to make expansion

a downtown

destination

A plan that would create an expanded headquarters and lab for a downtown Silver Spring biotech company -- complete with flashing lights, an MCI Center-type screen and a double-helix on the outside -- has been OK'd by everyone but its next-door neighbors.

The Montgomery County Planning Board approved the project plan for United Therapeutics' expansion on Spring and Cameron streets Thursday, but not before hearing from management of St. Charles, an apartment complex located adjacent to the site.

Admittedly, United Therapeutics' proposal is "beautiful," said David Hillman, chairman and CEO of Southern Management, which owns and operates the St. Charles apartments. However, he said, it may hamper Southern Management's ability to renovate St. Charles, something the company has been considering.

But, said Bill Kominers, of the Bethesda-based law firm Holland & Knight, which is representing United Therapeutics, Southern Management has not submitted a proposal to the Planning Board regarding the renovation of the St. Charles property.

Hillman said the United Therapeutics expansion at Spring and Cameron streets would bind his property on one side and architects would face a design challenge in creating a structure that would effectively use that space. He objected to United Therapeutics' plan going forward as is.

But United Therapeutics' plan shouldn't affect Southern Management's ability to renovate, said Glenn Kreger, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission's team leader for Silver Spring and Takoma Park. "We've got a bird in the hand. I'd hate to give that up for one in the bush," he said.

The Planning Board wants to protect people against risk but "we can only go so far," said Commissioner John Robinson, who said he assumes that people would want to take full advantage of what they can do on their property. The Planning Board's job is to see if a plan is compatible with existing structures and "doesn't extend to speculation," Robinson said.

Commissioner Allison Bryant agreed and said United Therapeutics' building will serve to revitalize the portion of downtown Silver Spring near Spring and Cameron streets and may even increase the value of the St. Charles property.

United Therapeutics, a biotech company that primarily focuses on "orphan" diseases deemed rare and life-threatening, is building a lab for the research and manufacturing of the ovarian cancer drug OvaRex on a county-owned parking lot at Cameron and Spring streets.

The company is also building a lab for its existing approved drug Remodulin, which treats a lung disorder called pulmonary arterial hypertension, as well as extending its existing headquarters and adding an office building.

The two office buildings, which will be built across the street from each other and connected on the seventh floor by a tubular walkway adorned with a double-helix, should be completed by 2006. The lab will be built first. The ovarian cancer research lab had to go forward immediately because of time constraints imposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Planning Board worked with the company to expedite construction of the lab.

"We want to be downtown where the people are, we want to be downtown where we were born," said Paul Mahon, United Therapeutics executive vice president. The company was "born and bred" at 1110 Spring St. in 1996, he said, and went public in 1999.

Despite having nine offices in five states and three countries, United Therapeutics wants to stay in downtown Silver Spring and contribute to its revitalization, Mahon said.

That means contributing to Silver Spring's public space, and architects from Schick Goldstein architects have proposed a virtual DNA Disneyland.

"We told them we wanted as many unexpected surprises in this building as we find in drug development," Mahon said.

In the works are a Bio Wall and BioWalk of Fame: a large, MCI Center-type screen that will play science- and health-related videos, and glass cubes etched with names of Marylanders who have contributed to the life sciences. The cubes, high enough to sit on, will be scattered throughout a public plaza and will light up and make noises depending on how people are walking toward them in a "symphonic light experience," Mahon said, in hopes of providing a "flavor of wonder" to the area.

United Therapeutics hopes to make the plaza a destination, he said. "Let's hope to build on what Discovery [Communications] did so well a few blocks away."

Planning Board Chairman Derick P. Berlage said he supports United Therapeutics' project. "I think that Silver Spring has been blessed with an absolutely wonderful gift," he said, also citing Discovery Communications and the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center as other destinations in the downtown. "It is just incredibly impressive."