Bainbridge

Officials hoping to redevelop the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center, a 1,200-acre site in Cecil County that once served as the economic hub of Northeastern Maryland, have returned to the starting point for the second time in less than three years. A team of developers that had been negotiating with the Bainbridge Development Corp. for nearly a year - and spent more than $300,000 on plans to create a technology park and residential center - said yesterday that it has scrapped plans for both.

PORT DEPOSIT - Jackson House, one of the few buildings still standing at the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center on a plateau overlooking Port Deposit and the Susquehanna River, produces a flood of emotions for Michael Miklas Jr., a 74-year-old Charlestown resident who was stationed at the base in the early 1950s. "It was a real good life for three months," Miklas said of the time he bunked with three other guys in a room on the second floor of the stately structure that was once part of the prestigious Tome School.

Critics of Bainbridge Development Corp.'s failure to nail down the latest proposal for the redevelopment of the former naval training center point to Cynthia Rossetti, the agency chairwoman, and say she blew it. They say that Rossetti's decision to delay a critical vote Monday night cost Cecil County the biggest development project in its history - the restoration of a 1,200-acre Navy base that closed nearly 30 years ago. The vote would have applied only...

Lowe Enterprises Community Development Inc. has the experience and financial clout to complete its plan for the redevelopment of the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center property in Port Deposit, a national consultant said yesterday. "From my experience of working with them, I would say they are not like the New York-based people who talk big but don't get the job done," said Sean Hennessey, director of hospitality and leisure consulting for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Hennessey was commenting on Lowe's plan to build a $500 million conference/resort center, business park and residential community on 1,200 acres on a hill overlooking the Susquehanna River.

PORT DEPOSIT - Memorial Hall - once the proud centerpiece of the turn-of-the-century private Tome School, and later a prep school for the Naval Academy - shows its many years of neglect. The clock from its tower is gone, replaced by a circle of plywood with peeling paint. Inside, much of the iron railing from twin stairways leading to the auditorium is gone - ripped out by looters. Giant chandeliers suffered the same fate. A sign out front warns: "Absolutely No Entry Permitted. This Building Has Been Condemned."

PORT DEPOSIT - One of the final parts of the redevelopment of the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center on a hill overlooking this Susquehanna riverfront town is expected to fall into place Tuesday evening. That's when Paul Risk Associates Inc., a Quarryville, Pa., development company, is scheduled to be awarded a contract to restore the run-down and condemned ruins of the granite buildings that once housed the turn-of-the-century Tome School, transforming them into a retirement community.

The groundbreaking for the first building in the redevelopment of Bainbridge Naval Training Center could be held early next year. Paul Gilbert, Cecil County economic development director, will present a proposal to county commissioners Tuesday to allow the county to borrow from a state low-interest loan program to construct a 30,000- to 40,000-square-foot structure at the former Navy boot camp. "My goal is for the grading of the property to begin the first of next year," said Harland R. Graef, chairman of the Bainbridge Development Corp.

A plan by one of the nation's leading real estate development companies to transform the vacant Bainbridge Naval Training Center into a resort, conference center and business park may be delayed by as much as five years. The $500 million project, the largest in Cecil County, has been delayed by the county's failure to secure a plan to provide water and sewerage to the former Navy boot camp, which closed in 1976. Timothy J. Bell, senior vice president of Lowe Enterprises Community Development Inc., which was to develop the 1,200-acre site, said that as a result of the delay the company's contract with the Bainbridge Development Corp.

Directors of the Bainbridge Development Corp. have delayed a vote scheduled for tomorrow night to determine the fate of one of the largest industrial development projects in the state. The BDC, a quasi-public agency created by the General Assembly in 1999, was to vote on construction of a 500-acre technology park at the former Bainbridge Naval Training Center near Port Deposit that is expected to create 3,000 jobs. Cynthia Rossetti, chairwoman of the BDC, said directors were to vote tomorrow on a plan that would allow Berkshire Laboratories Inc. to locate at Bainbridge.