Retail Development

The shelves have been stocked and the cash registers tested for Wednesday's opening of Harris Teeter's upscale supermarket in Locust Point - part of a broader development push that is likely to bring Baltimore as much retail space as a regional shopping mall. Harris Teeter, offering hundreds of gourmet cheeses, curbside pickup of online orders and cafe seating on a balcony, will anchor the mixed-use McHenry Row development, one of several shopping centers being built or planned in the city.

With the swipe of an excavator, a demolition crew began taking down the abandoned Solo Cup factory in Owings Mills on Thursday, work that will clear the way for new development that was once threatened by opposition. When the abandoned plant is flattened, developers plan to build a $140 million shopping center anchored by the upscale grocer Wegmans, as well as a gym, restaurants, offices and stores. Developers say Foundry Row will open by late 2015 or early 2016. The ceremonial start to demolition at the site on the corner of Reisterstown and Painters Mill roads followed months of debate among residents, developers and Baltimore County Council members.

The Howard County Planning Board's approval yesterday of a 12-acre part of the Columbia Crossing retail development on Snowden River Parkway puts the project closer to its scheduled completion in 1998 -- even though it recently hasn't signed any more tenants for the 73-acre project.A Target discount department store -- the largest tenant at 125,000 square feet -- will open in October. Dick's Clothing and Sporting Goods, the complex's only other confirmed tenant, will begin construction on its 60,000-square-foot store this summer and will open next spring.

On paper, the plan for a car maintenance shop and a few stores on Snowden River Parkway in Columbia hardly seems worth fighting about. The business people opposing it, however, see it as an illegal first step toward drastic changes for the worse along some major roads, and a potential threat to businesses in Columbia's nine village centers.  "We just feel it was an illegal rezoning," says Christopher Alleva, president of the Howard County Independent...

Today, open space; tomorrow, shopping mecca.That's what Westminster officials are hoping to see materialize on 61 acres of rolling green they recently annexed near Weis Market off Route 140.Development proposals for the site, rezoned commercial by county officials, are expected to soon flood the city's planning office and could include three big-box retailers and chain restaurants, said Thomas B. Beyard, the city's director of planning and public works."

In a push to attract more shops, restaurants and service-oriented businesses, and maybe even a department store, to the heart of Baltimore, the Downtown Partnership has hired a full-time staff member to spearhead its retail development effort. Nan Rohrer, 30, has been named director of retail development. She comes to the organization from the city's Department of Recreation and Parks, where she was director of the office of partnerships. Before that, she served as a neighborhood liaison in the mayor's office of neighborhoods.

With the swipe of an excavator, a demolition crew began taking down the abandoned Solo Cup factory in Owings Mills on Thursday, work that will clear the way for new development that was once threatened by opposition. When the abandoned plant is flattened, developers plan to build a $140 million shopping center anchored by the upscale grocer Wegmans, as well as a gym, restaurants, offices and stores. Developers say Foundry Row will open by late 2015 or early 2016. The ceremonial start to demolition at the site on the corner of Reisterstown and Painters Mill roads followed months of debate among residents, developers and Baltimore County Council members.

Developer James W. Rousewas a pioneer at recycling other people's buildings for new uses, including Faneuil Hall in Boston and parts of the South Street Seaport historic district in Manhattan. Now one of the most prominent buildings he constructed from scratch - the former Rouse Co. headquarters in Columbia - is about to get a similar treatment from a successor to Rouse's firm. The Howard Hughes Corp. of Dallas, which succeeded Rouse and General Growth Properties as the master developer of Columbia, has a $20 million plan to convert the former Rouse headquarters on Little Patuxent Parkway from a single-occupant office building to a mixed-use, multitenant development with a 41,000 square-foot Whole Foods Market as the anchor.

Maple Lawn, Fulton LOCATION Southeastern Howard County, on Johns Hopkins Road, about a mile from U.S. 29. DEVELOPER Greenebaum and Rouse Associates Inc. DESCRIPTION Luxury residential, commercial and retail development in the image of old-town America on more than 600 acres.

Fort Howard should be a place for military veterans to heal — not the site of new residential and retail development, residents of nearby communities said Tuesday. About 200 people turned out for a community meeting at the North Point-Edgemere Volunteer Fire Hall, and most opposed Fort Howard Development LLC's plans to build a 1,473-unit development on the waterfront site. Many said they wanted the site to be used for a long-term medical facility and housing for veterans only.

Brenda McKenzie, who heads the economic development division of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, has been chosen to lead the Baltimore Development Corp. “I'm bullish on Baltimore,” McKenzie said after she was introduced Monday afternoon by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake at City Hall. McKenzie said that as the president and CEO of the city's quasi-public economic development arm, she would encourage transparency and that she plans to have an open door and open phone line.

Developers and shopping-center owners have contributed more than $225,000 to efforts to challenge zoning decisions in Baltimore County through referendums, financial disclosure forms show. Contributors to the drive include firms tied to developers Howard Brown and the Cordish Cos., as well as those that run the Garrison Forest Plaza in Owings Mills and Green Spring Station in Lutherville. The backers have paid political firms, lawyers and others in hopes of putting land-use issues in two districts on the 2014 ballot, according to the documents filed Friday with the county elections board.

Many in Baltimore County and elsewhere are no doubt bewildered by all the fuss that was raised in recent months over the redevelopment of the former Solo Cup plant in Owings Mills into an upscale development featuring a Wegmans supermarket. If you're going to build a shopping center (and built-up Reisterstown Road is no stranger to them) isn't this what you'd want? But alas, the proposal proved as contentious and fraught with political intrigue as any county land use decision in recent memory.

"We want new commercial activity to go into the existing vacant area, not create new, shining centers that will only have the effect of creating new white elephants. " County Councilman Kevin Kamenetz, September 2004, discussing retail rezoning requests for Reisterstown Road. Like his predecessors, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz has shown leadership with his past commitment to the belief that retail development in Baltimore County ought to follow a carefully crafted master plan aimed at the Owings Mills Mall and the Metro Centre development.

Developer James W. Rousewas a pioneer at recycling other people's buildings for new uses, including Faneuil Hall in Boston and parts of the South Street Seaport historic district in Manhattan. Now one of the most prominent buildings he constructed from scratch - the former Rouse Co. headquarters in Columbia - is about to get a similar treatment from a successor to Rouse's firm. The Howard Hughes Corp. of Dallas, which succeeded Rouse and General Growth Properties as the master developer of Columbia, has a $20 million plan to convert the former Rouse headquarters on Little Patuxent Parkway from a single-occupant office building to a mixed-use, multitenant development with a 41,000 square-foot Whole Foods Market as the anchor.

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz plans to veto a bill that would free the Metro Centre at Owings Mills of various regulations, after County Council members amended the legislation to protect plans for a nearby development. In announcing what would be the first veto of his term, Kamenetz said the bill was "simply not good public policy. " The County Council unanimously passed the bill, sponsored by Councilman Kenneth Oliver, this week after a heated meeting. In a statement, Kamenetz said he objected to the legislation "because it contravenes 50 years of regulation that mandates public input and government review of development projects in Baltimore County.

State and federal officials will hold a hearing Wednesday on a request for a permit that will allow preliminary development at the site of the Odenton Town Center.Approval of the nontidal wetlands permit would allow the county to construct roads to serve the town center and would allow retail development by Reliable Contracting Company Profit Sharing Trust.The hearing by the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers will be at 7 p.m. in the Arundel Senior High School auditorium, 1001 Annapolis Road, Gambrills.

The Owings Mills market can't handle major retail development at the former Solo Cup property and other sites along the Reisterstown Road corridor, according to studies commissioned by the developer planning to revamp the mall. The market analysis and traffic studies released Wednesday by Kimco Realty come as Baltimore County begins a broad zoning review. As competition builds between developers, Owings Mills revitalization is expected to be among the most controversial topics. Kimco is planning a $65 million redevelopment of Owings Mills Mall, now more than half-empty.

Baltimore County Councilman Kenneth Oliver wants his colleagues to reject a proposal to allow a retail development anchored by a Wegmans supermarket at the former Solo Cup plant site in Owings Mills. Oliver represents a district near the site and said his main concern about the proposed Foundry Row development is traffic congestion on Reisterstown Road. The Randallstown Democrat said he also believes the site, which is in Council Chairwoman Vicki Almond's district, should be preserved as manufacturing property and said using it for retail is not "smart growth.

Baltimore County Councilwoman Vicki Almond faces the kind of decision that makes a job like hers tough. She is being asked whether to allow the rezoning of an empty industrial site in Owings Mills to allow a major retail development anchored by a Wegmans. Depending on which of the hundreds of phone calls, letters and emails she listens to, saying yes would either spark the long-awaited flowering of the less successful of the county's two designated growth areas or condemn Owings Mills to a paradoxical fate - clogged with traffic and empty stores, the suburban equivalent of Yogi Berra's complaint about a restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded.