Two developers with interests in the proposed build-up around the Shady Grove Metro Station have formed a partnership that may give the County Council another option when selecting a new school site.

Combining their land-development options, officials from Virginia-based Eakin Youngentob and Miller and Smith said they are willing to consider purchasing an 8.5-acre site on the Casey at Mill Creek property next to the meadow as part of their development proposal to the county.

Such a purchase would save the meadow, recently incorporated into the county's Legacy Open Space preservation program, and Blueberry Hill Park in Derwood from becoming the possible sites for a school.

Facing significant public opposition, members of the County Council's Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committee took Blueberry Hill Park, which planners previously listed as an alternative school site, off of the table in January.

A new elementary school is needed to accommodate a planned Smart Growth build-up around the Shady Grove Metro Station. The proposed Shady Grove Sector Plan, which the council's PHED Committee is currently considering, would more than double the current housing density in the Shady Grove area.

Approximately 7,800 people live in the Shady Grove sector, an area of about 2,000 acres surrounding the Metro station and between Rockville, Gaithersburg, Washington Grove and Upper Rock Creek.

In exchange for buying the Casey at Mill Creek property and bearing the expense of moving facilities from the County Service Park to the site, the two developers could gain as much as 90 acres from the current service park property upon which to build housing. The service park is located at the corner of Shady Grove Road and Crabbs Branch Way.

The developers would rather see housing built near the Metro than on the Casey property, which borders Washington Grove, said Robert Youngentob, president of Eakin Youngentob.

The committee indicated during a meeting on Monday that it would consider locating the school on either the Casey property or a section of the service park slated to be designated Jeremiah Park, which runs along Crabbs Branch Way.

Concerned about the cost -- projected by school officials to cost several million dollars -- of purchasing the Casey property, committee members were considering either swapping a portion of the meadow for the Casey site or building the school on the meadow itself.

The county Planning Board voted in December to designate the meadow as Legacy Open Space. The open space was created through multi-year negotiations in which Washington Grove agreed to allow The Oxbridge Group, a developer planning to build housing on the remainder of the Casey property, to increase its planned residential density levels as a trade-off for the preservation of the meadow.

Eakin Youngentob and Miller and Smith's idea would solve the county's land purchase problem, but remains uncertain, said Councilwoman Nancy M. Floreen (D-At large) of Garrett Park, who serves on the PHED Committee. The plan depends on whether acceptable relocation sites can be found for county facilities at the County Service Park.

Freeing up space and funding for the construction of the school, the committee agreed to remove a planned library from the staff-recommended Jeremiah Park site, reverting to an earlier plan to locate it outside of the sector area near Muncaster Mill and Shady Grove roads.

The committee also agreed to limit the size of a recreational center called for in the sector plan to 10,000 to 12,000 square feet in size.