Historic Bethesda Community Store Sold to Neighborhood Resident. Here are His Plans.

As Alex Petrov of brokerage Feldman Ruel was going over offers for the historic Bethesda Community Store property on Old Georgetown Road, there was one potentially lucrative bid that the seller wanted no part of.

It was from a national fast-food restaurant franchisee.

“That was the only offer they politely declined,” Petrov told me. “They didn’t even want to engage with it, because they knew that’s not what the community wants. It was very moving and inspiring almost.”

Instead, Mimi Brodsky Kress and Phil Leibovitz of Bethesda-based Sandy Spring Builders on Tuesday sold 8804 Old Georgetown Road to Bethesda resident Craig Hillman for $1.899 million. The property, which includes a renovated market structure of about 1,300 square feet above grade plus a new 400-square-foot basement and 200-square-foot detached shed, will be resurrected as a general store and cafe.

“I’ve always been drawn to those spaces that bring friends and neighbors together,” Hillman said in a statement. “I’m excited to bring the community into the process of reviving the local general store, and I hope it sparks imitators across Montgomery County.”

Kress and Leibovitz acquired the property in October 2024 for $750,000 and then launched a restoration and expansion all in a “labor of love,” Kress previously told me. Feldman Ruel put it on the market in April.

The site, spanning just over a quarter acre, sits directly across from the National Institutes of Health. The property was home to various general store operations led by multiple owner-operators between the 1890s and 2016, when Bethesda Community Store & Deli closed. The general store building on the site today, originally just a 540-square-foot single-room market, was constructed in the 1920s.

Since 2016, the existing market building has sat vacant while the parking lot has served as home to several food truck operations, including Call Your Mother and, currently, Silver & Sons BBQ.

According to his LinkedIn, Hillman is currently the senior director of product management with Synopsys Inc., which acquired his previous employer, Ansys, in a $35 billion deal that closed in July 2025. Hillman previously served as director of laboratory services at the University of Maryland from 1998 to 2004, then as CEO of DfR Solutions from 2004 to 2019, when it was acquired by Ansys.

Hillman, who holds multiple investments and board seats in addition to a bachelor's degree in material science from Carnegie Mellon University and a doctorate in material science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, per his LinkedIn, was not available for additional comment.

Reopening the store will take time, Petrov said, as Hillman still needs to fully develop his concept, pull permits and complete the interior renovation of the store, which was delivered as a warm lit shell.