STEP Starts in Former Progress Place Building in the Ripley District

Montgomery County (MD) Council member Tom Hucker (back row, second from right), Washington Property Company President Charlie Nulsen (second row, right) and Amelia Kalant, Director of STEP (front row, right) join culinary students and their instructor, Sandy Patterson (first row, third from right) at Washington Property Company’s former Progress Place building in downtown Silver Spring, MD.

Bethesda, MD-based Washington Property Company (WPC) has leased commercial kitchen space in the former home of Progress Place in downtown Silver Spring, MD to a nonprofit culinary training program offered by STEP (Service workers Training & Education Partnership).

STEP is a joint benefit fund operated by Local 23 of the international labor union UNITE HERE in partnership with employers such as Aramark, Sodexo, and Compass Group. The program offers a variety of culinary training opportunities to help adult workers learn skills to advance their careers, and to support employer participants who are dedicated to excellence in the hospitality industry. The classes, limited to 12 participants, are free to qualifying Local 23 members. STEP also will offer beginning ESL classes in the same space.

Montgomery County Council member Tom Hucker, who represents Silver Spring, said:“I truly commend everything Washington Property Company has done to redevelop Silver Spring’s downtown as an exciting transit-oriented community. The STEP culinary training program represents a creative use of WPC’s former Progress Place facility, providing tangible benefits to hard-working members of our community and to our thriving local restaurant industry.”

WPC has leased another portion of the building to 411 Art Associates, a group of professional artists formerly located in Washington, DC. The remainder of the building is occupied by LendLease, the construction company building WPC’s latest downtown Silver Spring apartment building, Solaire 8250 Georgia Avenue.

WPC owns the former Progress Place building at 8210 Colonial Lane, just a five-minute walk from the Silver Spring Metrorail and multi-modal transit station. Up until late last year, the building housed Shepherd’s Table and Interfaith Work’s Community Vision, which provide a variety of services to the low-income and homeless population of Montgomery County, MD.

In 2015, the County government selected WPC to build a new, expanded facility for Progress Place, which opened in December 2016. In addition to the meals, social services, medical support, and other assistance provided at the former facility, the new Progress Place has a commercial kitchen, medical offices, temporary shelter space and 21 studio apartments for long-term housing.

Under WPC’s partnership with the County, WPC absorbed design, development, and construction costs for the new Progress Place. WPC plans to develop a high-rise apartment building on the site of the Colonial Lane facility, but not for several years.

Nearby in the Ripley District, WPC’s latest development, Solaire 8250 Georgia Avenue, is now under construction. Rising 20 stories above Silver Spring’s “main street,” Solaire 8250 Georgia Avenue will offer 338 luxury apartments, including studio, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom options. This is WPC’s fourth Solaire-branded apartment community and its second in the Ripley District. Solaire-Metro, located just two blocks from Solaire 8250 Georgia Avenue, opened in 2012 and is fully leased. Solaire Wheaton delivered in 2014; and Solaire Bethesda delivered in late 2016.

Upon completion of Solaire 8250 Georgia Avenue in spring of 2019, WPC’s four Solaire communities will total over 1,000 units, combining the finest amenities and high-end finishes with close proximity to Metrorail’s Red Line.

WPC has worked closely with Montgomery County to lead the Ripley District’s transformation from former light industrial use to a vibrant transit-oriented neighborhood with an exciting new mix of dining, shopping, housing, employment, and entertainment options. The district will eventually be home to up to 3,000 people with over two million square feet of mixed-use development.

Washington Property Company (www.washproperty.com) is a full-service commercial real estate company located in Bethesda, Maryland. Established by Charles K. Nulsen, III, WPC is involved in a full range of real estate investment services including acquisition, land use, development, property management, leasing, and construction management. WPC has developed more than eight million square feet of commercial space in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and currently has over 1.6 million residential square feet under development. WPC is actively pursuing office, multi-family, retail, and mixed-use development opportunities throughout the region. Through its management company, WPC Management, LLC, Washington Property Company manages over 1.8 million square feet of commercial space.