Nature Reclaims White Flint Mall Site

Fifty years after forty-five acres of oak and hickory forest were clearcut to make way for the White Flint Mall in Rockville, Mother Nature has reclaimed the site.

"Native and invasive species found an equilibrium, and they are thriving," explained Hector J. Peabody, Director of Maryland's Depart of Game and Fish, during a recent survey of the flora and fauna.

Anacostia crack hippos migrated from Sligo Creek last year.

The survey found white-tailed deer, red foxes and opossum living side-by-side with feral zebras, Anacostia crack hippos, and escaped giraffes from the Goshen Farms Large Animal Sanctuary.

"The grazing mammal biomass is sustained by an ecosystem dominated by rapidly reproducing Bradford pear trees, kudzu, porcelain berry, and Japanese honeysuckle," Peabody said.

Once Montgomery County's most luxurious shopping center, with Bloomingdales and Lord & Taylor for anchors and Cartier and Versace as tenants, White Flint Mall was razed in 2015 by its owner, Lerner Corporation, to make way for a new, multi-use town center that never materialized. The site was rejected by Amazon in 2018 as a second headquarters campus and that's when Mother Nature quietly took over.

Marla Perkins enjoys watching the herds from the balcony of her 22nd story condominium in North Bethesda Market, across Rockville Pike from the White Flint site, where property values have more than doubled since what Perkins calls "Mutual of Montgomery's Wild Kingdom" emerged.

"It's so peaceful and everything is in harmony. Even when the lions make a kill--it's the circle of life," Perkins said.

As Mother Nature completes her reclamation, the future of the White Flint site remains unclear. "It would make a beautiful park," Peabody mused.

Lerner Corporation says it will develop office buildings, a hotel, and apartments at White Flint when interest rates go down and the Washington Wizards have a winning season.

Meantime, wildlife flourishes on the North Bethesda Serengeti.