Parking Spaces

Baltimore's former Highlandtown Middle School is targeted for conversion to a $30 million apartment and retail project called The Patterson, under a plan proposed by Focus Development of Baltimore and accepted by the city. Baltimore housing commissioner Paul T. Graziano announced this week that Focus has been selected over two other groups that expressed interest in recycling the 1934 school at 101 S. Ellwood Ave., in the Baltimore-Linwood neighborhood. Focus, headed by Shaffin Jetha and Rick Diehl, proposed to convert the vacant public school by 2012 to 120 to 150 market-rate apartments plus about 1,500 square feet of retail space, 2,000 square feet of "interior meeting space" and 110 to 140 indoor parking spaces.

Many students and alumni of the University of Maryland, College Park might be shocked to know that the institution was founded as an agricultural school, not a parking lot. Its stated goal to research farming techniques was perfectly suited to the rolling landscape of the former plantation. Today, the only identifiable remnant of the 1856 Maryland Agricultural College's mission is the small barn nestled between a high-rise dormitory and a sea of asphalt. So after reading that one of the few green areas on the north end of campus would be paved over, I was dismayed.

Pennsylvania@Drexel 10 a.m. [ESPN] I look at it this way: If these two teams are going to play basketball in the middle of the morning, the least you can do is watch. Plus, given that their campuses are next to each other, maybe parking spaces are on the line.

Debbie Reid returned to her car in a county commuter parking lot after a long day's work recently and made discouraging discovery: a $35 parking citation under the wiper blade. The Columbia woman has taken a commuter bus to her job in Washington for the past 10 years. But the commuter parking lots have gotten so crowded in the mornings that she sometimes parks illegally along a curb in the lot at Broken Land Parkway and Route 32. "It's terrible," Reid, 59, said Wednesday evening, in the same lot where she was ticketed.

Baltimore officials want to revive a downtown shuttle bus service to ease congestion and free up parking spaces in city garages, despite the financial failure of a similar transit system three years ago. The proposal, which might initially include three downtown circulator bus routes - with reduced fares or no fare at all - would be paid for in part by increasing a city tax levied on daily and monthly parking spaces. "Congestion is a serious issue in downtown," said 1st Deputy Mayor Andrew Frank.

What started as a simple, universally praised idea to replace a vacant lot at the edge of the Oakland Mills Village Center with an office condominium building is getting more and more complicated - and there's a political subtext. County Executive Ken Ulman is trying to ensure construction by using $4 million in county money to buy one of the building's four floors. The Metroventures project on Stevens Forest Road is considered vital to revitalization efforts in Oakland Mills, part of Ulman's Democratic political base in Columbia.

Speakout!We wantyour opinions ISSUE: Last weekend, Anne Arundel County began enforcing a new law that calls for a $500 citation for drivers who illegally park in spots reserved for the disabled. The stiffer fine - the maximum allowed in Maryland - is a tenfold increase from the previous $50 penalty. "Hopefully, what it will do is preserve for the physically challenged in our county their parking spaces and their access to our facilities," said County Executive John R. Leopold. YOUR VIEW: Does the $500 penalty fit the crime?

The developers of a proposed 380-unit apartment complex called The Promenade promise that the project will be unlike anything else in Towson. But some residents say they're worried that the project could exacerbate problems familiar to Towson, such as traffic congestion and insufficient open space. Others welcome the upscale project that they hope will draw urban professionals to the area. A community input meeting on the proposal is set for 7 p.m. tonight in the Towson Library. Hanover Co., a Houston-based developer, wants to build the complex at York and Lambourne roads on 5.3 acres north of the Prospect Hill Cemetery.

Towson Town Center would be expanded to include a large housewares store and up to three new restaurants, all with a "Main Street"-style facade, under a proposal submitted to Baltimore County officials and presented last week to community leaders. The mall would have a new "atrium-style" glass entrance on the west side, facing Dulaney Valley Road, and new shops and eating establishments with their own entrances would be built on what is now a parking lot and the site of a gas station. A county government panel is to decide tomorrow whether the expansion and renovation should be considered a "refinement" to the already-approved development plan at the mall or whether the plan will have to go through a separate review process.