The area now is mostly parking lots.
With a 2,500-seat multiplex cinema sitting atop a four-story parking garage, a T-shaped promenade for outdoor dining, about 60,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and another 60,000 square feet of office space above that, the project will help link York Road businesses with the mall, said David S. Cordish, whose Cordish Co. is handling leasing for the project. Over the years, the project was opposed by residents disgruntled about plans to include college student housing and about perceived exclusion of citizen input in shaping the site's amenities. But the college housing idea was scrapped, and the project has been praised by planning leaders as being in line with community ideals.
Then there's the expansion of the Towson Town Center along Dulaney Valley Road, Sirota said.
"They're basically taking what was an inward-facing mall that didn't have any presence on the street, and they're turning it inside out and creating street-facing shops," Sirota said.
A new wing will open this fall that will eventually include retail stores and P.F. Chang's China Bistro, the Cheesecake Factory and Stoney River Legendary Steaks, said Charles Crerand, the mall's senior general manager.
Just south of the downtown area, Towson University is embarking on an ambitious five-year development plan, including multiple new dorms, to cater to a ballooning student population approaching 21,000.
A new main entrance to the campus will be constructed on Towsontown Boulevard, and a new pedestrian mall will face downtown Towson, bolstering the university's connection with the town, said President Robert Caret.
"It will provide a much better living and learning environment for the university citizens as well as the city citizens if we can develop Towson into a much better place to hang out and live," Caret said. "Having a town around us that we can be a part of is part of our dream."
Smith, the county executive, said, "I think with the restaurants and the boutiques and retail that are going to come in, the students - the Goucher students and the Towson University students - are going to be drawn in more."
Nicole Schiraldi, a Towson junior, said that when she first visited Towson as a New Jersey high schooler, she saw it as a college town. "Then I got here, and was like, 'OK, maybe not as much as I thought it was going to be,' " said Schiraldi, the director of community outreach for the student government association.
With new development, though, Schiraldi said she sees opportunities to improve the relationship between residents and students and "to bring more spirit into the town - a little more black and gold everywhere."
Towson has already been identified as the county's downtown, and development in and around the core will solidify that role, said Mary Harvey, director of the county's Office of Community Conservation.
"It's that urban feel, that urban vitality," she said, "that we're trying to create in Towson."
