Glazer said he hopes to apply to the county in five or six months for zoning changes for Wilde Lake. The county is working to change laws that allow only the town's developer, now General Growth Properties, to apply for zoning changes in Columbia.
If everything goes well, he said, construction at Wilde Lake could begin in 2010.
But Glazer wasn't scoring any points with Pivar.
"I think it's a perfectly wonderful plan. I wish you would put it somewhere else. There's nothing wrong with the viability of this village," she said, deriding the idea of 500 apartments "where people have to get into their cars to go to the grocery store."
The General Growth Properties plan for nearby town center is pedestrian-friendly, she noted.
"Why shouldn't it be walkable here?" she said.
Tennenbaum derided the Kimco plan, saying construction disruptions would kill existing businesses, despite Glazer's assurances that he intends to keep as many existing businesses as possible.
Tennenbaum urged Glazer to build 200 apartments instead of 500 and make David's Natural Market the retail anchor in the old Giant building. He suggested the company knock down the buildings along Lynx Lane that now house David's and the old Produce Galore space and put the apartments there, nearest existing homes. The Kimco plan puts apartments on the other side of the 9-acre site.
"The initial purpose was to preserve the village green," Tennenbaum said.
Glazer said hundreds of shopping centers nationally have been redeveloped without major damage to existing retailers. He noted his work at the Kings Contrivance Center, where a Harris Teeter supermarket opened this spring, as an example.
But Joyce Baer, 77, who said she doesn't drive, said that while she can afford a taxi to shop at nearby grocery stores, many of her neighbors can't. They need a grocery store that they can walk to, she said.
But Ardo, a resident in favor of the plan, was incredulous at the criticism.
"I am totally in support," she said. "I am thrilled that they want to spend $40 million more on our community."
larry.carson@baltsun.com
