This big (for a Non-Supercenter), about 149,000 square foot Non-Supercenter Wal-Mart store is located in the Northeast part of the unincorporated suburban community of Germantown, in the Northern part of Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. It was built in the mid to late 1990's timeframe, and is still the only Wal-Mart store of any type in Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, due to Montgomery County's generally left of center political leanings. However, there has been a proposal to expand this about 149,000 square foot Non-Supercenter Wal-Mart store into an about 167,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter in the same building, as well as a proposal to build a new, about 118,000 square foot, Wal-Mart Supercenter in the community of Aspen Hill, in the Eastern part of Montgomery County, Maryland. Unfortunately, there has been very little discussion, whether positive or negative, about these two potential Wal-Mart projects in Montgomery County, since they were first proposed in the Fall of 2011, about a year and a half ago. I guess it's better to have virtually no online discussion on the subject than to have a bitter constroversy, as is often the case with such projects. No news is good news, I guess, although it almost seems as if county politicians are deliberately avoiding discussing the issue, so as to avoid conflict. Another proposal to build an about 80,000 square foot Wal-Mart store in the Montgomery county seat of Rockville, in the Central part of the County, has been delayed indefinitely, but not completely canceled, since the strip mall that would have been replaced by the Wal-Mart was sold to another company in September of 2012. I sure hope that all three of these possible future Wal-Mart proposals in Montgomery County, Maryland do get approved and built as soon as possible, as a county of nearly one million people, like Montgomery County, should have more more options for affordable retail than Montgomery County offers, though, on the other hand, Montgomery County does offer plenty of upscale, expensive retail options that are not found in most areas. While the Rockville Wal-Mart proposal might be a hard sell due to both the displacing of existing businesses and the fact that the area is supposed to be developed in a more dense, transit oriented fashion, the other two Wal-Mart proposals in Montgomery County should be no-brainers, as the Supercenter expansion of the Germantown Wal-Mart pictured here would only be built over a small area of the parking lot on the right (North) side of the existing store, and the proposed new Aspen Hill Wal-Mart Supercenter would replace an aging, vacant office building in an area that already has other existing large retail stores (Kmart, Home Depot, Kohl's, and Giant Supermarket), and is not slated to be re-developed as a dense transit oriented area. And with regards to the Rockville Wal-Mart proposal, perhaps it could eventually be reintroduced as a dense, transit-oriented development with underground parking, ground level retail, and residential and/or office units above, similar to Washington, DC's first Wal-Mart store, under construction at 77 H Street Northwest, which will be an about 76,000 square foot Wal-Mart store, very close in size to the Rockville Wal-Mart proposal. And the displacement of the existing businesses would also be a moot point, since there would be other, smaller inline retail on the ground level besides just the Wal-Mart store, as in the under construction Washington, DC Wal-Mart store, so, rather than being displaced by it, the established retail would co-exist with the Wal-Mart in a newer building. I believe this would be an ideal win-win situation for everybody involved, but whether it would ever actually happen is a great mystery, and probably unlikely in the near future, as the anti Wal-Mart crowd would probably still find something to fault, not to mention the obvious fact that such a project would actually have to be proposed by a developer, since at this point it is just my personal vision for the area, and of course I am neither a developer nor do I have ties to any developers. Germantown is an unicorporated outer ring, Northern suburb of Washington, DC, located in the Northern part of Montgomery County, Maryland, USA. Germantown has a young and very diverse population of about 88,000 people, and is growing relatively fast in population, as the Washington, DC metropolitan area continues to expand outward. Montgomery County, Maryland is located just North of Washington, DC itself, and is currently the most populated county in the Eastern U.S. state of Maryland, with a diverse and relatively fast growing population of about 1.01 million people. Montgomery County, Maryland, USA is the second most populated county in the entire Washington, DC-Baltimore metropolitan area, behind Neighboring Fairfax County, Virginia, USA, which in turn is the most populated county in the Eastern U.S. state of Virginia, as well. Fairfax County, Virginia has a current population of about 1.12 million people, as opposed to Montgomery County, Maryland's about 1.01 million people, and both of these counties are growing at similar, and relative fast, rates in population, and are among the wealthiest, most diverse, and most highly educated counties in the whole United States of America, as well as some of the most continuously urbanized areas in America as well. This photo was taken on Yesterday, March 9, 2013.
