New Center

A half-empty former shopping mall in Eldersburg will be remade as a Walmart-anchored plaza under plans announced Monday by owner Black Oak Associates. In a move long awaited by many in the community, the Owings Mills-based developer will spend $50 million to renovate Carrolltown Center into Eldersburg Commons, with new restaurants and home, fashion and beauty retailers. For a decade, Carrolltown Center has been a community sore spot. The interior of the small community mall was closed in 2005, and the property languished with a diminishing roster of tenants and an abandoned movie theater.

Howard County took an important step in the fight against homelessness last week by purchasing an 8-acre lot that will be the future home to a 30-unit housing facility. Using $3.25 million in land acquisition dollars, the county bought the land at the corner of routes 1 and 32 to serve as a replacement for an existing shelter run by Grassroots Crisis Intervention in Jessup. A center will be built on the new site by the Volunteers of America Chesapeake. For County Executive Ken Ulman and his administration, the move demonstrates a commitment to defeating a problem that might seem hard to believe even exists in a county as financially blessed as Howard.

Ravens center Gino Gradkowski grabbed his phone as soon as he heard that Matt Birk was retiring last Friday, saluting the six-time Pro Bowl center in a text message. It wasn't long before Gradkowski heard back from his mentor, who ended his career to spend more time with his wife and six children after capping his 15th season winning a Super Bowl . "I was congratulating Matt on how awesome it is that he's going out on top because he really deserved that, and he got right back to me," Gradkowski said while traveling back to Delaware after visiting his older brother, Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Bruce Gradkowski, in Ohio.

Albert J. A. "Jay" Young, and Orsia F. Young, have received the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Maryland - Harford County Chapter's second "Outstanding Volunteer Fundraiser" award, presented at seventh annual Harford County Celebration of Philanthropy, held April 11, at the Maryland Golf & Country Clubs in Bel Air. The event was established to bestow recognition upon members of the community "whose exceptional generosity demonstrates outstanding...

Work crews still are putting the finishing touches on the first family support center in Annapolis to offer multiple social services under one roof, and already people are walking through the front door looking for help."

This bombardment was led by one man — a crane operator who ripped into the brick building at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine at dawn's early light. "He's doing what the British couldn't do," park ranger Scott Sheads said jokingly about the contractor hired to demolish the structure at the fort, which defended Baltimore's harbor against the invaders during the War of 1812 and inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the poem that would become the national anthem.

The ceremonial ribbon won't be cut until Friday, but Taneytown seniors already are flocking to their new center on Roberts Mill Road, at Antrim Street.While many of the regular members said they enjoyedmeeting in their former space at the Thunderhead Lanes bowling alley, they like the new center because of the longer hours and increased space and a general sense that it's their own."I think everything is real pretty," said Germaine Strzelczyk of McMullen Road. "I used the exercise bike. I did two miles."

The new Washington Convention Center is mammoth -- 2.3 million square feet, enough to hold six NFL football fields or four jumbo jets. It sprawls over six blocks. Its price tag is astronomical, too, at $833.9 million. Washington is betting that the new center -- three times the size of its old one and among the nation's 10 biggest -- will catapult the city into the front ranks of the convention business, pumping as much as $328.5 million into the city's economy annually, from delegate spending alone.

As the National Security Agency opens Maryland's largest work-site child care center, many envious working parents wonder: If NSA can do this for its employees, why can't my company?To find an answer, look at the history behind NSA's new 300-child center. This was not a project that sprang up overnight. Agency leaders did not wake up one morning and decide suddenly to give their employees a convenient place to bring their children. The center became a reality only after a decade's worth of planning and pushing by employees who were smart enough to know that if they wanted NSA to do something about child care, they had to do something themselves.

Howard County took an important step in the fight against homelessness last week by purchasing an 8-acre lot that will be the future home to a 30-unit housing facility. Using $3.25 million in land acquisition dollars, the county bought the land at the corner of routes 1 and 32 to serve as a replacement for an existing shelter run by Grassroots Crisis Intervention in Jessup. A center will be built on the new site by the Volunteers of America Chesapeake. For County Executive Ken Ulman and his administration, the move demonstrates a commitment to defeating a problem that might seem hard to believe even exists in a county as financially blessed as Howard.

A new computing facility at the National Security Agency will help the country better defend against cyber attacks , agency officials and members of Congress said Monday. The High Performance Computing Center-2 will assist in "front-line defense against immediate threats" in cyberspace, Gen. Keith B. Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, said during a groundbreaking ceremony Monday at Fort Meade. The 600,000-square-foot facility, similar in function to an existing computer center, is scheduled to open in 2016.

A half-empty former shopping mall in Eldersburg will be remade as a Walmart-anchored plaza under plans announced Monday by owner Black Oak Associates. In a move long awaited by many in the community, the Owings Mills-based developer will spend $50 million to renovate Carrolltown Center into Eldersburg Commons, with new restaurants and home, fashion and beauty retailers. For a decade, Carrolltown Center has been a community sore spot. The interior of the small community mall was closed in 2005, and the property languished with a diminishing roster of tenants and an abandoned movie theater.

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking Tuesday at an event in Baltimore, said he was unsure whether there is enough support in the Senate for what would be the biggest change to federal gun laws in decades. "We may not get it this week, but we will prevail," Biden said of the bill, which senators will vote on Wednesday. Sixty votes are needed to pass the measure. Police closed city streets and increased security at nearby Penn Station in anticipation of Biden's arrival at an event to preview the University of Baltimore's new law center.

Like American jurisprudence, the University of Baltimore's new $114 million law school is complicated and thoughtful. Staircases bridge across and spiral through the 12-story building's vibrant atrium, connecting a labyrinth of classrooms and study spaces with faculty offices, clinical facilities and a research wing. Sunlight is inescapable, reducing the need for artificial lighting, and the concrete slab floors encase heating elements that also cut down on energy use. Colors like "margarita" and "banana yellow" pop from walls and ceilings, the sounds of a waterfall echo throughout the glass edifice and square chandeliers are strung like falling confetti.

H&S Bakery is moving its Harbor East distribution center to an East Baltimore business park, freeing up prime real estate that the breadmaker-turned-developer has eyed for development for more than a decade. The facility, bounded by South Central Avenue and South Eden, Fleet and Aliceanna streets, lies on the edge of the fast-growing shopping, hotel and business district. Its future home, meanwhile, is a development that was once in bankruptcy and has struggled to attract tenants.

KinderMender Walk-In Pediatric Center is celebrating the grand opening of its newest location, Saturday, March 16, at 805 Washington Blvd., in Laurel. The festivities will feature food, drinks, balloon animals, a clown, tour of the new facility and door prizes attendees can win every half hour. The new center houses six urgent care/sick care rooms, a medication dispensary, a state of the art X-ray machine on site and three segregated rooms for well children, which help prevent the spread of infection.

Whether it's a sprained ankle, pinkeye, bronchitis or poison ivy, a new walk-in pediatric clinic in Columbia specializes in the needs of kids. KinderMender opened its doors in the Columbia Crossing Shopping Center in July, under the direction of Dr. Keyvan Rafei. The Columbia resident is the outgoing chief of pediatric emergency medicine and chairman of the pediatric asthma program at the University of Maryland Children's Hospital. He decided to open the new center as a way of “combining quality pediatric care with convenience and accessibility of urgent care,” he says.

The Gettysburg battlefield will undergo a large-scale restoration with the demolition of the aging visitors' center, which sits on the ground where soldiers fought the three-day battle that changed the course of the Civil War.In an announcement expected today, Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt will lay out a plan to make the land look as it did when about 163,000 Union and Confederate soldiers met in bloody conflict July 1-3, 1863. Fences will be erected and wooded areas restored at the site, the center of the Union line on the last two days.

An aquatics center is the latest splash at the Walter & Betty Ward Family Center Y in Abingdon. As part of a $3.5 million expansion of the Harford County facility, the aquatics center includes two indoor pools: a lap pool and a warm-water family pool. Renovations to the center also include more multipurpose areas and space for youth activities, as well as additional parking and an outdoor patio adjacent to the indoor pool. In a letter to Y members, center director Suzanne Green and president and CEO John K. Hoey wrote, “We hope that these additions will enhance your Y experience, while allowing more families, youth and seniors in Harford County to become more active and engaged in their community.” The Walter & Betty Ward Family Center Y is located at 101 Walter Ward Blvd., in Abingdon.

Ravens center Gino Gradkowski grabbed his phone as soon as he heard that Matt Birk was retiring last Friday, saluting the six-time Pro Bowl center in a text message. It wasn't long before Gradkowski heard back from his mentor, who ended his career to spend more time with his wife and six children after capping his 15th season winning a Super Bowl . "I was congratulating Matt on how awesome it is that he's going out on top because he really deserved that, and he got right back to me," Gradkowski said while traveling back to Delaware after visiting his older brother, Cincinnati Bengals backup quarterback Bruce Gradkowski, in Ohio.