Superblock

Some Glen Burnie area residents last night voiced their preference for a mixed-use development on the Superblock that includes an amphitheater and courtyard.The county sponsored a town forum last night on the proposed Superblock to help planners get an idea of the kind of development residents want and what they meant when they asked for "public space" at a September forum.About 40 residents attended last night's meeting and voted their preferences.The 5.6-acre Superblock, at the intersection of Ritchie Highwanear Baltimore-Annapolis Boulevard, is the last big undeveloped parcel of land in the Urban Renewal District.

A 14-year effort to transform the Superblock, an unsightly 5.6-acre parking area and gravel-pitted vacant lot, into a town center for Glen Burnie has moved a step closer to reality.Yesterday county officials said they have awarded a Pasadena developer a 90-day option to submit a final proposal for the plot along Ritchie Highway at Route 648.George Stone was the only developer to submit a proposal in January to create a complex that would include offices, shops and condominiums, as well as an outdoor performing arts area.

The future of a performing arts pavilion that Glen Burnie planned to dedicate during next year's Memorial Day festivities may be in jeopardy.The $90,000 pavilion, a temporary structure slated for the Superblock, was included in the county's current budget. Community leaders hoped the structure would draw people to downtown Glen Burnie and make the Superblock more attractive while the 5.6-acre tract on Ritchie Highway awaits redevelopment.But now, in light of a tax cap and budget cuts, the project is being reconsidered.

Plans to develop the Glen Burnie "Superblock" have stalled, again.This week, negotiations on the latest plan to put an office and residential complex on the 5.6-acre parcel fell apart after County Executive Robert R. Neall refused to provide $2.2 million in county financial aid to the developer, George W. Stone.In a letter to the committee reviewing Mr. Stone's proposal, Mr. Neall wrote that "at this time the county possesses neither the financial resources nor the justification to continue our negotiations" with Mr. Stone.

Five years ago, when yuppies were riding high and Donald Trump still was everybody's all-American, local officials envisioned transforming downtown Glen Burnie into a mini-Georgetown.But after the first upscale restaurant closed and a deal with a Fortune 500 company fell through, plans for creating a "superblock" in the heart of Glen Burnie appeared abandoned. The 5.6-acre tract behind Arundel Center North became a parking lot instead of the cornerstone to downtown revitalization.Victor A. Sulin hasn't given up the quest for breathing more commercial life into Glen Burnie, though.

People who never bought a pair of shoelaces along old Lexington Street are now identifying it as a superblock - a chunk of downtown real estate that made news when Peter G. Angelos and David Hillman filed a lawsuit against the Baltimore Development Corp. This block was indeed super, once, when it seemed as if half the city converged there for everyday needs. The heart of the block was its array of five-and-dimes - Woolworth's, Grant's, McCrory's and Kresge's.

Civil rights and preservation leaders in Baltimore voiced strong objections Wednesday to a developer's proposal to raze part of downtown's Superblock, warning that the city would lose a priceless link to its past. The plan by Lexington Square Partners calls for demolition of the former Read's drugstore, a vacant, city-owned building at the southeast corner of Howard and Lexington streets. According to historians, that store was the site of an early civil rights protest in which Morgan College students staged a sit-in on Jan. 20, 1955.

Enjoy those killer potholes while you can, Glen Burnie. Once again they're threatening to resurrect "Superblock."Superblock, located directly behind the Arundel Center North, consists of five acres of stone, gravel, a tent full of plants and the souls of countless ruined front-end alignments.Suggested plans for the future include condominiums, offices and small stores. A meeting has been scheduled for 5 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Glen Burnie Improvement Association to solicit the community's opinions.

Residents will have a chance to tell county officials what they think ought to go on the "Superblock" -- 5.6 acres of prime undeveloped land in Glen Burnie -- when the county holds a forum Sept. 28 on what to do with that land.When the county set aside the block adjacent to the Arundel Center North for commercial development 12 years ago, it didn't have just an outdoor plant shop in mind. But no permanent private commercial development has sprouted there. Instead, ambitious urban renewal plans have wilted.

Officially it's the Superblock, a 5.6-acre wedge of prime undeveloped land in downtown Glen Burnie. But to many, it's the "Pooperblock," a gravel eyesore fronting on Ritchie Highway, a 12-year-old urban-renewal dream that hasn't come true.In the dream, which began in the late 1970s, the razed acreage of the Superblock would be transformed into 200,000 square feet of offices and stores, plus a five-deck parking garage.With no one sharing the dream, the county reduced the office and retail to 170,000 square feet.