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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has signed a lease on a $131 million, 14-story office building that will be built next to the agency's two current buildings in North Bethesda, providing a glimpse at the development coming with the White Flint Sector Plan.

The building will be on Marinelli Street, across from the two existing NRC buildings, and is part of the mixed-use North Bethesda Center project being developed by the real estate investment company LCOR. The first phase of the North Bethesda Center, a Harris Teeter grocery store beneath the Wentworth House apartment complex, has already been completed.

"It's terrific news for our project and also great news for the new White Flint master plan," said LCOR principle Mike Smith. The White Flint Sector Plan is a county plan currently before the County Council designed to encourage mixed use developments concentrated around the White Flint Metro station. Smith said brokers have told him the lease for the 360,000-square foot building is one of largest to be executed in Maryland this year.

"We're starting to deliver on the live and sort of shop with what we've been able to deliver on North Bethesda Center, and now we're delivering on the work part," Smith said.

NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the building, to be completed in 2012, will allow the agency to consolidate employees currently spread through four office buildings in Rockville and Bethesda into one place. Groundbreaking should take place in the spring.

"It will help us in terms of efficiency," Hayden said. "Even in this electronic age we still have meetings, it requires a lot of shuttles, a lot of shuttle buses."

"It will allow us to be more effective, we can deal with each other face to face," Hayden said.

Hayden said the NRC will also be able to scale back redundant security operations that currently take place at all the buildings.

The NRC hired 600 new people in 2007 to deal with 17 applications for new nuclear reactors, an addition that forced the agency to lease additional space that it did not have at its North Bethesda headquarters. The new building will accommodate about 1,300 NRC employees.

Hayden said the NRC will continue to encourage employees to ride Metro to work. It currently gives employees a subsidy for Metro costs.