Hugh and Sandy Kendall's family hardware store, housed in a Quonset hut since 1947, was fine when Clarksville was a small town. But now suburbia beckons.
River Hill, a new Columbia village, will be developed just east of Route 108 -- and just across from the Kendalls' store. So the couple wants to raze the hut and surrounding houses and build a modern commercial center.
Along with Sandy's 81-year-old father, Frank M. Koby, who still operates an auto parts store down the road, the Kendalls and their friends and former neighbors Aletha and Robert Foster are seeking commercial rezoning for most of a 13-acre parcel they jointly own.
At this point, the Kendalls are uncertain what form their proposed commercial center will take, but they believe they have little choice but toundertake a modern shopping area or lose out to suburbia. Somewhat reluctantly, they say they have little choice if they are to compete with the stores that have popped up along the Route 108 strip near theRoute 32 intersection in Clarksville and the village shopping centerplanned for across the road. The case will be heard by the county's Zoning Board; no date for the hearing has been set. One advantage theKendalls have is the strip commercial development already encamped along their side of Route 108.
"There is nothing left," Sandy Kendall said outside the hardware store next to the wheelbarrows, weed cutters and bluebird bird houses that Hugh makes and sells for $13. "We have become a commercial area."
She ticks off the former neighborswho have been replaced by antique shops, used-car offices, a bank, pizza restaurant under construction and even a competing hardware store going up nearby.
Even the Kendalls, who lived next to the hardware store for 24 years, moved two years ago to build a house 2 1/2 miles away in a subdivision. One side of their former home is used for storage; the other houses their 25-year-old daughter Emily's insuranceagency.
"We looked at what we could do with the present zoning, and there is nothing constructive that can come of it," Sandy Kendall said. If the zoning board were to turn them down, then "we would operate until it (the hut) falls over," said Sandy Kendall.
John W. Taylor, president of Howard Countians for Responsible Growth, said he wanted to review the Kendalls' proposal before passing judgment.
