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With several land deals on the verge of closing, Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett has asked the County Council for tens of millions of dollars to begin design of his sweeping proposal to relocate more than a dozen county agencies to four sites from Shady Grove to Montgomery Village to the Kentlands.

It is the first official request for funding Leggett (D) has made for his "Smart Growth Initiative," which he proposed last December to help move county agencies out of inadequate facilities and clear the way for two multi-billion, multi-decade redevelopment projects around Shady Grove — all while balancing $485 million in costs against $515 million in income and savings over the next five years.

Last week, Leggett's project manager on the "Smart Growth Initiative" asked the County Council to add nearly $30 million to the capital budget in this fiscal year and next, and to take on another $60 million of debt in the form of revenue bonds.

The $90 million will buy two key pieces of land and begin "planning, design and supervision" for a new public safety headquarters and liquor warehouse in Gaithersburg, and a police and fire rescue training academy and schools food warehouse near Montgomery Village.

With more than $150 million still to be requested in the next two fiscal years, last week's requests are only "preliminary dollars," said Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Diane Schwarz Jones, project manager of the "Smart Growth Initiative."

"This is not the be-all and the end-all, but it allows us to do the work that needs to be done," she said in an interview.

Leggett's first request is to add $46.6 million the county's capital budget for Fiscal 2009-2014 and eliminate $17.8 million already budgeted. Of that, $30 million is for the purchase of 42 acres off Shady Grove Road and Crabbs Branch Way — owned by Eakin-Youngentob Associates and known as Casey 6 and 7 — needed to relocate the county's "Equipment Maintenance and Operations Center," home of the Ride On bus depot and vehicle and equipment maintenance facility.

The remaining $16.7 million is for planning and design of several key pieces of Leggett's plan: $6.24 million for a police and fire rescue academy on the 130-acre Webb Tract near the Montgomery County Airpark; $1.7 million for a "public safety headquarters" at the GE Tech Park next to the Kentlands and Lakelands; $7.1 million for the EMOC facility; $892,000 for the county school system's food distribution warehouse on the Webb Tract; $356,000 for general planning; and $325,000 to study building the county school system's bus depot at the Gude Land fill.

Issuing of $60 million in revenue bonds — on top of $78 million already allowed in the capital budget — would buy 20 acres adjacent to the GE Tech Park and pay for the design phase of moving the county's Department of Liquor Control into a warehouse there. (The bonds could also pay for a separate and smaller project to build a south entrance at the Bethesda Metro Station.)

The $30 million needed to buy Casey 6 and 7 will be more than offset by selling one half of the County Service Park south of Shady Grove Road, home to EMOC, the county's Department of Liquor Control, the schools food warehouse and a day-laborer center.

The 92-acre industrial campus has for years been a centerpiece in a plan to redevelop 2,000 acres around the Shady Grove Metro station along "smart growth" planning principles.

Under a non-binding letter of intent inked Oct. 29, Eakin-Youngentob gets rights to build 338 townhomes on the western half of the service park. Avalon Bay Communities — which owns the GE Tech Park — gets rights to 600 multifamily units, also on the west side. The two developers would then negotiate between themselves over any additional development.

Leggett expects sale of the western half of the service park alone to net $182 million.

County law requires six of nine council members to approve changes to capital budgets. The council has supported Leggett's general premise but questions remain on how the specifics will pan out. Among them is council President Philip M. Andrews' concern that the front-heavy borrowing plan — all told, $274 million will need to be borrowed by June 2011 in short-term "bridge financing" — could push other priorities out of the six-year capital budget, which has $3.8 billion for construction projects such as school modernizations.

Some also question whether the county will be able to secure the loans amid grim economic forecasts and whether projected land values will hold. More than two-thirds of the plan's $515 million income comes from the sale of county land.

The council has set a public hearing for Jan. 22. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg expects "some kind of decision before summer." He urged interested parties to call 240-777-7931 to sign up to testify.

Meanwhile, Leggett is creating an advisory group to help steer the proposal. Membership of the group and a mission statement defining the group's duties are "very, very close" to being settled, Jones said.

Consisting of "probably a couple dozen" representatives from impacted neighborhoods and commercial properties; Smart Growth transit groups; and experts in housing, higher education, economic development and land use, the goal is that the group will provide Leggett with "a very broad-based insight" into how the plan should take shape.