What downtowns can learn from Silver Spring about growth, diversity and reinvention

D. Reed remembers the downtown Silver Spring of their childhood in the 1990s as a quiet and lonely place. It was full of vacant and abandoned buildings, they said, and their family ventured to Bethesda and Rockville for most of their shopping.

The downtown doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Now friends connect over cappuccinos and croissants at locally owned coffee shops. Teenagers on skateboards practice kickturns in nearby Veterans Plaza. Shoppers bop between stores on Ellsworth Drive.

Since 2000, the downtown’s residential population has more than doubled, from about 7,000 in 2000 to more than 15,000 in 2024 — while maintaining its ethnic and economic diversity. Urban planners say other areas could stand to learn from downtown Silver Spring and the government’s revitalization efforts there.

“Downtown Silver Spring is one of the rare places that has done it,” said Reed, the Maryland policy director at Greater Greater Washington. “It has drawn a lot of investment. It has reinvented itself multiple times over the decades. And it still remains incredibly diverse.”

Still, some residents say the downtown peaked about a decade ago. They’re counting on the completion of a long-awaited light rail project, the Purple Line, among other things, to make downtown Silver Spring as vibrant as it used to be.

Remaking the downtown

The downtown Silver Spring of the 1980s and 1990s “wasn’t a pleasant place,” remembered former Montgomery County Executive Doug Duncan.

At one point, shoppers bustled around the downtown every day, but new suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s drew people out of Silver Spring and contributed to a period of disinvestment and white flight. Major stores closed and residents moved away.

For years, local officials talked about revitalizing the downtown, but nothing happened. Duncan was elected county executive in 1994 and was determined to change that.

“I campaigned on ‘we’re going to fix Silver Spring,’” he said.

One of Duncan’s first actions as executive was canceling a stalled development planned for the downtown. Shortly after, the county government entered an agreement with the company behind the Mall of America to construct a megamall in Silver Spring. The development, which residents protested, would have included an indoor waterpark and roller coaster. Duncan ended up killing that project, too, because of concerns about its financing plan.

The county decided to shift its approach. Instead of selecting a project, the county would pick a development partner to draft a plan, Duncan said. The county chose Peterson Companies and Foulger Pratt, and the firms spent months soliciting input from Silver Spring residents before formalizing the project that actually came to fruition.

The development, which was completed in 2004 and is now called Downtown Silver Spring, includes shops, restaurants, a movie theater, a seasonal ice-skating rink and a public plaza.

The town center was accompanied by other big changes. The county reached an agreement with the American Film Institute in 1998 to operate the historic Silver Theatre. It also convinced Discovery Communications to build its new headquarters downtown.

In the years that followed, the downtown gained a transit center, a civic building, a new library and a recreation and aquatic facility. United Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, also constructed a headquarters and laboratory complex in Silver Spring, which it has continued to expand.

“These little pieces were all coming together,” Duncan said. “It made a lot of people think very differently about Silver Spring.”

A model downtown?

Over time, Duncan said, leaders of other jurisdictions turned to Montgomery County for guidance about remaking their own downtowns.

The redevelopment was part of a larger trend in the 1990s and early 2000s when governments began to pay more attention to areas that had traditionally been underinvested in, said Nick Finio, the associate director of the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland.

Even though there are similar downtowns all along the Metro system, planning experts think there are aspects of Silver Spring that set it apart and that others could learn from.

Silver Spring has all the ingredients for a successful downtown, Finio said, including its mix of residential and commercial development and its robust network of transportation systems.

The downtown has access to the Red Line, MARC Train, several bus lines, bike lanes and three major highways. Soon it will also benefit from the Purple Line. It’s easy to get around Silver Spring regardless of your preferred mode of transportation, Finio explained.

One of the factors that set Silver Spring apart is its mix of housing types at different price points, Finio said. This makes the downtown accessible for people up and down the income spectrum in a way that many other downtowns are not, he said. It’s less exclusive than places like Bethesda and the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, he said.

More mixed-income housing units could soon be coming to Silver Spring. Later this month, the county’s Development Review Committee will consider a plan to redevelop Woodside Place. The proposal includes 1,290 apartments and 50 townhomes.

In recent years, Silver Spring has repeatedly ranked as one of the most ethnically diverse downtowns in the country. This wasn’t always the case. For most of its history, segregation and discrimination had largely prohibited nonwhite people from living and shopping in Silver Spring.

The commercial vacancies and lower rents at the end of the 20th century opened doors for the area’s growing immigrant and minority populations to start businesses and restaurants, which helped create the ethnically diverse community that still exists today.

“That’s one of Silver Spring’s strengths,” Reed said. “It is very easy to come and feel like you belong.”

The downtown has a concentration of Ethiopian businesses that includes everything from cafés to grocery stores to sports bars. Community members regularly practice their salsa and bachata in the town center. The area’s also home to multiple cultural festivals each year.

“It ain’t Bethesda,” said Reemberto Rodriguez, who used to serve as director of the county’s Silver Spring Regional Services Center. “You see people from everywhere.”

Despite being one of the county’s largest urban areas, downtown Silver Spring doesn’t have its own mayor and government. It’s instead overseen by the Silver Spring Urban District, which is part of the regional center.

Jacob Newman, the center’s current director, said the urban district functions like an unincorporated city and works to keep the downtown safe and clean.

“It’s a really great success story of how development can be concentrated and continue to happen and be catalyzed by public investment,” Finio said.

Strengthening Silver Spring

Now that it’s been more than two decades since the revitalization of the downtown, Reed said it’s worth thinking about what the next generation of Silver Spring looks like.

“I feel like the county just isn’t as focused as it used to be,” Reed said. “I would love to see the county put a little more care into investing in the public spaces in Silver Spring.”

The downtown has had to navigate several bumps in the road in recent years. In 2018, the county was left reeling when Discovery Communications announced plans to close its Silver Spring headquarters and sell the building. The company’s departure was a “huge blow,” Reed said. A few companies have moved into the building in the years since, but many of its office spaces remain vacant, according to the leasing website.

Ellsworth Place, the downtown’s indoor mall, has also taken hits. In May, the mall faced foreclosure after the exit of several tenants, the Washington Business Journal reported.

Shortly after Discovery’s exit, the downtown dealt with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the office market and with public safety challenges, Newman said.

Stephanie Helsing, the president and CEO of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce, said the county hasn’t focused enough on downtown Silver Spring since “they gave us this brand new shiny toy” in the early 2000s. She wants to make the downtown a cleaner, more desirable place to visit.

“I want us to have walkable sidewalks that are attractive. I want us to have planters,” she said. “They could have a really big impact.”

Several residents agreed that one of the main issues facing the downtown is a lack of cohesive messaging and marketing. Even though crime has dropped in recent years, many people still have a negative perception of the downtown’s safety, Helsing said. This narrative needs to be corrected, she said.

Tahirah Bailey Reed, a member of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce, said there should be more emphasis placed on Silver Spring’s art scene.

“Silver Spring has bad PR,” Bailey Reed said. “The good stuff is not reported.”

Silver Spring is her “own little New York.” She loves the walkability of the downtown and doesn’t feel the need to own a car.

But she said downtown has fallen off a little in recent years. She’s found herself going to Bethesda or Northern Virginia for nice dinners or to see a movie.

Fortunately, one of Silver Spring’s biggest challenges of the past decade will soon be winding down. Purple Line construction, which for years has devastated local businesses, is scheduled to wrap up in the next year. Reed, of Greater Greater Washington, is optimistic that the project will bring more energy back to Silver Spring.

“I think the Purple Line could be the shot in the arm that downtown Silver Spring needs desperately,” they said.