Choice Village

When about 40 residents, business executives, clergy and other local leaders gather tonight to begin a two-day forum on ridding Columbia's Harper's Choice village of crime, one of the first orders of business will be separating perceptions and fears from realities.Organizers of the forum say the two are rarely the same.The impact of a robbery, for example, may be felt by the person victimized, but "a group of teen-agers drinking on a tot lot affects a whole community," says Sgt. Karen Shinham, who heads the county police Community Services Bureau.

It was not long ago that Columbia's Harper's Choice Village Center seemed to be given up for dead -- a closed supermarket, deserted storefronts and a reputation for petty crime drove away shoppers who might have been attracted to the stores it did have.The opening of a Safeway in March and a $3.5 million renovation have solved many of the center's image problems. Now Howard County police are launching a program to tackle crime.In two weeks, police are scheduled to meet with national experts, Columbia Association officials, village residents and administrators from county agencies to develop better crime-fighting and prevention programs.

Metro Food Markets will open a 42,000-square-foot store next year -- its first in Howard County -- in Columbia's Oakland Mills Village Center, replacing the old, small Giant that closed in June.The Richmond, Va.-based chain, which has 18 stores in Maryland, will invest more than $5 million in the Columbia store and hire about 300 employees, said Kevin J. Nielsen, a vice president of Richfood, the chain's parent company.Construction of the store will begin in March and the Rouse Co. said it is planning a multimillion-dollar renovation of the aging village center that is to include a more open style, like a strip mall.

Howard County Police Chief James N. Robey has assured residents of Harper's Choice village that crime is not increasing, despite what many residents believe.At a meeting Wednesday night of 70 residents at Kahler House in the Harper's Choice Village Center, Robey reported 41 arrests in the past two months since launching a robbery-suppression program in that community and in Wilde Lake Village Center.The program, Robey said, will move to other areas of the county in the near future.He urged residents to call police when they see something suspicious.

A plan to develop a SportsPark in Columbia's Harper's Choice village was unanimously approved yesterday by the Howard County Planning and Zoning Board, though some board members seemed reluctant to endorse it.Board member Joan Lancos said she was uncomfortable with the financial aspects of the petition, which was developed by the community's homeowners' association, the Columbia Association, and the SportsPark's developer, Howard Research and Development Corp.Lancos...

Longtime residents of Columbia's Harper's Choice village are not ready to buy the Rouse Co.'s plan for a large new grocery store intended to revitalize their aging village center.Though excited about the Safeway scheduled to open in late 1997, residents want improvements to the village center's courtyard, which was designed more than 20 years ago as the heart of the community but now is seen as a dark, gloomy place with high crime and low commercial appeal.Dax Norman, echoing other residents at a community meeting Tuesday night when Rouse revealed details of the plan, said, "The square is going to be set aside.

Because of an editing error, a headline in yesterday's Howard County edition of The Sun misidentified the Columbia village center in which the Rouse Co. is seeking a new grocery store to replace a former Valu Food store. The correct site is the Harper's Choice Village Center.The Sun regrets the error.Seeking to resuscitate the deteriorating Harper's Choice Village Center, the Rouse Co. is considering plans to tear down the site of the center's former anchor supermarket, Valu Food, and build a much larger grocery store.

Valu Food announced yesterday that it will close its store in Columbia's Harper's Choice Village Center in less than three weeks after failing to agree on renewing its lease with the Rouse Co.Rouse officials said yesterday that they were negotiating with several grocers but that they didn't know when they would have a replacement for Valu Food. The store's last day will be Dec. 16."They provided an environment that made it impossible for us to stay," Louis Denrich, Valu Food president, said yesterday of the Rouse Co. "We just can't operate in a market where we lose money.

The struggling Harper's Choice Village Center -- once a hub of activity but now viewed by many as unsafe, inconvenient and outdated -- has suffered two more blows.A sandwich shop closed recently and a pizza shop is leaving soon.The closing of Subway Sandwiches and the pending departure of Little Caesar's Pizza marks further decline for the troubled West Columbia shopping center.John and Nell Murray, the pizza shop's owners, said it wasn't just a lack of customers that led to the closing of their unprofitable store, but also their landlord, the Rouse Co., Columbia's developer.

Latin and Caribbean bands and Irish and East Indian dancers will shake up Columbia's lakefront tomorrow as party-goers from all over celebrate the first Columbia International Day.The free event, highlighting the town's diversity, also will feature ethnic foods, arts and crafts and international displays. In addition, five multicultural films will be shown at the Harper's Choice Village Center -- with discussions afterwards."The Columbia Council decided this would be a great year to celebrate our diversity and the fact we are an international city," said Maggie J. Brown, vice president of community services for the Columbia Association, which is co-sponsoring the event.