County To Issue New RFP For Bethesda Police Station

Montgomery County will issue a new request for proposals for a project to build a new second district police station in Bethesda.

Officials are working to develop the new RFP, which isn't yet finalized, according to Greg Ossont, deputy director of planning and development for the county's Department of General Services.

The county initially issued an RFP for a project to replace the aging Bethesda station in 2008. JBG issued the winning bid, but after years of negotiations, the developers backed out of a land-swap deal with Montgomery County to build the station as a part of a mixed-use residential project at 7900 Wisconsin Avenue.

Now, JBG plans to move forward with the Wisconsin Avenue development, albeit without the police station. Plans for the modified project [PDF] will go before the Montgomery County Planning Board Feb. 14.

“We realize the second district police station is in poor condition,” Ossont told Patch in December. “It puts us much further behind than we thought we’d be at this point due to JBG pulling out, so there’s a certain sense of urgency.”

As officials mulled their options for moving forward with the project, Ossont told Patch that should the county choose to solicit new bids, a new RFP would be necessary because "it wouldn’t be prudent to just assume all of the same conditions that existed in 2008 would carry over."

With an RFP now in the works, officials are still keeping the option of renovating the station at its current site on the table, Ossont said.

"If something doesn’t work out with the solicitation then we need to reserve that scenario," Ossont wrote in an email to Patch.