Clarksburg has been the fastest-growing area in Montgomery County during the last two decades.

But the county’s decades-old vision for employment centers and public transit improvements in the area, which sits a few miles north of Germantown, hasn’t materialized.

Notably, the former headquarters and research facility for the Communications Satellite Corp. — designed by a famed architect — has been vacant for 20 years. The 200 acres of land that surround the facility, off Interstate 270, have remained untouched.

Now county officials and planners are hoping a new vision for the area — the Clarksburg Gateway Sector Plan — will attract a large company to the COMSAT site and spur the economy.

Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe, whose district includes Clarksburg, said the vacant COMSAT site was a key reason behind the county’s decision to revisit planning policies for the area.

“What’s the highest and best use of that space?” she said, using a real estate phrase referring to a property’s most realistic and profitable use. “It’s not to have an empty building just sitting there, waiting for somebody to buy it and some magical something to happen.”

Ahead of their vote, four councilmembers on Wednesday joined a group of planners and other county staff aboard a Ride On transit bus to tour the plan’s 970-acre footprint.

The group made six stops, the first at the future site of a Clarksburg Town Center and the last at the COMSAT site, where they were joined by Bob Elliott, CEO of the investment company that has owned the property for the last decade.

“We get asked a lot why nothing has happened,” Elliott said. “Honestly, it’s the big building in the middle.”

Elliott said his company, Bethesda-based River Falls Investments, has fielded inquiries about the site, including six solicitations that he said would each have brought several billion dollars of development.

Invariably, he added, potential buyers ask about the COMSAT facility, which he called “the big white elephant” in the middle of the property.

The county considered designating the 500,000-square-foot building — designed by César Pelli, who also designed the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and the World Financial Center in New York — as a historic site. But the county planning board opted against that last year.

The decision has cleared the way for the likely demolition of the building.

Reenvisioning Clarksburg

Elliott told the councilmembers he wants to attract a major life sciences company and mixed-use developments to the site.

The fate of that idea is likely bound up with the broader Clarksburg Gateway Sector Plan, expected to come before the council within the next few months.

Nearly 30,000 people live in Clarksburg, a census-designated community of mostly single-family homes. Most residents moved in as new neighborhoods sprung up beginning in the late 1990s, according to planning department documents.

Sector plans like Clarksburg’s outline the county’s roughly 20-year vision for development, preservation and public service improvements within a certain area.

Elected officials, county staff and private company representatives are expected to refer to them when deciding on land use and infrastructure, according to Montgomery Planning.

The Clarksburg plan, which covers land near the crossroads of U.S. 270 and Maryland 121, includes recommendations for shaping future residential and commercial development projects, building recreational facilities and preserving the area’s natural environment.

Officials approved a growth plan for the Clarksburg area in 1994 and updated it in 2014 to bolster protections for the Ten Mile Creek watershed. The creek feeds into the Little Seneca Lake reservoir, which flows to the Potomac River and adds to the region’s water supply, according to Montgomery Planning.

The Clarksburg plan that councilmembers will consider calls for the rezoning of areas designated for companies and businesses to pave the way for denser housing developments.

It includes recommendations to connect Observation Drive and Little Seneca Parkway to minimize traffic through neighborhoods and to preserve land along the stream valleys of Little Seneca Creek and its tributaries.

The council will hold a public hearing on the plan at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg.