Regency Center’s Westbard Square Redevelopment Shaped by Stakeholder Input

Nearly a decade in the making, Westbard Square is a multi-phase redevelopment in Bethesda, Maryland, shaped by Regency Centers Corp.’s (Nasdaq: REG) retail expertise. The project delivers a thoughtfully planned hub of retail, office, and residential space designed to meet the needs of tenants, neighbors, and the broader community.

Regency acquired Westbard shopping center, the future site of Westbard Square, in 2017 as a result of its merger that year with Equity One, Inc. Equity One purchased the property in 2014. Westbard, originally developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was identified as a potential site for redevelopment more than 20 years ago, says Sam Stiebel, vice president of investments for Regency Centers in the Mid-Atlantic region and Boston.

The redevelopment, which encompasses 23 acres, will include a public park, town square, 115 senior living apartments owned by Kensington Senior Living, 100 for-sale townhouses built by EYA (including 13 Moderately Priced Dwelling Units (MPDUs) available through Montgomery County), and a 200-unit apartment by Greystar with ground-floor retail. Anchored by a 70,000-square-foot Giant Food grocery store, Regency recently completed the first LEED Silver certified $37 million phase of the south building, which includes 125,800 square feet of retail and office space.

“We started making plans with Montgomery County just under a decade ago, and then we spoke with community members about plans to understand what they wanted,” Stiebel says. “The community expressed that they wanted this to be a place where they could get things done, so we always intended to keep the existing Giant grocery store and then supplement it with additional neighborhood-serving tenants.”

Regency committed to keeping the grocery store open throughout the construction phase of redevelopment, while at the same time building structured parking for the new and improved Giant store above. That cost additional time and money, Stiebel says, but it was part of their community commitment.

Initial plans for Westbard included more density, but the community wanted a neighborhood scale shopping center rather than a regional one, according to Stiebel. “Neighborhood scale is what we like to do, and we pride ourselves on meeting community needs,” he says.

Local Business Support for Strong Community Ties

From the earliest planning stages, most of the tenants at Westbard were eager for redevelopment.

“We consider ourselves stewards of each community where we operate, so we want to maintain the legacy tenants that are important to the community,” says Andrew Kabat, a senior vice president and senior market officer for Regency Centers’ Mid-Atlantic portfolio.

“At the same time, we like to bring in some new tenants to meet needs that weren’t covered in the past. It’s important to balance those two goals.” In the spirit of “keeping it local,” Regency representatives reached out to Jarrad Silver, who grew up in the neighborhood.

“I was a chef in a restaurant that closed during the pandemic and then a stay-at-home dad while my wife worked in emergency medicine,” Silver says. “I started making barbecue on the weekends for friends and family and industry insiders, then it organically grew into people hiring me to cook for events.” Next, Silver started a successful food truck business, which is how the Regency team found him.

“We like the ‘local boy made good’ story of Silver & Sons barbecue, so we’re really happy that he’s part of Westbard,” Kabat says. Silver had hoped he would eventually open a brick-and-mortar location, and he found Regency accommodative to his needs.