New Building

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is proposing a legislative package designed to move the county to the forefront of the environmental movement's push for "green" buildings. Ulman announced yesterday that he will introduce a combination of property tax breaks, governmental reforms and incentives for private home builders designed to speed the county onto an environmentally friendly track. The incentives and new laws, he said, will help change a hidebound culture in which new homes are built in traditional ways, without thought to the environment.

From the time they started meeting in a Catonsville basement 55 years ago, members of the American Legion Jackson & Johnson Memorial Post No. 263 have wanted to build their own headquarters. The post's members socialize and entertain in an old corner store in the 100 block of Winters Lane, which is the main street in the historically black neighborhood. The building appears on the verge of collapse and has never been big enough for monthly meetings. When all 189 members meet once a month, they must gather at the Banneker Center across the street.

The old volunteer-built barns and sheds of the Carroll County Agriculture Center will shelter the last 4-H Fair of the 20th century in July, then promptly be torn down to make way for an expanded arena for the 2001 fair, officials said yesterday.Center board members had hoped to start construction this year and have a new building ready for the 2000 fair.But changes in design to accommodate concerns of neighbors in the adjacent residential community delayed the project, said Lawrence Meeks, president of the center's board of directors.

The Board of Public Works approved yesterday a $20.7 million contract to build a new state Senate office building, which state officials said will feature larger hearing rooms and public meeting areas than are now available.The new, four-story building will be built behind the 60-year-old William S. James Senate Office Building in Annapolis. A covered pedestrian walkway will connect the two structures, state officials said.The board awarded the contract to Coakley Williams Construction of Gaithersburg, which has agreed to use minority-owned business enterprises for 20 percent of the work, or $4.2 million of the total contract amount.

State money to expand the Carroll County Agriculture Center is almost a sure bet, but how much, and how much will come this year, is unknown, said Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale, a member of the House Appropriations Committee that recently heard the center's request for $950,000.The money would go toward a $3.3 million project to expand the center, which is home to the Carroll County 4-H Fair and other events throughout the year. The expansion is expected to generate increased income from exhibits and shows.

Anne Arundel County expects to open the second half of its spacious new Circuit Court House and the restored historic court building as its entrance tomorrow, providing the state's fifth-largest judicial circuit with the equivalent of 6 acres of floor space.Visitors -- there are 4,000 a week -- will again enter the courthouse through the 1824 building on Church Circle, which has been closed for two years. But instead of then walking into a cramped and dilapidated 1952 structure that housed most of the courtrooms, they will go through a glassed lobby to the just-completed court facility that occupies most of a city block in the Annapolis historic district.

The new stewards of the Constellation say they want to tear down an information center on Pier 1 that has been roundly criticized as an eyesore and replace it with a building that offers better views of the restored warship and a new gateway to Baltimore's Inner Harbor.The Living Classrooms Foundation, a nonprofit organization that will operate the Constellation when it returns to the Inner Harbor next week after a $9 million restoration, received approval yesterday of preliminary plans for a two-story building from Baltimore's Design Advisory Panel.

Despite several minor glitches, troopers in Westminster completed the bulk of their move this weekend into the new Maryland State Police barracks G."A lot of little things still need to be done," Sgt. 1st Class Dean Richardson said, pointing to a section of unpainted wall surrounding an exit light."

The holding cells haven't been used in about six years, the roof leaks, the paint is peeling and prisoners are handcuffed to pipes as a security measure.But Sgt. Wayne Howard, who has spent 23 years assigned to Baltimore County police's Towson precinct, is going to miss the old Towson station house."It has a character to it that's all its own," said Howard, a 29-year veteran.County officials broke ground yesterday on a $5.1 million Towson police station at Bosley and Susquehanna avenues to replace the 72-year-old precinct house.

CARROLL COUNTY needs a new Agriculture Center for the good of the county's important farming sector as well as the rest of the community. Inadequacy of the old center buildings outside Westminster has been apparent for some time.Plans announced yesterday by the non-profit center's board of directors call for a new building costing more than $3 million that would be located near the existing complex.The price is double what was proposed three years ago, while the size has shrunk to 26,000 square feet from 37,000.

For decades, medical students have been taught to treat the "standard" or "typical" patient, as if everyone reacts the same way to an illness or disease. But with the sequencing of the human genome, some medical educators have begun to adopt the view that there is no such thing as a "standard" patient and that everyone should be considered an individual with unique characteristics that influence his or her health, from age and genetic structure to their environment and place in society.

Four decades ago, when Columbia pioneer Andrea Gruhl worked part-time at what was then called the Frederick Road Library in Ellicott City, then-county commissioner Charles E. Miller's cattle grazed right outside the small red brick and glass building, she said. "I was sure I was the only librarian in the whole United States who had that view, and now we're going back to that," she said, delighted. Gruhl was among about 35 people who Monday night attended the first of two meetings at what is now called the Charles E. Miller library to find out more about the mega-replacement building set to rise next year just behind the current, outmoded library.

With six months to go before moving into their new $15.5 million building on the Fallsway, Health Care for the Homeless officials gave Mayor Sheila Dixon a hard-hat tour Thursday. The three-story building with a partial green roof is walking distance from Our Daily Bread and the city's planned 148-bed emergency shelter and housing resource center. Dixon said having homeless services in one area "maximizes the support people need to get back on their feet." Jeff Singer, president and chief executive officer of Health Care for the Homeless, said the buildings' proximity to one another will "promote synergy" because the providers can walk people from one place to the next and save on transportation.

The first wave of Legg Mason employees showed up at new Harbor East headquarters Monday, representing a new start for the struggling money manager while also creating a potential boon for businesses at the waterfront neighborhood. At the same time, Legg's relocation will leave a big dent in the old central business district. The huge vacancy at 100 Light St., where Legg occupied 22 of the 35 floors, has not been filled. For surrounding businesses at Legg's former home, the loss means more bad news during trying economic times.

For the parents of developmentally disabled adults, Opportunity Builders Inc. has been a place for their children to make friends, learn life skills and be productive. The parents of children with mental retardation, autism and other disabilities, volunteered and donated money to keep the nonprofit going for the past 47 years, even rescuing it from closure in 1986 when the doors were padlocked because of unpaid bills. Tomorrow, they get to celebrate a hard-fought milestone for OBI - the grand opening of its own 41,000-square-foot headquarters on 14.5 acres.

Ensure UB building is part of city's life As Tuesday's Baltimore Sun announced, the University of Baltimore School of Law has selected a design for its new building ("A bright new face for UB law school," Nov. 18). The city should congratulate the university and the law school for making such an exciting and progressive selection. But now the hard work begins. It would be very easy to make this building into an inaccessible bunker. The site is difficult and detached. It is surrounded by fast surface traffic, an exit ramp from Interstate 83 and the busy intersection of Charles Street and Mount Royal Avenue.

Archbishop Spalding High School has started an $8.2 million expansion to handle increased enrollment and attract students in the highly competitive private school market, school officials said. The Catholic school in Severn will lay the foundation for a new arts and technology center in October. This winter, work will begin on a new stadium. Both should be ready by next fall, said Michael Murphy, president and chief executive officer of Spalding. In the past six years, enrollment has grown from 950 students to 1,180.

The drum-shaped building near the intersection of North and Mount Royal avenues has a large opening on its west side that allows people on the sidewalk to look up and see a landscaped courtyard deep inside, two levels above the street. It has a horizontal opening on the south side that looks like a giant mail slot. The glass panes around the exterior aren't always in the same plane from floor to floor and change in color as one moves around the building. Did the contractor run out of the same color glass and decide to improvise partway through construction?

Towson University has scrapped plans to renovate 32-year-old Towson Center and instead wants to build a $45.4 million multi-use arena that could open by July 2011. As decisions go, this switch was easy. "Once the architects started looking at it, they brought us the proposition that a new building would be a much better building in terms of what we'd get, and it'd also be a little less expensive than renovating," said James P. Sheehan, vice president for administration and finance at Towson.

After 18 months in temporary quarters, staff and residents of the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center are set to move into their new $5 million building that replaces the nonprofit's cramped former quarters on the same site. "It's a very busy time, and we'll all be quite relieved when we're into the building," said Andrea Ingram, Grassroots' director. She's been rushing from one crucial last-minute inspection to another, while coordinating delivery of furniture and planning for a celebratory ribbon-cutting today.