Montgomery County Acquires Glenmont Shopping Center Parcel
Publisher' Note: this exclusive news report is NOT part of The Montgonion's satirical content.
Montgomery County has purchased a 12,179-square-foot lot at 2301 Randolph Road in Silver Spring, a small section of the Glenmont Shopping Center across from the Montgomery County Police Department’s 4th District Station. The county acquired “Parcel H Glenmont Shopping Center” from the Maryland State Highway Administration on May 6, 2025, according to deed records.
Pin identifies 2301 Randolph Road - Parcel H, Glenmont Shopping Center. Photo credit: Google Earth.
The acquisition is part of the county’s Glenmont Redevelopment Program, a plan to acquire all or most of the shopping center’s fifteen parcels and then leverage the area’s status as a State Enterprise Zone for massive redevelopment. EZ status allows the county to offer lucrative tax incentives and attract developers eager to capitalize on the designation. The goal is to fast-track redevelopment, reshape the area’s economic profile, and eventually boost long-term tax revenues once the tax credits expire.
Before any of that can happen, the county will need to secure substantial funding and skilled real estate negotiators. The shopping center’s fifteen parcels are owned by twelve different property owners: some are individuals or families organized under LLCs; others are large corporations. McDonald's, Lidl and CVS own their store properties. Collectively, the Glenmont Shopping Center properties have a tax assessment value of around $60 million, but in reality, they would sell for far more.
How the county plans to find upwards of $100 million and bring together the disparate parties isn’t addressed in the Glenmont Redevelopment Program planning documents. Even if the money were available, a 2014 Urban Land Institute Panel report, Land Assemblage Strategies for the Glenmont Shopping Center, acknowledged the profound difficulties: “the Panel cautioned that assembling a group of individual properties of the Glenmont Shopping Center is a hugely ambitious endeavor.” Even with a professional facilitator costing upwards of 1 million leading the effort, the ULI Panel concluded “land assemblage will be a very challenging proposition.” Instead, the ULI Panel suggested the county focus on near-term opportunities: “Improvements to appearance can vary in cost, but can go a long way to beautify the area and make it more cohesive. The panel suggested harmonizing facades through architectural treatments, adding landscaping, and improving wayfinding.” None of that took place, of course. As another alternative, the ULI Panel also suggested acquisition of a few adjacent properties at a time and redeveloping the area in “bite size chunks.” Parcel H appears to be the county’s first nibble.
In a February 2024 memo to the County’s Economic Development Committee regarding the 2025–2030 Capital Improvement Budget, staff noted the Council and County Executive supported $452,000 in 2025 to acquire the Randolph Road parcel, but the project budget contains no additional funding through 2030.
While the county works out its multimillion-dollar acquisition plan, its newly purchased parcel won’t sit idle. It will serve as a construction staging area for a major HVAC renovation at the 4th District Police Station directly across Randolph Road, according to plan documents. The renovation is scheduled to last one to two years. First, though, there’s some housekeeping to do at Parcel H.
The Trashiest Lot of Them All
The Montgonion has conducted extensive surveillance around the Glenmont Shopping Center for the past two years. Our reports have led to major improvements in areas once overflowing with trash and choked with weeds from years of neglect. We thought we knew every grimy, dilapidated corner. But we had focused so much on the main buildings that we completely ignored Parcel H on Randolph Road. In our defense, it is surrounded by a rusty eight-foot chain-link fence with a privacy screen.
Parcel H is surrounded by a tall chain link fence with a privacy screen, overtaken in place by invasive vines and weeds. August 10, 2025. Photo Credit: The Montgonion
Based on Google Earth imagery, Parcel H was a gas station with a service bay building until at least 2012. By 2014 the building had been razed and the lot covered in gravel. Images through 2019 show the lot fairly tidy and housing various concrete sewer and road construction fixtures. Around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, things took a turn for the worse, until it reached its present state of squalor.
Montgomery County’s new 0.28-acre lot is a “fixer-upper” in the gravel-lot-with-no-buildings real estate market. The land appears to have conveyed with a small commercial vehicle graveyard, large mounds of broken concrete, stacks of concrete slabs, piles of trash bags, and—because it wouldn’t be Glenmont without them—a scattering of old tires.
Remnants of a highway and assorted debris, with a Ford L900 Series dump Truck in the background. The L900 was manufactured from 1970 to 1998 and this appears to be a 1975 edition. August 10, 2025. Photo Credit: The Montgonion
Based on our over-the-fence inspection and Google image research, here’s what Montgomery County taxpayers are storing on their 1.4 percent sliver of the 20-acre shopping center site:
1 International S Series dump truck, circa 1980–1990s
1 GMC TopKick medium-duty truck, circa late 1990s
1 Ford L-Series dump truck, circa 1970–1980s
Parcel H - Glenmont Shopping Center. August 10, 2025. Photo Credit: The Montgonion.
1 Chevrolet C/K 3500 Series utility truck, circa late 1990s
1 Ford Super Duty Chassis Cab, circa 2000s
1 Gradall XL3100 truck with telescoping boom, circa 2008
Parcel H - Glenmont Shopping Center. August 10, 2025. Photo Credit: The Montgonion.
1 Ford F-350 pickup, circa 1993
1 Ford F-150 pickup, circa mid-2000s
2 Chevy Express vans, circa 2011
Parcel H - Glenmont Shopping Center. August 10, 2025. Photo Credit: The Montgonion.
1 Leeboy 8500 HD asphalt paver, circa 1999
1 Vermeer trailer-mounted vacuum excavator, circa 1990s
1 Ingersoll-Rand trailer-mounted air compressor, circa 1980–1990s
It appears the vehicles haven’t moved in a while. Some have Maryland plates with expired stickers from 2019, some have no plates at all. None appear to be state- or county-owned, and several bear emblems of privately owned Maryland and Virginia construction companies.
The Glenmont Redevelopment Program budget doesn't currently have money to tow, impound or dispose of commercial dump trucks and asphalt pavers and move tens of tons of debris. Hopefully SHA was supposed to leave Parcel H “broom clean” and is coming back for this stuff. If it conveyed, the county wins the title of shabbiest lot in the shabbiest shopping center in Montgomery County.
Glenmont’s Glum Future
In the “Project Justification” for the latest Glenmont Redevelopment Plan, the county states: “The 1978 Sector Plan discussed the need for a physical upgrade of the shopping center structures to develop a ‘positive image’ for the community. The 1997 Sector Plan characterized the center as poorly configured and unattractive. To date, the recommendations of both plans have not been implemented.” The justification further notes that “the 2013 Sector Plan supports a phased development where assembly and redevelopment occur over time.” The Project Justification fails to mention the 2014 ULA Panel’s pessimism and alternative recommendations.
It is now 2025, and “assembly” has begun—with Parcel H. One down, fourteen more to go, and $100 million-plus still unfunded. Best case, it will take several decades. In the meantime, the Glenmont Shopping Center continues to crumble while 4th District officers complete paperwork in its parking lot, partly to deter crime and partly because it’s preferable to sitting inside a station awaiting a long-overdue air conditioning upgrade.
That Montgomery County would end up owning the trashiest plot in all of Glenmont—possibly the worst in the county—in pursuit of a far-fetched, ill-advised plan to acquire the entire shopping center decades from now, is a fitting metaphor for this once-charming urban strip mall that has spent the last 50 years waiting for a facelift. It may have to wait 50 more.
