Ten years ago, builders began transforming 2,000 acres of farmland and pine woods into what they said would be a unique community of 4,000 residences.
Back then, their plans sounded ambitious: swimming pools, hiking trails, an ice rink where a professional hockey team might practice and a huge community center. Most tenuous, though, was the claim that they could bring families to a section of western Anne Arundel County that two years before was mostly woods.
But Piney Orchard, one of West County's first Planned Unit Developments, has stuck remarkably close to its original plan. Last week, developers announced the sale of the 3,000th residence. Celebrations barely had finished for the development's 10-year anniversary, marked by a two-week blitz of events that began May 19.
Today, about 7,500 people live in Piney Orchard, and developers estimate the population will reach 10,000 when all the homes are completed in the next five years. Prices range from around $120,000 for a condominium to more than $300,000 for a single-family house.
Steven S. Koren, managing director of Constellation Real Estate Inc., the corporate cousin of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. that developed Piney Orchard, recalled when the first families moved in.
"They were pioneers. They came in to a lot of construction," he said. "They had questions about the development -- `How will it work out? Will I be here in isolation?'"
Those were the nascent days of the Planned Unit Development, when developments on Arundel's western side including Seven Oaks and Russett also were getting off the ground.
The land for Piney Orchard was purchased in the 1950s by the Winer family, which envisioned it as the site of a company town for National Plastics Product Co., now Nevamar Corp., which the family owned. But as housing in the area became more plentiful, plans changed.
The family held on to the land, though, and in the 1970s, Jay Winer began predevelopment plans. Winer, now president of A. J. Properties Inc., paired with developer KMS, now owned by Constellation, to sell the county on Piney Orchard.
But in Piney Orchard, as in most Planned Unit Developments, developers spent years negotiating with county officials to obtain approval of a master plan. They made large up-front investments to build roads and infrastructure, then sold the subdivided lots to other builders including Ryan Homes, Grayson Homes and Columbia Builders.
