’s no equivalent on the Maryland side. Park Potomac is tiny compared to Tyson’s. Montgomery mall is more of a normal but still functioning nice mall (I never go to Tyson’s for mall things when Montgomery mall since good enough) , but doesn’t have the surrounding restaurants and commercial space that Tyson’s has. Bethesda row is probably the closest to North Italia’s scene. Like and rose also has some nice places like Caruso but it’s more normal, and ofc, pike and rose is much smaller than Tyson’s.

Maybe you’re just more familiar with stuff in the Virginia side. Us on the Maryland side have no shortage of places to go. Personally, for a lot of my more upscale outings I go to DC proper, it’s a 20 min drive from MoCo on River rd or Clara Barton. I don’t “go out” while staying in the suburbs

You literally have a humongous vacant lot at White Flint Mall that is currently used to train motorcycle riders across from a Whole Foods. It’s connected with a ridiculously oversized parking lot and strip mall with an Aldi. If both the White Flint Mall site and the Aldi strip mall site were developed that is a huge swath of land that can be used for development but neither Amazon or anyone else wants to deal with MoCo’s policies and invest in that area.

Likewise, there are multiple acres above the “North Bethesda” Metro that have sat vacant for decades and only recently were proposed for development in who knows what year. These places would have been developed 20 years ago in Arlington.

That site is vacant because of the Lerners. It has nothing to do with the desirability of the area. The Lerners spent so many years fighting a scorced-earth battle against Lord & Taylor related to the mall that used to be there (https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca4/15-1995/15-1995-2017-02-28.html, https://thedailyrecord.com/2018/07/10/white-flint-costs/), and then sat and did nothing. That site would have been developed many years ago in any other developer's hands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The shopping center you're describing is actually in Rockville. Well actually, the city limit cuts through the larger development: the townhouses and Harris Teeter and Founding Farmers are on the edge of Potomac. The Quincy's shopping center is entirely in Rockville (also on the edge).

I think of this area as no-mans-land 270 between the two.

The only two shopping centers with actual "Potomac vibes" are Potomac Falls (Falls and River) and Cabin John (Seven Locks and Tuckerman). The former is "old Potomac" where you'll find more old guard and the later is more busy-family. But both are decidedly upper middle class to rich feeling Potomac experiences. The shopping center with Quincys and Walgreens and the UPS and liquor stores is...not. It's fine though! Perfectly nice!

This is pretty accurate. The cabin John space is in my mind similar to the Wildwood center by old Georgetown rd in terms of the “bougie” shops (balducci, the trattorias). Park Potomac has some nice coffee spots and the delis that appeal more to a retiree crowd (Attman’s, Brooklyn’s)

OP you should go to Falls Rd and River Rd. Maybe that’s what you have in mind. Not sure what kind of shopping you’re looking for though…the coffee and baked goods is good in all of these spots. None of them is a place to shop for clothing really

eh.. that area is just strip malls, too, and nothing of note. I've been there a few times, including just last week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rockville is not nice.

It's fine. It's clean (thanks to Rockville property tax). We get great city services for those taxes.

But it's definitely NOT exciting. I live near there.

That area has a lot of UMC retirees. Those new builds across the from Quincy's are expensive.

And this is a problem. The only large scale development in Montgomery County seems to be upscale retirement complexes like the one in the 4H building on Connecticut or the complex across 270 from Montgomery Mall or affordable housing complexes that are subsidized by the county. This is a recipe for economic decline.

pp here.. there are several new builds around here that are not for retirees. However, this area is not known for building MC new builds.

I think western MoCo is like the K shaped economy: lots of UMC buying services that keep just enough of the MC/LMC floating. How long can this last? IDK.. but if the younger UMC folks stay here, then it would last another generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not out here saving tons of money from the lack of spending options. A lot of things I guess I get from DC itself and because I work in the city, it’s less out of the way for me than going to Tysons. For example, I get dress shoes from Alden or Allen Edmonds and both are in DC. I just found out there’s an Allen Edmonds in Tyson’s, which is good to know. I do feel more connected to DC living in MoCo than to the nova side, and I think a lot of the county residents feel that way

The drive from Bethesda to Alden shoes takes as long as the drive from Silver Spring to Baltimore.

The Fed gravy train is over and MoCo can’t afford to be a bedroom community anymore. It needs to catch up.

Catch up to what?