Germantown jobs expected to double by 2030

Business task force addresses growth in the community

June 23, 2004

With the number of jobs in Germantown projected to double by the year 2030, the community is well-positioned for future growth, business leaders concluded at a task force meeting held by the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce Thursday morning.

Representatives from the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission presented a series of charts previewing future job growth for Germantown.

"What we are able to illustrate is that the jobs future for Germantown is still very strong," said planner Sue Edwards, team leader for the Interstate 270 corridor.

In 2001, 19,142 jobs were located in Germantown. Jobs are expected to grow an average of 3.9 percent a year, to a total of 43,420 in 2030. As the number of jobs increases, the mixture of job types is expected to change.

"In 2000, a little over half the jobs were in office space," Edwards told the task force. "By 2030, the office jobs will increase to 68 percent."

While future development is encouraged, the vacancy rate in Germantown currently exceeds the county average. As of April 1, 12.2 percent of the county's office space was vacant, compared to 28.5 percent in Germantown. Local rental rates have "softened" about five percent as a result.

Paul Chod, the president of Minkoff Development Corporation, tried to explain why the community's job growth hasn't increased significantly yet.

"Germantown is still, forgive me, far out," Chod told the task force. "It's a little further up the road, a little further from suburban downtowns, a little further from the Metro."

Chod's firm began developing the Seneca Meadows Corporate Center in 1997. Since then, 530,000 square feet of office space has been built, and only 8,500 square feet is still vacant. The company has approvals for another million square feet of property.

"I think the prospect for future job growth in Germantown is excellent," Chod said. "There is ground that is zoned for commercial development that is not quite ready, but that's your pipeline. That's your jobs down the road, that's your future."

The "pipeline" is the compilation of projects that have been approved for development, but are not yet built, Edwards explained.

One of the charts demonstrated that Germantown's existing housing exceeds available jobs, but the employment pipeline is almost eight times larger than the housing pipeline.

"By 2020, jobs in Germantown will outnumber the households," she said.

Edwards said this is preferable to the current situation in Germantown, where households outnumber jobs.

"The typical household has just over one and a half workers," she explained. "What you're trying to do is have job options created so that people don't have long distances to commute."

Chod said long-term planning is essential to ensure the projections become reality.

"I would strongly urge you not to give up your jobs ground [and build residential], because it will bite you in the future," Chod told the task force members.

"If you own land, the quickest way to convert it to cash is to do residential. But that's short-sighted," Chod said in an interview after the meeting. "If you get rid of all your employment ground, you get rid of your tax base. The trick is to have enough commercial to subsidize the residential."

David Edgerley, director of the Montgomery County Department of Economic Development, said the "perception of a bedroom community still haunts" Germantown, but the amenity base for employers and their employees is now strong.

"Germantown is well-positioned to grow," he said. "The question was always, where do we eat? Where do we shop? That has changed dramatically over the past five years."

The Germantown task force began meeting about a year ago, chamber president Candace Curie said. It holds meetings about once a month and will likely make recommendations to planners who are rewriting Germantown's master plan, a long-term blueprint for land use, zoning, transportation and parks.

The group "has been looking at issues that are coming out of the development of Germantown," she said. "The jobs issue is something we've been...having a lot of dialogue around."

All of the leaders who spoke at the meeting seemed optimistic about future growth. Edgerley pointed out there's simply no more room for growth downcounty, so jobs will inevitably increase further up I-270.

"Being that we've arrived, so to speak, it's not like you can sit around on your laurels and wait for them to come," he noted. "I think we need to do some significant things to make sure it's happening."