Green Spring

Charter Medical Corp., the largest operator of psychiatric hospitals in the nation, has purchased a majority share in Columbia-based Green Spring Health Services Inc., which manages mental health and drug and alcohol abuse programs for 12 million people.The deal, announced in October and concluded yesterday, creates the first fully integrated behavioral health care company. It will provide a range of services from emergency hospitalization to calculating how much services should cost.Atlanta-based Charter becomes a new holding company, Magellan Health Services Inc., with projected 1996 revenue of $1.4 billion and 22,000 employees.

I was very happy to see that additional development was barred at Green Spring Station and that common sense prevailed in our county's decision making. Anyone who travels through this intersection during the week days, especially rush hours, can tell you this is a failing intersection that it fully deserves its "F" rating. To those legislators who upgraded it as a "D" rating, I would suggest that without major improvements in place beforehand, any further development at Green Spring Station would overnight decrease its rating to a "F". For this reason, I believe the restriction that prohibits development only near "F" rated intersections should be expanded to include "D" rated roadways and intersections; this is only common sense, guys.

Green Spring Health Services of Columbia will "certainly look at strategic opportunities," but will not merge with a similar company being acquired by Green Spring's majority owner, said Clarissa Marques, executive vice president of Green Spring and Magellan Health Services.Magellan, based in Atlanta, owns 61 percent of Green Spring, a company which provides managed-care services in mental health.Magellan said Tuesday that it would buy Salt Lake City-based Human Affairs International from Aetna U.S. Healthcare in a deal valued at $422 million.

A vote by the Baltimore County Council on Monday will bar new development at Green Spring Station in Lutherville for the near future. Developers cannot build near intersections graded "F" under the county's "basic services maps," which identify deficiencies in public infrastructure throughout the county. The council approved the maps Monday. The intersection of West Joppa and Falls roads near Green Spring Station — which has shops, restaurants and offices — had been labeled failing for about a decade, and the planning board recommended "F" again this year.

Two of Baltimore's oldest dairies are consolidating: Cloverland Farm Dairy has purchased Green Spring Dairy.The acquisition, for an undisclosed price, combines the operations of Cloverland, which was founded in 1929, with its longtime competitor, which was started eight years later.In recent years, Green Spring was owned by Dairy Enterprises Inc. of New Jersey. Ralph C. Kemp, Cloverland's president, said the company is happy to bring the ownership back to Baltimore.Cloverland has about 200 workers at its Monroe Street plant and 13 at a smaller establishment in Salisbury.

A decision by a Baltimore County zoning official allowing construction of a kennel in an exclusive Green Spring Valley neighborhood has the property owner and project opponents claiming victory. Deputy Zoning Commissioner Timothy M. Kotroco ruled this week that Greta White and her daughter, Erika Lanasa, can build a kennel on their 6-acre property in the 7800 block of Greenspring Ave., just north of a Baltimore Beltway exit ramp. But Kotroco also said the kennel and its parking lot must fit on a 1,700-square-foot triangle of land on the property.

Its name, one might say, is a Beltway accident; not a collision, but a bit of I-695 serendipity.The accidental naming of Green Spring Health Services might nTC seem a symbol for a company that was in the right place at the right time -- and made the most of it.While the managed mental health care industry is growing quickly, Green Spring is growing even more quickly -- from 2 million members covered and $12 million in revenue in 1991 to almost 15 million covered...

Green Spring Health Services of Columbia said yesterday that it will buy Vista Behavioral Health Plans of San Diego in a $6 million deal.The acquisition continues Green Spring's rapid consolidation in the managed behavioral health care field. Such companies operate like HMOs, providing counseling and inpatient care, generally for a fixed monthly fee.The deal will add 600,000 members to Green Spring's business, which provides managed behavioral care to 16 million people.Green Spring and three other companies already control more than 70 percent of the market -- and one of those three, Human Affairs International, is being acquired by Magellan Health Services, which owns a controlling interest in Green Spring and operates mental hospitals.

Green Spring Dairy Inc., a Baltimore operation since the Great Depression, is in the process of being sold again to an out-of-town buyer.John Labatt Ltd., the Toronto, Canada-based parent of Green Spring, disclosed yesterday that it had signed a letter of intent to sell the dairy operation to Dairy Enterprises Inc. in New York.Lorne Stephenson, a spokesman for Labatt, said the letter was just a step in the acquisition process and stressed that the two parties might not reach a final agreement.

Columbia's Green Spring Health Services Inc. stands to double in size as its parent company, Magellan Health Services Inc. of Atlanta, announced plans yesterday to buy Merit Behavioral Care Corp. for $560 million in cash and assumed debt.The New Jersey-based Merit will be merged into Green Spring, said Dr. Henry T. Harbin, Green Spring's president and chief executive officer. That would create a Maryland-based company with more than $1 billion of annual revenue, providing managed-care mental health services for 40 million people by contracting with more than 50,000 clinicians and mental health facilities.

How bad is traffic at Falls and Joppa roads in Baltimore County? It depends whom you ask, and the answer could determine whether the county allows additional growth near the intersection. A dispute over the intersection near Green Spring Station, a collection of shops, restaurants and offices in Lutherville, was the subject of a County Council discussion last week. Council members are scheduled to vote Monday on the county's "basic services maps," which identify deficiencies in the county's sewer, water and transportation infrastructure plans.

Peter Young Martin, a former golf professional and Green Spring Valley Hunt Club champion, died of a respiratory illness March 31 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Owings Mills resident was 64. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of John William Young Martin and Nancy Byers Martin. He was raised at the family home, Snow Hill Farm, site of the Maryland Hunt Cup point-to-point race in the Worthington Valley in Baltimore County. Mr. Martin attended the Gilman Lower School and was a 1966 graduate of Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Conn.

Green Spring Station - a collection of boutiques, restaurants and offices near the northern end of the Jones Falls Expressway - commands some of the highest rent in Baltimore County. Visitors can shop for French linens at Paris-based Yves Delorme, try on mink at furrier Mano Swartz, and play squash at the Green Spring Racquet Club. Now, though, owner Foxleigh Enterprises says a County Council vote has stymied its plans for an addition and renovations, putting the Lutherville development at a competitive disadvantage.

The house that ranks as the Baltimore region's priciest sale in August is, in the words of the sellers' real estate agent, "understated" — the sort of home that doesn't smack you in the eye with its high-end glitz. The four-bedroom home on Golf Course Road West in Owings Mills, which sits on 2 acres near Green Spring Valley Hunt Club's golf course, changed hands for just over $3.1 million. "It wasn't a McMansion," said Linda Corbin of Prudential Homesale YWGC Realty, the listing agent.

A knock rarely brings the owner to the front door of Stemmer House. It is more likely that she will emerge to greet you from her gardens, wearing her trademark galoshes, tool belt, work gloves and sun hat. Though Barbara Holdridge has lived in this historic Baltimore County home for nearly 40 years, it is her gardens that demand her time and attention. More than six of the 27 acres that surround the home are formally landscaped, and if they don't need to be weeded, they need to be watered.

The entrance into Joey Chiu's — a wide wooden bridge spanning a rapid stream — is bewitchingly pretty. I can't think of a restaurant that makes a better first impression. I felt just as good about Joey Chiu's when I left. Charming is as charming does. Joey Chiu's occupies what is actually an addition on the back of a drab building. The building is drab, but the addition is swell. If you ran a restaurant, the structure's clean, contemporary lines and dramatic wall of windows might inspire you to cram it full of midcentury modern furniture.

For the second time in a month, developers are proposing office buildings at Green Spring Station despite concerns from residents that the projects would overwhelm congested roads.Developer Howard Brown and William Hirshfeld, owner of the Greenspring Racquet Club, are seeking county approval to build ZTC two office buildings and a parking deck at the north end of the property where the club sits.They plan to ask county officials today to let them apply for building permits, bypassing a public hearing and community input meetings.

Cary Wilson Jackson, a noted Maryland horseman, builder and developer who had been on the board of the Maryland Million Classic, died Feb. 7 in an automobile accident near White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. He was 88. At the time of the accident, Mr. Jackson was returning to his home in White Hall, Baltimore County, from Lexington, Ky., where he had sold a mare at the Keeneland horse sale. "Cary Jackson defined the term 'Maryland horseman' at its best. He did it all," said Ross Peddicord, former Baltimore Sun racing writer who is now executive director of the Maryland Horse Industry Board.