[audio wav="https://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/hogan-turn.wav" hide_author="true" hide_date="true" title="The Banner Montgomery's Jack Hogan talks with WTOP about the Clarksburg site's history."][/audio]

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.