County Says it Has No Plan to Offer GE-Tech Park as a Future School Site
Montgomery County has no plans to allow a school to be built on land it owns off of Route 28 in Gaithersburg, the county’s Deputy Director of General Services told MyMCMedia Thursday.
The county acquired the 52-acre parcel which includes the former National Geographic building at 100 Edison Park Drive and relocated county services to the site including: the Montgomery County Police Headquarters from Research Blvd.; the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service from the Executive Office Building; the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security; some divisions of the Department of Transportation; and the 1st District Police Station and the Department of Liquor Control.
But, the county also pledged it would not build on the open property in front of the lake abutting Route 28.
“We have no plan to develop the front of that property. When we aquired the property we made a commitment to maintain that viewshed,” said Greg Ossont, Deputy Director of General Services.
Recently the Rachel Carson Elementary School Parent Teacher Association requested that a new school be built in the Lakelands community to relieve persistent overcrowding at the school. The Montgomery County Board of Education voted in favor of amendments to the school system’s capital improvements budget earlier this month that adds nearly $220 million to the funding plan approved by the Montgomery County Council in May. The board added a feasibility study to determine if a new elementary school could be built in the Quince Orchard cluster to relieve overcrowding there. That cluster includes but is not limited to the Lakelands area. The RCES PTA had wanted a new school be built in Lakelands and pointed to the GE/Technology Park as a possible location to built it.
Ossont did say that the county has offered a joint project with the City of Gaithersburg to allow the city to expand Lakelands Park by using the former ballfield located on the county’s property off of Main Street. Ossont said he has not heard if the city wants to do that.
The City does own about seven acres on the GE/Technology Park site that was purchased for $3.1 million in 2000, according to City Manager Tony Tomasello. Only about four acres of the property is buildable due to its grading and environmental restrictions. The city had planned to build an aquatic center on the site, but scraped that idea mostly due to the recession.
“We don’t currently have a use for it in the (capital improvements plan),” Tomasello said. He added that MCPS has not inquired about the site.
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