Note 02 /
Day zero, Clarksburg
Demolition begins on the former COMSAT Laboratories building, ten years after Lantian Development acquired the parcel.
April 13, 2026. After eleven years of zoning, hearings, sector planning, and the Maryland-specific particular patience that any 200-acre parcel requires, demolition began on the COMSAT Laboratories building in Clarksburg.
The building was nearly 500,000 GSF, designed by Cesar Pelli's office in 1969 for the Communications Satellite Corporation. Real-time international phone calls and the first live international television broadcast were invented inside it. None of that was enough to qualify it for historic designation in 2025, and there is a real argument it shouldn't have been; the sector plan asks for a different building, with housing in it, and the original was vacant for the better part of two decades.
What goes back is a mixed-use neighborhood, large-scale, 204 acres worth. Quote on the way out:
"With the Sector Plan now approved, we are moving forward to position this site for its next chapter."
Counts and unit numbers will be reported here as they are finalized. There is a great deal of dust between here and there.
Image: River Falls Investments.
— BE