In a future downtown Columbia, Merriweather Post Pavilion would be surrounded by a well-crafted park featuring lit pathways, fountains, manicured trees, lawns and art.

There would be a children's theater, museum and expanded library nearby, making the final product resemble the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, in Vienna, Va.

But the centerpiece of the arts district would be the 40-year-old Merriweather, according to the master plan General Growth Properties Inc. presented to the community April 28.

"Merriweather is one of the linchpins to creating a place in downtown Columbia that sustains and grows its cultural life," said Gregory Hamm, General Growth's regional vice president and general manager for Columbia.

Aside from a planned renovation to the music venue, officials at General Growth are seeking help from the community to determine what exactly would go in that arts district.

To that end, General Growth wants to create a task force of various property owners and county officials to determine how to make the location more useful to the public, said Hamm.

"We think a task force is the appropriate way to further define elements of the cultural master plan and to recommend the mechanism for managing and programming all cultural elements of downtown," he said.

Hamm hopes to form the panel in the next few weeks and attain an idea of what they want to do by mid-June, he said.

Ultimately, Hamm forsees General Growth turning over the ownership of the pavilion to a nonprofit organization run through a public-private partnership that finances and operates the arts district.

He also hopes to work with the county to set up a tax district of undetermined scope on General Growth's property to possibly fund amenities based on the tax revenue it would produce, he said.

Raising the roof

During the first phase of its master plan that would begin as early as 2010, General Growth plans to add broad promenades to downtown Columbia, connecting Columbia mall to Merriweather and Lake Kittamaqundi.

To upgrade Merriweather, now located in the middle of an undeveloped parcel of park space that is populated by trees, General Growth would raise the roof, add a new stage and artists' quarters, extend the area of covered seating and upgrade the concessions and bathroom areas.

Currently each summer, rock acts such as Sheryl Crow and R.E.M. pack Merriweather, which also hosts country music and jazz festivals.

In the past the Rouse Co., and then General Growth when it purchased Rouse in 2004, have discussed ways of enclosing the music pavilion, to make it useful during the winter, and selling it to the county.

After they discussed ways to enclose Merriweather, they decided to focus on making the pavilion a top-level outdoor facility, Hamm said.

Merriweather's twisty history

In 2004, officials at Rouse Co. considered selling Merriweather to Howard County, which would then turn it into an enclosed performing arts venue. As part of the deal, Rouse would have been allowed to develop an adjacent 51.7 acre parcel.

During this time, General Growth purchased Rouse Co.

In response to the discussions, then-County Executive James Robey created the Citizens Advisory Panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion of 16 leaders from the business and arts community to advise him about what to do.

Then in April 2005, General Growth announced it would not sell the pavilion in order to keep it in their plans for redeveloping downtown Columbia.

Hamm claims the idea to create a nonprofit organization through a public-private partnership with the county to help fund the arts district follows the panel's recommendations.

"That report we thought was a very thorough effort on the part of the community to evaluate Merriweather's future," Hamm said.

Kevin Enright, spokesman for County Executive Kenneth Ulman, said Ulman is interested in the partnership.

"But, no decision has been made yet on how that partnership might work," Enright said.

Officials at the Columbia Association, which owns about 36 acres in Symphony Woods, the park surrounding Merriweather, already have indicated that they are willing to work with General Growth.

At their April 24 meeting, the CA board of directors decided to allow their staff to meet with General Growth to discuss issues related to Symphony Woods without permission from the board of directors, said CA board chairman Tom O'Connor, of Dorsey's Search.

"We are ready to allow General Growth Properties and the county to work on Symphony Woods," O'Connor said.

However, the plans for the arts district need more discussion, according to General Growth officials and local residents.

Justin Carlson, a community activist who rallied to keep Merriweather as an outdoor facility in 2004-2005, thinks the area also would need some commercial development to attract people. Carlson prefers a music store and cafe, he said.

"It needs a commercial element to bring in the environment that is needed," he said.

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

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