Waugh Chapel

The Waugh Chapel diving team earned 11 medals -- including seven golds -- at the Padonia Invitational last week at the Cockeysville pool.Record performances included first-place finishes in every boys event on the schedule and a 1-2-3 sweep of the 13-14 boys events.Waugh Chapel coach Brian Payne combined with alumni diver Chris Streight (1989) for a gold medal in the Open Synchronized event in which two divers simultaneously execute dives off separate boards.Darren Taylor, the defending 1990 Central Maryland Diving League champion, led the sweep in the 13-14 boys events with a total of 137.15 points.

Development has been under way for years on the 809-acre Turf Valley property near Ellicott City, but one of the key parcels will get a high-profile addition next week when a new 48,000-square-foot Harris Teeter supermarket opens Tuesday in Turf Valley Towne Square on Resort Road. "We're very excited," said Louis Mangione of Mangione Family Enterprises, the Lutherville-based firm that owns Turf Valley. "We made a point of getting someone like Harris Teeter, who is new and exciting, and we think they're going to be a tremendous asset to the community.

A ceremony will be held at the Village of Waugh Chapel in Crofton to dedicate a series of lakes and a courtyard in the memory of John J. Klocko III, the Anne Arundel County Council member who died last month. Klocko, who was killed in a two-car accident in Utah, helped craft zoning legislation so that the village could be built. The dedication ceremony, which will include the lighting of a Christmas tree, is being organized by Erwin L. Greenberg Commercial Corp. of Baltimore. The event will take place at 4:30 p.m. Saturday at the "waterfall entertainment area" at the village.

Regal Entertainment Group will open a 12-screen and IMAX movie theater this month at Waugh Chapel  Towne Centre in Gambrills, with preview events starting Monday and a Sept. 14 grand opening. The 2,200-seat Waugh Chapel Stadium 12 & IMAX will join anchors Target and Dick's Sporting Goods, which opened this year at the $275 million mixed-use project in western Anne Arundel County - the nation's largest retail project currently under construction. Wegmans is coming to the center, next to the Village at Waugh Chapel, this fall.

Every month, Waugh Chapel Elementary School chooses a theme for citizenship awards.The theme in December was "Giving Your Best," with citizenship slips awarded to students who were on their best behavior, worked hard on in-class and homework assignments, helped keep their classroom clean and adhered to the rules.The students honored for good citizenship were: Jessica Alexander, Sheila Baily, Walter Boyd, Kayla Broznowicz, Evan Centineo, Carly Cross, Joan Cruz, Amber Cunningham, Catrina Dailey, Diana Dakai, Lauren Davis, Stephanie DeGroat, Danny Drummond, Nicholas Dukes, Scott Gearhart, Michael Gutierrez, Tanya Harrison, Jeffrey Higginbotham, Ashley Hughs and Elizabeth Hughs.

DEVELOPER Robert DeStefano has the opportunity to build something exceptional, but his current conceptual design plan for the Village at Waugh Chapel looks to be nothing more than another uninspired suburban shopping center.When the Anne Arundel County Council passed legislation earlier this year to create a "suburban community center," it expected a precedent-setting development. It wanted the $50 million Village at Waugh Chapel to be the county's first mixed-use development that would seamlessly combine residential and retail uses.

THE DECISION by the Anne Arundel County Planning Department to reject preliminary plans for the Village at Waugh Chapel is the equivalent of sending a meal back to the kitchen because it needs more cooking.Rather than viewing the department's action as a rebuke, developer Robert DeStefano should seize this opportunity. Since will have to resubmit his plans to the planning department, he can still create a development of exceptional design in western Anne Arundel.In his rejected plans, Mr. DeStefano identified the ingredients needed to create a "suburban community center."

NEARLY 100 West County residents and community leaders gathered last week to celebrate the opening of the beautiful community center at the Village of Waugh Chapel. Against the backdrop of a beautiful fountain in a sparkling lake, Robert DeStefano, developer of the village, presented a symbolic floral key to the center to area residents, who were represented by the new community center's board of directors. Besides DeStefano, participants in the ceremony Friday included: Anne Arundel County Executive Janet S. Owens; County Councilmen John J. Klocko III and Bill D. Burlison; John Pantelides, senior vice president of Erwin L. Greenberg Commercial Corp.

The owner of the Village at Waugh Chapel, a proposed complex of stores, restaurants, senior housing and a community center at Waugh Chapel Road and Route 3, is asking Crofton residents for their comments on the project.Robert DeStefano of the Sturbridge Development Co. said at Monday night's Crofton Civic Association meeting that his development would include a community center, a large plaza, restaurants and a small lake, and would function as a gathering place for residents."People are looking for a place to socialize and congregate," said Robert DiAiso, a former community council president who is president of the Tech Group, a land planning firm working on the project.

The Waugh Chapel Elementary School PTA is having a skating party from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday.The party will be held at Skate City II Roller Skating Rink on Route 3 in Crofton.Students, faculty, family and friends of Waugh Chapel Elementary are welcome to attend. Admission is $2.50, and skate rentals are $1.25.*Learn about your local merchants at the West Anne Arundel County Chamber of Commerce Business Before Hours Networking Breakfast from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on Jan. 14.The breakfast will be at Perry's Golden Flame, 1210 Annapolis Road in Odenton.

Sunday, July 3 First Sunday Arts Festival Event begins at noon in the first block of West and Calvert streets, and features crafts vendors, artists, live music, street performers and sidewalk dining. Free. Information: 410-741-3267 or firstsundayarts.com. Monday, July 4 Concert The United States Naval Academy Band performs an all-American program of patriotic music and concert band favorites at 8 p.m. at Annapolis City Dock's Susan B. Campbell Park, 1 Dock St. Concert is free and open to the public with no tickets required.

The CEO of Anne Arundel Health System will retire at the end of the month after nearly four decades at the medical institution, its board of trustees announced Wednesday. Martin L. "Chip" Doordan has been with the system since 1972 when he started as an administrative resident. Victoria W. Bayless, the health system's current president, will replace Doordan effective July 1. During Doordan's tenure, the health system more than doubled in size and built satellite locations in Bowie, Kent Island and Waugh Chapel.

Regal Cinemas will open a theater at Waugh Chapel Towne Centre, a planned mixed-use development in Gambrills in West Anne Arundel County, project developer Greenberg Gibbons said Monday. The theater will offer digital projection and will be the first IMAX cinema in the area. The 52,000-square-foot theater will join anchors Wegmans, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods and Petco in a 1.2 million-square-foot center with 650,000 square feet of shops, 125,000 square feet of offices and 380 apartments.

In one of the biggest retail real estate deals in the Baltimore-Washington area since the start of the recession, a team of investors has purchased a large Main Street-style center in Gambrills. The sale of The Village at Waugh Chapel, a grocery-anchored shopping center with big-box stores such as Marshalls and Home Goods, indicates an upswing for the retail sector, real estate experts said Wednesday. The buyers, a team of Chevy Chase investors, closed the sale on Tuesday but did not disclose the sale price.

In one of the biggest retail real estate deals in the Baltimore- Washington area since the start of the recession, a team of investors has purchased a large Main Street-style center in Gambrills. The sale of The Village at Waugh Chapel, a grocery-anchored shopping center with big-box stores such as Marshalls and Home Goods, indicates an upswing for the retail sector, real estate experts said Wednesday. The buyers, a team of Chevy Chase investors, closed the sale on Tuesday but did not disclose the sale price.

Village at Waugh Chapel Location: Waugh Chapel Road and Route 3 in Gambrills. Developer: Sturbridge Homes of Gambrills. Description: A 53-unit condominium tower that represents the final phase of a mixed-use development featuring stores, offices and condominiums. The four-story tower is expected to be completed next spring and the units - priced between $215,000 and $325,000 - are for sale. Status: The building is under construction, and the developer has obtained all necessary county permits.

Scores of students took part this spring in the Waugh Chapel Elementary School program "I Love to Read."Once a student or staff member read a minimum of four hours they were officially on the reading incentive team. A minimum of six hours of reading earned a white ribbon, eight hours a red ribbon and 10 hours a blue ribbon.Twenty-two staff members and 262 students read a minimum of four hours. White ribbons were awarded to 44 participants, red ribbons to 34 and blue ribbons to 206.Top readers in each grade were given T-shirts from the Center for the Book, which is housed at the Library of Congress: Brittany Bevins, Early Childhood Intervention, 16 hours; Bryan Ward, kindergarten, 24 hours; Mary Catherine Nowottnick, David Nowottnick and Michael Nowottnick, first grade, 24 hours each; Matthew Ward, second grade, 53 hours; Brian Stiffler, third grade, 36 hours; Nichole Waters, fourth grade, 48 hours; Kathleen Ferner, fifth grade, 71 hours.

STURBRIDGE DEVELOPMENT CO. deserves credit for significantly improving its plans to build the Village at Waugh Chapel in western Anne Arundel County. More work and review is needed before the project receives final approval, but designs for the mixed-use center are looking more like the pedestrian-friendly place that county planners sought -- not the typical, automobile-oriented shopping center originally submitted.The legislation that created a new zoning category called "suburban community center" envisioned this type of a project, as well as the process that is shaping it. The law calls for community participation through a citizens panel and oversight by the county planning department.

Center housing homeland security firms to expand Chesapeake Innovation Center, business incubator focused on homeland security, is expanding its facilities at 175 Admiral Cochrane Drive in Annapolis. Construction is under way to add 12,900 square feet, almost doubling the size of the technology incubator, to 24,260 square feet. The additional space will be available in March and will have room for 10 additional technology companies seeking to provide products and services to the homeland security marketplace.

Michael DeStefano, president of Sturbridge Homes and Sturbridge Development Co., is relocating his company's headquarters to the Village at Waugh Chapel in Anne Arundel County, placing his almost 30-year-old construction firm at the heart of its most successful commercial project to date. The Home Builders Association of Maryland has underscored that success by naming the business portion of the Village - 357,000 square feet of retail space and 40,000 square feet of office space - the association's 2002 commercial project of the year.