Parking Spaces

A long-awaited 80-space parking lot in the Baltimore County neighborhood of Oella officially opens today, easing the parking shortage in nearby historic Ellicott City, just across the Patapsco River."

For the second time in as many meetings, the Taneytown City Council listened last night to parking complaints from residents of the Cloverberry housing development.Nathan Fowler, a truck driver for the county roads department, told the council he has no place to park in his Clover Court neighborhood."The parking spaces is terrible," Mr. Fowler told the council. "It's in our deed that we have one space, but we have nowhere to park."City Manager Joseph A. Mangini Jr. said each court in the 17-year-old development has specific rules on parking.

An impending shortage of parking spaces has emerged as one of the central issues in the controversy over the possible sale of Merriweather Post Pavilion to the county. And last night a county residents panel - investigating whether Howard County should buy the pavilion - spent almost two hours searching for a solution. "Parking is the critical, killer issue here," said the panel's chairman, Randall Griffin. "There cannot be a deal without a solution." Concertgoers now park on the undeveloped land around Merriweather.

Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos might have lost out on his bid to own a football team and may lose some parking spaces, but he might gain a better lease.In his agreement with the Maryland Stadium Authority, Angelos has a "parity" or "me too" clause that allows him to receive a lease agreement equal to the one signed by the NFL's Browns.Angelos did not want to discuss the specifics of the Browns lease' yesterday."It is important for the economic well-being of the Baltimore metropolitan area and the state of Maryland that the Camden Yards complex be completed," Angelos said.

Traffic ran smoothly yesterday at the newly opened Arundel Mills mall, as the company added parking spaces and directed shoppers to the complex's other entrances. Mills Corp. officials said traffic congestion occurred Saturday because shoppers were unfamiliar with parking areas around the state's largest mall, located in Hanover. Many shoppers entered the complex by the first entrance off Bass Pro Drive, causing traffic to overflow onto nearby Ridge Road and Route 100, said Gene Condon, vice president and general manager of Arundel Mills.

More parking spaces, more baggage handlers, more police officers, more people. That sums up Thanksgiving at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.An estimated 44,000 people will use BWI between today and Sunday -- clogging roads, terminals and luggage carousels. But airport officials, who call BWI the "easy come, easy go" airport, have a plan.Simply put, the "holiday traffic plan" means more parking spaces -- an additional 235 to bring the total in the new garage and satellite parking area to 11,735.

State planners are expected to present for the first time tonight specific plans on what to do with Black Marsh, a 1,310-acre area of unspoiled forest, beach and marsh in eastern Baltimore County.Robert L. Beckett, director of Land Planning Services for the Department of Natural Resources, said the presentation would show where certain buildings, trails and parking spaces might be located.Months ago the state put forth a "concept plan" that includes a nature center, nature trails, day-boating slips, a beachfront boardwalk, a restaurant and an amphitheater.

Two hundred air-conditioned luxury charter buses equipped with restrooms and video screens that would broadcast pregame shows are among the incentives the Washington Redskins hope will attract fans to mass transit to reach a proposed Laurel stadium.The buses are part of a preliminary nine-point plan the professional football team will unveil today to demonstrate how it could achieve an occupancy rate of 3.5 fans per vehicle. The team needs to reach that goal because only 20,077 parking spaces would be available.

A development team planning to turn an industrial site in a corner of Little Italy into a high-end, seven-story boutique hotel won city zoning approval this week, although neighborhood residents appear divided on the project. The group, called Hotelco LLC, consists of Samuel Polakoff of Rockville-based Cormony Development and Josh Neiman of Hybrid Development Group in Baltimore, and is hoping to consolidate six properties in the 400 block of S. Central Ave. for the construction of a hotel and restaurant just a few blocks from the upscale Harbor East area.

After encountering strong opposition to a plan to build an 80-foot-high parking garage next to Old St. Paul's Rectory in Baltimore, developer David Hillman is now proposing to bury most of the garage underground. Hillman and architect Peter Fillat are scheduled next week to present a new plan for a 12-level garage to Baltimore's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel. The property at 18 W. Saratoga St., part of the Central Business District urban renewal area, once contained a house owned by university and hospital founder Johns Hopkins.