Development Site

Just when North Laurel and Savage residents were foreseeing a breakthrough in their communities with new schools and an expected shopping center, they're being hit with the one thing many say they hate most -- a Columbia-style neighborhood -- right in their back yards."

Baltimore's first Lowe's home improvement store and a supermarket would anchor a $65 million mixed-use project straddling Charles Village and Remington under a retail developer's plans to transform the site of Anderson Automotive, a fixture since the mid-1950s. Developer Rick Walker unveiled plans Wednesday to build the home improvement store and a grocer, along with 32,000 square feet of specialty shops and up to 60 apartments on 11 acres roughly bounded by 25th Street to the north, Maryland Avenue to the east, 24th Street to the south and the CSX rail line to the west.

Plans to build 51 pricey homes on both sides of the Northern Central Railroad bike trail north of Parkton have moved a step closer to construction after the Board of Appeals rejected community objections to the project.The Cameron Mill Partnership would erect the $300,000-to- $500,000 homes on 3-acre lots above the Little Falls and Beetree Run, with road access from Cameron Mill, Stablers Church and Eagle Mill roads.The sites, on two wooded ridges and one recently farmed hillside, overlook a pretty, bowl-shaped stream valley now occupied by a single small farmhouse and barn, which is to remain.

Defying Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake and city redevelopment officials, Baltimore's preservation commission voted Tuesday to add the former Read's drugstore to the city's "special list" of landmarks, an action that protects the building from demolition for at least six months. Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation voted 7-1 to grant temporary landmark status to the city-owned building because it was the site of a 1955 lunch counter sit-in that had national significance in the U.S. civil rights movement.

A construction worker found a body yesterday in a burned-out Toyota Corolla on the muddy site of a townhouse development near Piney Orchard Ice Rink, Anne Arundel County police said. The worker, who was walking by the site, discovered the burned-out car about 2 p.m., police said. The body has not been identified. An autopsy is planned today. Pub Date: 1/27/99

Hoping to capitalize on a surge in activity, the Constellation Real Estate Group Inc. intends to develop the first major new speculative industrial project in the Baltimore area since 1989.The new 250,000-square-foot warehouse -- roughly equivalent in size to the 27-story office tower at 201 N. Charles St. downtown -- will be constructed at the firm's 220-acre Brandon Woods Business Park in Anne Arundel County.Constellation's decision to proceed with the $10.5 million project comes in response to a marketwide drop in vacancy rates, combined with slight rental rate increases, for distribution space.

Carroll builders would be allowed to place temporary sale offices in developments during construction under a proposal endorsed by the county's planning commission.The Planning and Zoning Commission has recommended that the zoning ordinance be revised to allow builders to place temporary, modular sales offices in subdivisions of 15 lots or more for up to two years. Sales offices could remain longer with county approval.Currently, developers are allowed to use model homes as sales offices.

TWO LOCAL institutions have joined the move to the World Wide Web, Crofton's Prince of Peace Church and Arundel High School.The church's Web site was organized by David Fries, a member of the parish, as an Eagle Scout project. David, 15, worked with church members for a year and a half to create a Web site that would best respond to the needs of the parish.Visitors to the site will find worship service schedules, messages from the Rev. Jon B. M. Fregger, and information about church activities, including music, missions, Boy Scouts, day care and Alcohol ics Anonymous meetings.

The Columbia Association rejected an annexation plan last night from the developer that created Columbia and essentially took back its offer to make a future Rouse Co. development in North Laurel part of the planned community. Supporters of the plan said the association's board of directors passed up a chance to grow and reap millions in tax assessments, which they said could have been used to benefit all of Columbia. "I hope that those who voted against it will be around to see the damage that was done," said Councilwoman Pearl Atkinson Stewart of Owen Brown.