Six years from now, shoppers might be able to exit the Columbia mall food court onto a wide outdoor promenade lined with trees, fountains, stores, restaurants and offices.

The central feature of this promenade would be a "rain fountain" that would mist them with cool water in summer and convert to an ice skating rink in winter.

Heading down the promenade, the strollers would come to a 300-room hotel and conference center on Little Patuxent Parkway. From there they could head to Lake Kittamaqundi along a switchback path, lined with gardens, called the "Spanish Steps." Or they could head in the direction of an "arts district," anchored by a renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion and a new park in Symphony Woods.

Such was the vision of a partially redeveloped Town Center that officials of General Growth Properties Inc. unveiled to several hundred people gathered in the company's downtown Columbia headquarters April 28.

Company officials called the proposal the first phase of a 30-year master plan to rebuild downtown that also would include 5,500 new housing units.

Officials said they would reveal other details of the plan--including its projected cost and who would pay that cost--at an unspecified later date.

They added that they also did not yet know where the new housing would be built, or what, specifically, it would consist of.

"We're proposing to create a vibrant cultural heart of Columbia--that is our offer, that is what we're coming forth with," Gregory Hamm, General Growth's general manager for Columbia, told those gathered in the company's Spear Center.

Though many of those who attended the presentation reacted favorably to the plan, one of Columbia's original architects said it fell far short of the overall master plan General Growth officials had promised to reveal.

The plan amounts to a piecemeal mall redevelopment project, said Robert Tennenbaum, who was one of the principal designers of Columbia in the 1960s.

"It's a pimple on the back of the elephant," he said. "It's a tiny project.

The community should reject what they showed last night and the county should reject it as well." Over two years coming The proposal represents the latest step in a process that began in October 2005, when Howard County officials sponsored a series of public meetings that were designed to take public input on a plan to rebuild downtown.

General Growth, which bought Columbia's developer, The Rouse Co., in 2004 and acquired all of Rouses' assets, including the mall and Merriweather, was a participant in the original planning meetings.

Over the next two years, county officials floated a draft plan that called for 5,500 new residential units and 5.2 million square feet of new office space downtown, along with redesigned roads and pedestrian access. But a task force of residents and others who were advising the county on the plan rejected it as incomplete.

Last fall, County Executive Kenneth Ulman announced that the county would release what he called a "framework" to guide downtown's redevelopment that foresaw a lively, pedestrian-friendly redeveloped Town Center.

He added, however, that the county was abandoning its effort to complete a detailed master plan and was handing over the creation of such a plan to officials of General Growth because the company is downtown Columbia's primary landowner.

Retail, office first

The first phase of the plan General Growth revealed April 28 could begin by late 2010 and take two to four years to complete, Hamm said, adding that the company would start by building 300,000 square feet of retail space, followed by 200,000 square feet of office space and a 150,000-square-foot hotel.

The retail buildings would be two to three stories, while the offices would be six to 12 stories and the hotel not more than 12 stories, he said.

At the mall, the company would build an elevated promenade called "Market Square" that would link to the mall's second-floor food court entrance between JC Penney and Sears. The square would feature small stores and sidewalks.

At the center of the square would be a canopied space that would feature a "rain fountain" and trees where shoppers could gather. During the winter the space would convert to an ice rink.

The promenade would link to a Merriweather Post Pavilion that would be rebuilt to resemble Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts in Vienna, Va.

Developers would raise the venue's roof, build a new stage, provide new backstage facilities for artists, extend the covered seating area and upgrade the concession and restroom areas.

The pavilion also would serve as the center of an arts and cultural hub that could eventually include a museum, an enhanced central public library, an international center dedicated to the study of small cities, and a Symphony Woods park redesigned to make it more accessible and useful to residents.

A major hurdle in redeveloping downtown was finding a way to connect the mall to Lake Kittamaqundi, which is roughly 100 feet lower, company officials said.

Planners solved the problem by designing the "Spanish Steps" to link the two, Hamm said, adding that the steps would feature a method to drain stormwater into the lake in an environmentally friendly manner.

Costs are still unstated

Hamm said that General Growth officials have not yet fully estimated the cost of the project.

He added that the company was considering asking the county to create a special tax on General Growth's property, the revenue from which would be dedicated to financing the project's infrastructure costs. It also might seek public-private partnerships to pay for projects that are designed to be civic amenities.

The phase of the plan officials unveiled April 28 adheres to downtown's zoning, Hamm said, adding that the company expects to submit a draft to county officials for their approval this summer.

He refused to discuss details of the plan's second phase, except to say that company officials will ask the county to amend downtown's zoning to allow for the construction of 5,500 new residential units.

Tennenbaum called the plan's lack of specificity in terms of where and how General Growth would redesign downtown to absorb 5,500 units a major flaw.

But Hamm countered that Tennenbaum misunderstood the purpose of the April 28 presentation, which covered as much as company officials could in three hours.

He added that officials would schedule a second public forum to unveil the residential portion of the plan.

"What's important is we begin to fix what's broken in Columbia," Hamm said.

E-mail Andrei Blakely at ablakely@patuxent.com.

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user comments (3)

user choosecivility says...

I think renovating Merriweather Post Pavilion would be a great idea. Although Columbia, does pull some great musical acts, maybe this would allow us to get even larger acts to consider us over other areas on Baltimore.

Posted 3:25 PM, 05.01.08

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user escapedfromcolumbia says...

More housing near Merriweather, huh? Then they could be sold during the off months and then come summer more people can complain to get Merriweather shut down.

Nice one.

Posted 3:41 PM, 05.02.08

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user ghostmoves says...

So did they show us where the long-absent grocery store is going to go?
How about the drive-up quick food?
The place to buy a roll of toilet paper?
Not much of a liveable town without that stuff.
Driving to the Wilde Lake ghost town is not the answer.

Posted 11:11 PM, 05.05.08

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