Lululemon to move this summer at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda

Lululemon will move to a new location inside Westfield Montgomery Mall this summer. It will be a very short move. Currently located on Level 1 next to the Tesla store, the activewear boutique will make a diagonal move on the same level to the vacant space next to Sleep Number. Judging from the width of the "coming soon" wall at the future location, the move is going to be for additional space compared to the existing one. Lululemon opened at the mall eleven years ago.

Rockville Wegmans signage installed + a sneak peek inside (Photos)

Permanent signage has been installed on the exterior of the future Wegmans grocery store at 1590 Rockville Pike, at the new Twinbrook Quarter development. It includes a sign for the store's Market Cafe. Some new "coming soon" window screens also say, "We are so grateful to be a part of your neighborhood." A peek inside (see photo at bottom) shows that a significant amount of shelving and refrigerated cases is now in place. The signage will serve more as an attention-getter for now, as the store's official opening date remains more than three months away.

Robbery at Rockville bus stop

Rockville City police responded to a report of a robbery at a bus stop in broad daylight on February 25, 2025. The robbery was reported at a bus stop in the 700 block of Rockville Pike at 1:30 PM. Police have not released a description of the suspect, but identified the getaway car used as "a white passenger car." If you have any information that could help detectives solve this case, call 240-314-8900.

Vacant Rockville Town Center storefronts could become homes with City approval

A proposal to turn vacant retail storefronts in the struggling Rockville Town Center into two-level loft homes is again moving forward. Property owner Comstock is seeking permission from the City of Rockville to convert 13,011-square-feet of vacant storefronts in the ground level of its BLVD Ansel apartment building into 13 dwelling units, which would be branded as "BLVD Lofts/The Lofts at Ansel." Functionally, they will be like townhomes flush with the building, and residents will enter via doors right on the sidewalk.

Several floorplans would be available. Comstock says that residents of the new loft units would have access to the building amenities available to the other residents of the apartments upstairs. Some units will have steps up to the front door where grading makes that necessary; most units would also have ADA-compliant access from a "rear corridor." Mail delivery to the loft units would be served by a mail and package room in the lobby. Comstock says it is not going to entirely give up on retail at the property; 6500 SF of vacant retail space would be retained for potential retail or restaurant tenants under the proposal.

A sample floorplan for one of the loft units

The Rockville Planning Commission will receive a briefing on the loft conversion proposal at its March 12, 2025 meeting at 7:00 PM. Four residents have submitted comments on the plan so far; three residents expressed support, and one opposed it.

Images courtesy Comstock/City of Rockville

Montgomery County goes green...with envy of Loudoun County

The Montgomery County Council is all-but-certain to hike property taxes on residents again in the fiscal year starting this July. They've done it every year in recent times, except for a paltry average $12 "tax cut" in the election year of 2014. By contrast, Loudoun County, Virginia across the river will be delivering a property tax cut to residents there this year. The difference? Not only more business growth and jobs created than Montgomery County over the last decade, but its new position as "data center capital of the world," The Washington Post reported earlier this week.

A shocking new statistic emerged in the Post report on the budget situations in the five biggest counties in Northern Virginia. Loudoun County's data centers generate a full 38% of that county's total revenue. Data centers are often criticized for representing very few jobs, as staffing is minimal at each. But they clearly generate bigtime revenue.

Of course, these data centers require massive amounts of electricity, something Montgomery County and Maryland lack because our elected officials ordered the closure of 8 coal-fired power plants across the state since 2012. High-wage jobs are something else MoCo lacks, as it has failed to attract any new major corporate headquarters in over 25 years. Heckuva job, Brownie! 

While I would rather see an aerospace research facility, or a major defense firm headquarters fill our underutilized and vacant office parks, imagine if there was a data center on each of the office properties among those that have been converted to luxury townhomes in recent years. Residential housing is a revenue loser for the County, as our structural budget deficit proves. Data centers are a revenue winner, as homeowners in Loudoun County will be delighted to tell you, when they receive their FY-2026 property tax cut.

Rockville assault victim asked child to stop kicking car

A reprimand of an out-of-control child led to a painful assault in East Rockville on February 24, 2025. The victim noticed a child kicking their parked car in the 500 block of N. Horners Lane at 11:23 AM. After telling the child to stop, the victim was approached and assaulted by an unknown male suspect. Rockville City police have not released a description of the suspect. If you have any information that can help identify him, contact police at 240-314-8900.

BigBear.ai moves HQ from Maryland to Virginia

Oh, no, not again! Moribund Maryland has just lost yet another corporate headquarters to Virginia. BigBear.ai has moved its HQ from Columbia, Maryland to a Class A trophy office building in Tysons, Virginia, The Business Journals reports. Its new address is the Valo Park building at 7950 Jones Branch Drive. The move caps off a month of great news for the company and its investors. It not only picked up coveted new contracts from the Army and Navy, but hired a new CEO who was a high-level adviser to President Donald Trump, giving it an edge in any DOGE-sizing at the Pentagon.

Valo Park not only enjoys easy access to I-495, but its website notes it is only a 15-minute drive from Dulles International Airport. No Montgomery County or Maryland business can make that claim, as leaders of both jurisdictions for decades have blocked construction of the long-planned I-370 Potomac River crossing to the Dulles area. Montgomery County hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over 25 years, and Maryland's record is about the same. Both have lost many HQs to Virginia, among other states, and now the trend continues to play out. Tysons is the happening place to be; you can feel the energy just driving through on the Beltway, among all of the neon corporate logos that light up the night. Montgomery County is Sleepy Town, a bedroom community for the booming job centers elsewhere in the region - such as Tysons!

The loss of BigBear.ai is particularly humiliating for Maryland, as Governor Wes Moore has stated that artificial intelligence is one of the key economic sectors he wants to grow. Alas, Maryland not only has much higher taxes, but much less electricity generation capacity, after the Democrat-controlled Maryland legislature forced the closure of 8 coal-fired power plants. They apparently were unaware that artificial intelligence requires massive amounts of energy. Virginia has that capacity, while Maryland has to import expensive electricity from out-of-state at boardwalk prices just to keep the lights on. We're being governed by very stupid people, folks. Heckuva job, Brownie!