The proposed 14-story apartment complex and Safeway grocery store on the corner of Georgia Avenue and Reedie Drive is exactly the puzzle piece county planners say they have been looking for to spur downtown Wheaton's redevelopment and redefine the area as a prosperous urban destination.

"This is the very type of development we want and where we want it," said Rob Klein, the director of Wheaton's redevelopment program.

Klein spoke to business owners and residents at last week's economic-development subcommittee meeting. Some members of the group questioned whether the project's massive scale will fit in with the rest of Wheaton and its future plans.

If approved by the Montgomery County Planning Board next year, the project would be a mixed-use, 500-unit apartment complex sitting on top of a renovated Safeway and underground parking garage. The entire project is slated for the relatively small two-acre original Safeway and parking lot at 11201 Georgia Ave.

That means it will tower up instead of spreading out, giving some people sticker shock over the numbers.

"I think a lot of people don't know how big 200 feet is," said Eleanor Duckett, a member of the subcommittee and the committee it reports to, the Wheaton Redevelopment Advisory Committee.

The tallest building now in Wheaton is the 10-story north office of Westfield Wheaton Shopping Center at University Boulevard and Veirs Mill Road. But very few other buildings in Wheaton come close to the Safeway project's proposed height, with just one of the three buildings that make up adjacent MetroPointe apartments topping off at seven stories.

The jury's still out on whether or not there's a market for high-rise buildings, but planners say they're sure there's a market in Wheaton for new apartments. Lots of them.

"Wheaton is a strong residential market," Klein told the subcommittee members. And it's strong specifically for rental units, he said, as the exchange of housing deeds stays sluggish as the signing of apartment leases speeds up.

For example, the 173 units at MetroPointe apartments were finished in November of last year and are now 90 percent rented out, Klein said. The nearby Brownstones at Wheaton's 75 luxury townhomes are completely filled, and the impending 200-unit townhouse development up the road on Georgia Avenue at the former site of Our Lady of Good Counsel High School is also 95 percent sold, he said.

But with all these new apartment complexes and townhomes sprouting up in Wheaton, will the Safeway project bring too much residential development? That was the question asked by subcommittee and WRAC member Zoe Lefkowitz.

No, Klein answered. Instead it will create a synergy for Wheaton, attracting more developers wanting to build office, residential or even entertainment space with the promise of more than 500 pairs of new feet pattering along the streets of Wheaton.

More residents are like honey to buzzing developer bees, he said.

"We need to make this a place where people want to be," he said. Once that's established, grander growth can occur, he said.

In essence, planners such as Klein think the Safeway project could redefine Wheaton and what the community can do.

"If it works, it sets the bar much higher," he said.