Village Center

Imagining a very different Wilde Lake Village Center can be tough for Columbia's pioneers nostalgic for the past, but about 150 mostly older residents took a stab at it Monday night as efforts to plan the half-empty center's rebirth got rolling. The group was invited by the village board to Slayton House, the center's original community building. The board is working on concepts to present Jan. 11 to Kimco Realty, the firm that owns most of the commercial buildings at Wilde Lake, Columbia's oldest retail village hub. Under a county zoning law approved last summer, Kimco, which owns five other Columbia village centers, will incorporate residents' desires into a plan they will present to the community and county zoning authorities next year.

Howard County's newly adopted process for redeveloping Columbia's village centers has begun for Wilde Lake, the town's most distressed commercial hub. Geoffrey Glazer, vice president for development at Kimco Realty, the firm that owns the Wilde Lake center and five others, gave village board members a letter Monday night officially starting what could be a months-long process of determining what to do with the half-empty center. "We spend two years putting legislation together to start the process.

The Wilde Lake Village Center is the prime guinea pig for change after the Howard County Council voted this week for a new zoning process to redevelop Columbia's aging village centers, but no one knows what the result will be. The planned town's oldest retail center stands half-empty now, since a small Giant supermarket closed three years ago followed by Produce Galore and several other tenants. But Kimco Realty, the center's owner along with five others, no longer has a firm idea for what to do with it. Kimco Vice President Geoffrey Glazer made it clear after Tuesday night's County Council vote that this time he will be coming to the residents for a discussion, not presenting them with a plan.

Sitting in his empty barbershop with the television blaring, 65-year-old Anthony Tringali recalled better times at Wilde Lake Village Center, where his shop opened with the birth of the new town in June 1967. "I had five barbers working for me at one time," he said. "Now I'm down to one and a half - and I'm the one." Between the recession and the closing of the center's anchor Giant supermarket and several other stores, Tringali's business is down by half again in the past two years, he said, but he's not done.

When Judge Richard S. Bernhardt ran for election to a 15-year term as a nonpartisan Circuit Court judge in Howard County a year after then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appointed him to the bench in 2005, he talked about his experience as a judge and attorney, not individual cases. But it's tough decisions like the one Bernhardt made recently to send 16-year-old Darnell Rasheen Furby back to juvenile court that gives voters a chance to consider the quality of their selection. Furby was one of three youths charged as adults with attacking and robbing a private security guard near the Long Reach Village Center May 13, though Furby is not suspected of firing a gun or of physically hitting the victim.

A years-long fight over whether to allow a gas station/convenience store and car wash in the Waverly Woods Village Center in Woodstock is a step closer to a resolution that some residents are unhappy about. Convenience Retailing LLC co-owner Rick Levitan won a 3-1 vote by the Howard County Board of Appeals on Monday night to approve conditional zoning, opening the way for a project that scores of residents have fought against at two other nearby locations. But Levitan, who operates gas station/convenience stores in Owen Brown and Dorsey Hall village centers in Columbia, was happy.

Political heat is building over three bills involving religion, higher builders' fees and the future of Columbia's village centers as the Howard County Council heads for its annual August recess. All three bills are due for a final work session Monday and a vote Thursday, though most council members favor delaying a vote on the village center bill until Sept. 4 to give residents more time to study amendments. "Based on feedback from village members, I'm leaning very strongly toward extending its life and voting in early September," Council Chairwoman Mary Kay Sigaty said about the village center bill.

Consensus appears elusive as Howard County Council members prepare for Monday night's public hearing on changes to a complex bill on redevelopment of Columbia's village centers. After a nearly three-hour work session last week at school board headquarters, issues such as parking, affordable housing and village center boundaries were unresolved, and at least one member appeared uncertain of how the bill addresses basic goals. No further discussions were scheduled before the 7:30 p.m. hearing.

The movement to alter or defeat a zoning bill intended to create a way to redevelop ailing Columbia village centers got an unexpected boost when the county Planning Board chairman revealed Monday night that he opposes the measure. The five-member board had split 2-2 on the issue March 23, passing the zoning bill on to the Howard County Council without a recommendation. David Grabowski, an Elkridge resident with a background in construction, had been out of town that night and Vice Chairman Gary Rosenbaum said he forgot to make a prearranged call to get the chairman's vote.