Move to the Ripley District and get a fantastic view of the Red Line. (Photo: TBD Staff)

There sure are a lot of groundbreakings in Silver Spring these days for projects that have received county money, especially given the down economy and the budget crisis.

Today officials ceremoniously broke ground on yet another such project (although construction had already begun there): 1150 Ripley Street, a 17-floor high rise apartment building about 300-feet from the soon-to-be-completed Silver Spring Transit Center. The county kicked in $5 million for financing on the transit-oriented $100 million project.

Everyone was understandably excited since it's the first major project to be built in the Ripley District, an industrial part of Silver Spring that the county is trying to rebrand as “the new horizon in the heart of Silver Spring.” But moving the focus away from Downtown Silver Spring as the area's center and to the west side of Georgia Avenue will take more than just a high-rise apartment complex.

This project does have a supreme advantage in its proximity to the mass transit site. And Charles Nulsen, III., president of development company Washington Property Company, says construction should begin soon on another nearby project; Homes Properties will be building another high-rise, which has alread received the green light from the planning board.

But in the meantime, here are some basics on 1150 Ripley Street:

—286 apartment units, 43 of which will be moderately-priced.
— 7,000 square-feet of retail space.
— A new road, Ripifant, connecting Ripley and Bonifant streets (when in doubt, just combine street names).

Nulsen says that retail space will likely be filled with small, service-oriented businesses.

"We don't have the critical mass" nor the space to attract big, national chains, he said.

The high-rise should be mostly complete by summer 2012.