Owings Mills Mall

Single-family home sales nationally are continuing to slide downward, but the Owings Mills/Reisterstown area is bucking the trend. In the first half of 1991, the burgeoning area rose to fourth place in a survey of fast-selling Baltimore communities, according to Legg Mason Realty Group."

A man charged with robbing an Owings Mills Mall shop Tuesday also was charged yesterday in two of five gunpoint holdups at Baltimore's two Harborplace pavilions, police said yesterday.Anthony Grace, 34, of the 100 block of Carlton St. in Baltimore posted bail and was released this week after his arrest in Baltimore County.But after county and Baltimore City police compared notes and discovered similarities, city police arrested him again yesterday.They charged Mr. Grace with two counts of robbery and felony handgun possession in connection with Harborplace holdups.

The developer of Towson Town Center said the company knew it had to create something spectacular to lure shoppers to the mall.So, one of the goals of the $150 million expansion and renovation project was to create a grandeur without parallel in an area already saturated with shopping experiences.In order to outstrip the competitors, such as Owings Mills Mall, a fete of mall architecture was what the Towson Town Center developer, Hahn Co., of San Diego, wanted."We were after the highest quality shopping center we could get in the Baltimore area," said Hahn Co. vice president Walter Finley.

Tuesday night's fatal shooting outside Owings Mills mall prompted questions yesterday about mall security and whether the incident would scare off shoppers during the last week of the crucial Christmas shopping season. By most appearances, however, it was business as usual. The mall's food court was standing-room-only yesterday afternoon, and many shoppers said they were unaware that an 18-year-old Eldersburg youth had been killed in the parking lot the night before. "Oh, man," said Corey Chester of Owings Mills.

Nigel Antonio Carter, a Baltimore teen-ager accused of killin an Owings Mills Mall employee during a robbery Sept. 25, said yesterday that he made up a confession after homicide detectives told him his mother would lose her house because of him."That's when I cried," Mr. Carter, 17, said yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, during a hearing on whether his confession can be used as evidence at his murder trial. The trial is scheduled to begin today."I cried because I thought my mother would lose her house," Mr. Carter said.

IN what it said was a bold new idea in shopping convenience, Owings Mills Mall this Christmas began a "mall-wide shopping service." Customers are invited to call a mall representative (a very cordial Mrs. Baker), advise her what they want to shop for and how much they want to spend. Ms. Baker will then shop the mall's 150 stores, bring back appropriate selections and then invite the phone shopper to come on over to approve the choices, pay up and take them home.Owings Mills calls it the Baltimore area's first mall-wide shopping service.

Driven by the American obsession with sales and freebies, shoppers rose before dawn to take part in the traditional feast of holiday shopping yesterday.And because Black Friday came as late on the calendar as it could, stores conspired to get customers through their doors earlier in the morning than ever.At the Target in Ellicott City's Long Gate Shopping Center, which opened at 7 a.m., they started arriving at 5: 30 a.m.By 6: 45, the crowd had swelled to more than 100.Why does someone get up that early to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

Want company while you walk? A sampling of Baltimore-area walking clubs: Volksmarches: Volksmarch clubs organize scenic six-mile walks for the entire family (volksmarches), but you don't have to be a member to participate. Call 800-830-WALK for local events and contact numbers. Check out the American Volksport Association Web site at www.ava.org. Baltimore Front Runners: This lesbian and gay running and walking group meets in Canton. For information, contact Bob Gerchalk at 410-558-0628 or www.charm.

Hunt Valley Mall, once called the Death Valley of local malls because of its failure to attract shoppers, will be reinvented early next year with new stores, restaurants and a 14-screen movie theater.Saks Off 5th, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Talbot's, Stein Mart and the Home Place are some of the stores that the mall's developers are negotiating with, sources said. The developers would like to build 120,000 square feet of new space -- the equivalent of a department store such as Hecht's -- two new restaurants and a bank, according to Howard S. Biel, a partner with the Faison Group of Charlotte, N.C., which is redeveloping the mall.

On Friday, the same morning this newspaper carried a business article that the former glitter palace of shopping centers, Owings Mills Mall, was now going downscale, two young fellows walked into the mall's Imaginarium childrens' store, one of them pulled a handgun and they robbed the place of $200.Is that downscale enough for everyone?One of the robbers was described as 20 years old and wearing the kind of purple backpack in which kids carry schoolbooks. The other was said to be 5-feet-3 and perhaps 13. The lads hit the place first thing in the morning, perhaps not wishing to be terribly late for school.