Silver Spring Office Conversion Update

"The Guardian" is nearly complete.

Last month I had a chance to tour a nearly-completed office conversion project in Silver Spring thanks to an invitation from its general contractor, GCS Sigal. I wrote previously about this project when it was just starting construction. The project even has a leasing website now and is being marketed as “The Guardian”. The cool thing about this project is not just that it’s an office-to-housing conversion, but also that it adds 5 stories to the original building. As I wrote about in the original post, it does this by stacking a new steel framing system on top of the old steel framing from the original building, which is used for the first 6 floors of the new building. Pretty neat! I don’t have any information on the project financials, but it’s clear that the savings from reusing the old steel structure plus any related conversion costs outweighed a full tear-down scenario.

GCS Sigal, the general contractor, was gracious enough to invite me for a tour and allow me to take photos. If all continues on schedule, they expect to receive certificates of occupancy and to begin leasing the first six floors of the building in May while work continues on the final five stories for another couple of months. When complete, the building will convert the 1960s era office building into 168 apartments with a large restaurant space on the ground floor and some office space on the 2^nd floor.

Here's are some photos from my most recent visit (April 2025):

Before, during, and after photos

Guardian building pre-conversion in 2019 (upper left), during construction in December 2023 showing the original steel frame (lower left), and at near completion in April 2025 (right). The completed building shows an additional five upper floors from the original building.

Basement before and after

Guardian building basement pre (left) and post (right) conversion. The new basement will contain a package room, bike parking, and a fitness center. The building’s basement was originally a low-height space and did not contain parking spaces. The conversion mainly preserved the basement and did not add any additional levels below for parking. This helped make the conversion financially feasible. The county approved the project without any parking thanks to flexible planning practices and the project being located in the Silver Spring Parking Lot District.

Unit photos

Interior unit photos showing an MPDU (inclusionary zoning) unit overlooking Georgia Avenue. The completed project will contain 26 MPDUs.

Interior unit photos showing new windows on the newly-added upper floors (left) versus preserved office windows used on the first six floors (right).

Brick exterior of original office building with new vertical addition

Side view of the building showing demarcation line between the first six stories of the original structure in brick with the original office windows versus the newly-added upper floors of the building with black exterior and inset balconies.

It’s great to see this new mixed-use addition to downtown Silver Spring that wouldn’t be possible without flexible planning policies and the creative use of an old office building. Congratulations again to the GCS Sigal team, and I’m excited to see the building lease up!