A discussion this week between Wilde Lake residents and officials of the firm that wants to redevelop Columbia's oldest village center sounded more like a verbal tug-of-war than progress toward consensus.
Kimco Realty Corp. officials first announced in March a $40 million plan to raze and rebuild much of Wilde Lake Village Center, adding 500 apartments. But residents are pushing an alternative plan designed by Columbia's original chief architect, Robert Tennenbaum, which they say would maintain the center's original character.
His idea would preserve inward-facing stores built around a village green in the late 1960s, despite recent vacancies. The center's small Giant supermarket closed in 2006, followed this spring by Produce Galore, and last week by Great Clips, a hair salon.
Mary Pivar, a village board member, accused Kimco of "having this rigid economic model. Five hundred units will not stand," she vowed after the Monday night meeting between Kimco officials, the village board and about 40 residents at Slayton House, the village's community center.
"It's so sad to hear our little village center disappearing," said resident Joyce Ardo, 60, a rare fan of the Kimco plan, despairing over the closed stores.
Despite the recent closings, residents insist that they need a grocery store. They said Kimco's plan to build four six- to eight-story apartment buildings with underground parking and 50,000 square feet of retail shops won't work.
During the 90-minute meeting, the two sides seemed to be talking past one another.
"It is a very difficult layout to get retailers to want to come to it," said Geoffrey Glazer, Kimco's vice president of development, repeating the message he has been delivering for months.
Times have changed since the days when Columbia's founder James W. Rouse and his company controlled everything in the planned town and could force retailers to locate in the village centers, Glazer said. Now, there is competition from huge retailers such as Costco on Route 175, and a 160,000-square-foot Wegmans supermarket planned for a site off Snowden River Parkway, also outside the village centers.
"You don't want to be stuck with 100,000 square feet of retail that's not leasable," Glazer said.
"You need to listen to what we're saying," Glazer pleaded at the meeting's conclusion.
