As Michael Corleone put it in Godfather II, “…keep your
friends close but your enemies closer.”
It seems to have worked. In this story by David Greisman in
Explore Howard, Delegate Liz Bobo “called the project "very creative" and
"classy."
"It has been a long haul of well over five years of, in
my opinion, looking at plans that were not thought out and did not hang
together. There was nothing unique in them, no really classy design," Bobo
said."
Someone should have told Liz that nobody is going to spend
money on a building design before they have the approvals to build. That “long
haul of well over five years” she referred to was at least partly do to her own
efforts to slow down the process.
At least two other outspoken opponents of the development were also
in attendance, Columbia Council members Cindy Coyle and Alex Hekimian.
Presumably they too will start spinning their previous positions on Town Center
The most notable thing about this project for me is the
rental rate. With some units projected to rent for almost three grand a month,
these apartments will be the most expensive rental units in HoCo. The
developers are convinced there is a market for this but they may find
themselves competing with single family home rentals. According to this report
in Citybiz Real Estate, 55 percent of new renters are opting for single-family
homes and 45 percent are landing in apartments.”
That trend is largely attributable to the recent housing bubble though and may have begun to reverse itself by the time these new units are delivered in
2014.
