Street Project

Maybe it was the sheer volume of their outcry. Or maybe it was theirinvocation of Dr. Seuss.Whatever caused it, the tide appears to be turning in favor of opponents to the city's East Main Street reconstruction proposal.The first sign of dissension by a City Council member came at a Jan. 14 public hearing, when William Haifley said he was having secondthoughts about the $2.8 million project.Then, yesterday, Mayor W. Benjamin Brown said at a news conference that it was time to rethink the plan, which calls for widening to 40 feet the portion of the street from Longwell Avenue to Quintal Road.

Baltimore's Department of Public Works has set Aug. 20 as the tentative date to reopen a two block stretch of Light Street in downtown Baltimore, an area that has been closed to vehicles for repairs since a 20-inch water main broke on July 16. Public Works director Alfred H. Foxx on Monday announced that the repair work has passed a key hurdle with completion of the "water infrastructure renewal work," which is the replacement of sections of...

For a month, Debbie Finch has tolerated noise, dust and the inconvenience of being unable to park in her driveway and three-car garage, thanks to state highway crews. For eight more months -- until about Thanksgiving -- construction will surround Finch and her neighbors on Westminster's West Side as the state reconfigures, repaves and landscapes West Main Street from Pennsylvania Avenue to Route 31. The project includes new sidewalks, a storm drain system and temporary traffic snarls. "It's been a burden and an annoyance, but we've managed," said Finch, whose sweeping front porch offers orchestra seating for the drama of bulldozers and hard-hatted construction workers.

Lowe's, the national home improvement chain, has pulled out as an anchor of the proposed 25th Street Station, a retail and housing development in Remington that won Baltimore City approval nearly a year ago but has been stalled by court challenges. "This site is currently not a site Lowe's is pursuing for a new store," Stacey C. Lentz, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Cos. Inc., said in an email Monday. The retailer, which said Monday that it was closing several stores — none of them in Maryland — and slowing its national expansion, decided several weeks ago to drop the Baltimore site, Lentz said.

Annapolis Mayor Dean L. Johnson is asking that another $2.3 million be pumped into a $5.6 million traffic circle project under way on West Street because of increased costs for construction and placing overhead wires underground.The resolution, introduced by Johnson at the city council meeting last night, calls for decreasing the budgets of five other capital improvement projects to free up money for the West Street project.When questioned by council members about the increased costs, city Administrator Walter N. Chitwood III replied, "We are looking hard at the estimates to see where they were overly conservative."

AMONG THE words most frequently mouthed by Baltimore's economic development officials these days are "but for." As in, "but for" a tax break, a project would not occur. Is that in fact the case? Or have tax breaks, in the form of reduced payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, become so commonplace in the city that few self-respecting developers would deign to work without one? Put another way, if the city had no PILOTs, would developers let their land lie fallow, or would they find another way to do a deal?

The local manager of the proposed 45-story One Light Street office project has accepted a new job in Houston, but his move is not expected to affect the $180 million development, which was already on hold because of the weak commercial real estate market.Dirk Mosis has decided to return to Trammell Crow Co., a Dallas-based developer he left last year, according to Amer Hammour, executive vice president of Capital Guidance Corp., which represents investors in the One Light Street project.Mr.

Annapolis' Historic District Commission is likely to approve a scaled-down version of the city's Main Street reconstruction plan next week that could prevent restaurants from opening sidewalk cafes.The commission, which must approve all development downtown, agreed at a work session Monday to approve the city's plan, if the sidewalk width at two proposed pedestrian gathering places at the foot of Main Street is reduced and two other relatively minor changes are made. The commission is to vote on the project Dec. 14"I think we're moving into the final phase on Main Street," said Donna Hole, a city historic preservation planner who serves as staff to the commission.

The reconstruction of Main Street in Annapolis is three months behind schedule and the City Council wants to blame the Historic District Commission.Some aldermen believe the commission -- which reviews all construction within the historic district and belatedly approved the Main Street project -- has become too powerful. So now the City Council is considering an ordinance that would allow the mayor to dismiss members of the commission at will, expand its membership from five to seven, limit members to one three-year term and prevent commissioners from voting on legislation if an organization to which they belong has taken a position on it.We sympathize with the aldermen's frustrations, and this newspaper has criticized the commission for its nitpicking in the past.

Taneytown roadway to be improved with grant Taneytown's main street will be repaved and beautified under a $3.2 million State Highway Administration streetscape project announced yesterday. Construction is to begin in the spring of 2006 on a little more than a mile of Baltimore Street (Route 140) from the traffic circle at Old Taneytown Road (Route 832) to Harney Road, state and town officials said. The project will include improvements to the intersection of Baltimore Street with Frederick and York streets (Route 194)

The city's Board of Estimates approved two deals Wednesday aimed at redeveloping portions of Pennsylvania Avenue in Druid Heights and Washington Boulevard in Pigtown, the Baltimore Development Corp. said. The BDC, the city's quasi-governmental economic development arm, said the development plans would bring mixed-use projects to what are now vacant and decaying stretches of two Main Street commercial corridors. The city is selling five properties, at 2101 through 2111 Pennsylvania Ave., for $13,000 to Sphinx Club Complex LLC, the BDC said.

A parking lot at Charles and Eager streets in midtown Baltimore is being considered for redevelopment as a $3 million retail and office complex. Baltimore's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation approved preliminary designs this week for the project, known as 1000 North Charles. If completed by late 2012 as planned, it would be the first time in more than 50 years that the prominent site has been anything but a parking lot. Plans by SMG Architects of Baltimore call for the building to rise three stories along Charles Street and two stories along Eager Street, with about 28,000 total square feet of space and an eco-friendly "green roof.

Plans for a large shopping center in the Remington neighborhood of Baltimore, including a Walmart store, cleared a major hurdle Wednesday with approval by a key City Council committee. The land use committee voted unanimously to approve zoning plans for the 25th Street Station project, planned for the current site of Anderson Automotive, near Howard and 25th streets. Councilwoman Belinda Conaway expressed misgivings about the proposal. She said there was no guarantee the full council would approve it when it comes up for a vote next month.

The Kona Grill was slated to open officially on Tuesday in the building formally known as 1 East Pratt Street but more commonly as the Verizon Building. Based in Scottsdale, Ariz., the Kona Grill has opened about 25 restaurants in 15 states — this is the first one in Maryland. The accessibly snazzy menu combines steaks, sushi and New American cuisine — the signature dish is a macadamia-nut chicken entrée with white cheddar mashed potatoes and "wok-tossed" vegetables.

Four of Baltimore's 10 Main Streets initiatives would be eliminated under proposed budget cuts to the city's economic development arm. Officials from the quasi-public Baltimore Development Corp., which works to create and retain jobs and redevelop commercial property in the city, outlined a scaled-back version of the agency's activities for Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake at a budget hearing Tuesday. The Main Streets program, which is based on a plan developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, makes grants to small businesses for facade and streetscape improvements as a way of attracting more business and foot traffic to certain areas of the city.

A $65 million retail and housing development proposed to replace the Anderson Automotive dealership at Howard and 25th streets in Baltimore would benefit the surrounding area more if its design were not so inward-oriented, neighboring property owners told city planners Thursday. During the first presentation of plans for the project to Baltimore's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel, property owners from Remington and lower Charles Village said they would like the developers to consider saving a former church on 24th Street rather than razing it. City planning director Tom Stosur said he was excited about the project but urged the architects to do more to make the design as environmentally sensitive as possible.

Uniontown Road could become the main traffic channel at a multistreet intersection in western Westminster, leaving West Main Street as a side road primarily serving Western Maryland College traffic.The West Main Street Highway Administration, city government, college and citizen representatives is wrestling with ways to improve the point where West Main Street, Uniontown Road and Old New Windsor Road converge."The problem is, it's a tough intersection to deal with," said B. Jacqueline Finch, a West Main Street resident since 1959 and citizen member of the panel.

The 21st century will bring a different traffic pattern to Western Maryland College, fewer campus intersections along Pennsylvania Avenue and possibly better visibility on West Main Street opposite the college.Edgar Sell, WMC's physical plant director, detailed the college's long-range traffic plans Friday for a Westminster task force working with the State Highway Administration on reconstruction plans for parts of Pennsylvania Avenue and West Main Street."One of the major problems on campus is all the different routes you can take to get to the campus," Mr. Sell told the West Main Street-Pennsylvania Avenue task force.

Downtown drivers can expect about a year of traffic misery as city transportation officials launch an ambitious rebuilding project that will at times claim half the capacity of Lombard Street - Baltimore's principal westbound artery across the central business district. Beginning as early as May, the city will close some lanes of Lombard Street for the $2.6 million project, potentially the most disruptive downtown road work in recent years. Lombard, a block north of harbor-front Pratt Street, is one of Baltimore's busiest streets.