Sales Are Humming Along Nicely Now

Last night Mama Wordbones and I were sitting at the outdoor tables at Clyde’s with a couple I’ll refer to as Mary and Ted. I agreed to protect their anonymity in return for sharing a funny story they told us. Mary told us about a recent shopping excursion to Spencer’s Gifts in the Mall in Columbia. She had gone there to pick up some gag gifts for Teds fiftieth birthday party. Spencer’s is a great place for gag gifts.

Apparently it is a good place to shop for other “hard to find” items as well.

As Mary was perusing the aisles of the store she came across a selection of vibrators. She was a little surprised and so when got to the register she said to the sales clerk “I didn’t know y’all carried dildos.”

“Those are personal massagers” the female clerk corrected her. At this point the clerk directed Mary to a display behind the counter of what she described as high end personal massagers and added “We also have these if you are interested.”

Mary asked the clerk how long they have selling these items since she been in the store before and did not recall seeing them.

She was told that when The Rouse Company owned the mall they were not permitted to carry these items. “We used to send customers over to the Arundel Mills store” where there was no restriction on the sale of personal massagers. Once General Growth Properties took over the mall, the restriction was lifted from the Columbia store as well.

“Sales have been very brisk since then,” the clerk said.

Annabell's Closed

As we were strolling through downtown EC last evening I noticed that Annabell’s Wine Bar was closed. It was around 7:00 PM on Friday night. Ordinarily the place would have been hopping by then. Peeking through the windows I saw chairs on top of tables and it looked as the place had not been cleaned from the night before. There were bags of trash on sidewalk outside.

The door was padlocked and a simple sign read “closed.”

Friday Musings

It will be a couple of years before Wegman’s opens at 8855 McGaw Road in Columbia. I wonder if anyone will cut the grass before then.

So far this spring, I don’t believe it has been cut once. The building is empty now that HBO is no longer using it for the production of The Wire. I don’t think Wegman’s actually owns the property yet since the tax records still list the owner as Science Fiction, LLC. Science Fiction LLC is owned by Jack Antwerpen, you know, the guy who says “Yes!”

Hey Jack, how about cutting your grass?

And speaking of Wegman’s…

I have been told that the workers at Wegman’s are friendly and helpful. They seem to enjoy their jobs. I have observed the same phenomenon at the new Harris Teeter store in the Kings Contrivance Village Center and the Trader Joes at Gateway Overlook. I call it a phenomenon because happy workers in grocery stores are not something I have been accustomed to around here, particularly in the Giant stores.

What do these three happy employee grocery stores have in common?

They are all non union.

Scene This Week In...

SuCasa has returned to Ellicott City after a two year absence. The comtemporary home furnishings store used to be located in the former bank building at 8098 Main Street. That space is now occupied by Wessels Florist.

The new SuCasa has taken over the space that was formerly occupied by What’s In Store. What’s In Store was best described as an “eclectic” home furnishings store. It was fun to look at their merchandise but we never bought anything from them.
In any event, SuCasa returned to Ellicott City this month in a bigger space with more stuff.

The big retail news in Columbia is the opening of the new Harris Teeter store in the Kings Contrivance Village Center.
I first encountered Harris Teeter about ten years ago when I was in North Carolina visiting my sister. I remember wondering if our Giant grocery stores would ever be that nice. Wishful thinking I suppose. This is the kind of store that is well positioned to compete with Trader Joe’s and Wegman’s.
Anyway, Harris Teeter is open now and it is even better than I recall from that visit 10 years ago.

I also like it when a big company shows a sense of humor.

I Hear Ya!

“Tell wordbones that he needs to update his blog.”

One of my coworkers passed that message on to me this morning. It came from a buddy of mine.

Okay, I haven’t exactly been a posting machine lately, but at least I am doing better than I was at this time last year. Last May I only posted four times, with this post it will be thirteen for this May and I still have three days to go.

The fact of the matter is that I have been working on my next column for the Business Monthly. I also have to squeeze my writing into the time I have between my real job and the job of raising a little girl.

Discretionary time is sometimes at a premium.

That all being said, I have been meaning to do a post on the readership of Tales of Two Cities for some time now so perhaps now is a good time. Every so often I’ll get an anonymous comment about how blog readership, and this blog in particular, is declining. That is not quite accurate. In fact, last May, the monthly number of visits to this blog was 847. Last month the number of visits was 2,381. Any reader can check this out for themselves by clicking on the little site meter icon at the bottom of this page.

I am humbled by this response. Thank you to all who have dropped by.

Some other interesting stats: the average time spent on this site is 2:24 minutes, the top ten cities that visitors have come from are 1) Columbia, 2) Baltimore, 3) Simpsonville, 4) Ellicott City, 5) Brooklyn, 6) Washington, DC, 7) Long Island City, 8) Summit Argo, 9) Catonsville and 10) Allston.

Summit Argo?

Public Works

In my travels through downtown Ellicott City yesterday I came across this “repair” job on a utility pole in front of Mumbles and Squeaks toy store.

Apparently the pole, owned by BGE, was damaged and needed to be replaced. The BGE crews came out and installed a new pole and put their lines on it. The other lines on the old pole belong to Verizon. According to Ed, one of the owners of the toy shop, Verizon can’t get a crew out to move their lines until sometime after the holiday weekend.

I think it would be wise to avoid parking along this part of Main Street until that occurs.

How Did This Happen Follow Up

I spoke with Kim Flowers today. Kim is the Deputy Director of Planning & Zoning for Howard County. She put together the Land Plan video I wrote about in a previous post. I asked Kim point blank how Bridget Mugane, the president of the Howard County Citizens Association, came to be featured in this video.

“We thought it would be great to have someone who could speak for majority of the citizens of Howard County” in the video.

I pointed out to Kim that I don’t believe that Ms. Mugane speaks for the majority of the citizens of Howard County. Kim tacitly acknowledged that point.

She admitted that, in retrospect, it would probably have been better to have other citizen views represented as well. She also said stated that she did not believe Bridget was anti development.

Really!

I asked Kim if she thought a majority of citizens were “threatened” by development and she said she did not believe that to be so. I pointed out to her that this is exactly what Bridget states in her video.

“She does? I’ll have to go back and check that.

Good idea.

Kim went on to explain that Bridget has “input on everything we are doing” in her department

No doubt.

I still wondered how it came to be that she was given such a prominent place in the video. Who exactly made that call?

“I can’t recall. I’d have to go back to my notes and check.”

I asked her to call me back after she did that and she said she would.

Stay tuned.

Meet Merkle

Columbia is set to welcome it’s newest corporate headquarters’ when Merkle moves into its new campus in Columbia Gateway later this month. As reported by Hanah Cho in today’s Sun, Merkle will employ about 900 people in Howard County.

Whenever a company of this size relocates it’s headquarters to our county it is a very good thing.

Welcome.

How Did This Happen?

I was looking through the Planning & Zoning Department information on the Howard County website when I ran across this nifty little video on Land Planning. The nine and half minute video is hosted by Kimberly Flowers, the Deputy Director of Planning & Zoning.

About five minutes into the video, Bridget Mugane appears. During her piece, which lasts almost a minute, she proceeds to state that she believes “a majority probably feel threatened by development.”

How did this happen?

For those of you who don’t know Bridget, she is the president of the Howard County Citizens Association, a decidedly anti development group. How come she is given such a prominent posture (more than 10% of the video) in a government sponsored piece on land planning?

This appears to be an outright endorsement of the Howard County Citizens Association agenda by the Howard County government.

Another Rainy Day Rant

Honestly, it really isn’t the foul weather that has me a little cranky today. Truth be told, the weather really doesn’t bother me all that much. Having spent the last four weekends or so putting plant material into the ground, I am happy to have Mama Nature do the watering.

It’s the rainy day driving thing that gets me started. And apparently it is not just me either. Donna, our office administrator, lives in Linthicum. When our office was located in Hanover she would only come to Columbia occasionally. Now she comes to Columbia five days a week. Her question today was, “Don’t people in Columbia use turn signals?”

The answer is not many of them.

That isn’t what compelled me to do a second rainy day post though. It was bad design of the entrance and exit to the small retail center where both Starbucks and Fuddruckers are located on Dobbin Road. Due to the previously posted shutdown of Snowden River Parkway this morning my altered morning traffic pattern bought me by the Starbucks on Dobbin rather than the Orinoco Coffee House on McGaw Road.

Getting in and out of that little shopping center will test any Choose Civility patron. It is essentially an alternating one way street. This morning, as I turned in off of Dobbin Center Way, two other cars were simultaneously approaching the exit on both the right and left side. Thankfully everyone was paying attention and courtesy ruled the day as each took their turn going through the exit/entrance. It’s not that it isn’t wide enough for two cars, it’s that it’s just wide enough for two cars. There is very little margin for error.

I couldn’t help but wonder how that layout got past Sketch Plan Approval.

Slippery When Wet

Yesterday I witnessed two accidents that I am certain were somehow linked to the wet weather. The first was on Dobbin Road near the Starbucks around 1:00 PM. Two mini vans, headed in the same direction, had run into each other. The second one was on Route 29 at the underpass with Route 32. There was car off in a ditch on the southbound side of the road. It was around 2:30 PM.

This morning, driving down Snowden River Parkway, I was forced to detour on to Route 175 (Rouse Parkway) because a tractor trailer had overturned beneath the Route 175 overpass. The police had blocked off all of the westbound lanes so that they could get a crane in there to lift the truck back up. There were several near misses as drivers tried to figure out what they were going to do now that the road was blocked.

Sheesh! The auto body shops must love this weather.

Goodbye to Geary

I’ve recently been told that Karen Geary, the general manager of The Mall, has resigned. You may recall that Karen had the unfortunate experience with the poinsettia tree last Christmas. I wonder if that had anything to do with her decision.

Not many people also know that Karen was an active volunteer in the community too. She is currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the Columbia Foundation. I can attest that this is a very active board. I gracefully resigned as a trustee before my own term expired because I couldn’t handle the additional workload. The point is, Karen has earned some community cred that would indicate that she is not the monster that some, including this old dog, made her into.

In all probability the decision to remove the poinsettia tree this year was made during some budgetary meeting in Chicago. The company had also made a commitment to that Santastic thing so I’m guessing that it got priority when the budgeting got tight. Budeting always get tight in budgetary meetings. The poinsettia tree is beautiful but very expensive.

All of this of course came about before Greg Hamm came to town as the new general manager of Columbia for General Growth Properties. Greg got to look like the white knight riding in on his horse and restoring the poinsettia tree while Karen wore the black armor for banishing it to the Symphony of Lights in the parking lot at Merriweather. The corporate game can be a full contact sport sometimes.

So Karen Geary, this old dog wishes you health, happiness and wealth in your next endeavor. This rounds on me.

In This Months Business Monthly

Sometimes the inspiration for my column in The Business Monthly comes from the local blog scene. This month, as I was working on the third draft of a column about GGP’s long awaited presentation of the Columbia Town Center Draft Master Plan (that’s really quite a mouthful isn’t it) I happened upon the Hayduke blog post about the same meeting. After reading his comments and revisiting my own notes, I found the focal point for my column.

If you haven’t picked up a copy of this months issue, you can read the column here.

Who You Callin' Potbelly?

I just received a tip from a retail broker I know that Potbelly Sandwich Works will be taking over the space formerly occupied by the Atlanta Bread Company on McGaw Road in Columbia.

Currently the closest Potbelly Sandwich Works is located at the Arundel Mills Mall.

Scene This Week In...

I’ve been a little remiss in posting new Scene This Week pictures lately. It seemed like I every time I time I set out to take some new shots it was either raining or cloudy. Since my most recent STW pictures were taken on a cloudy day I really wanted to capture a sunny day this time around.

Not that I mind the rain. We still very much need it.

The improvement in the weather brought out the golfers at Fairway Hills Golf Course in Columbia this past Sunday. There was a wait at the driving range as golfers came out in droves to work out the kinks in their game getting ready for the season. The improved weather is good for the ice cream business too. In Howard County that has often meant a trip to Soft Stuff next to the Forest Diner on Route 40. Soft Stuff has been selling ice cream at this location for as long as I have been around here (forty plus years). If you have never ventured out to this outpost of frozen confections you can take it from this old dog that it is well worth the trip.

Diorama Explained

I ran across this video on You Tube the other day. It does a nice job of explaining various scenes in the diorama of Ellicott City and West Baltimore in the B&O Railroad Museum in Ellicott City.

This is a great little museum and the diorama is basically a very detailed train garden. Thanks to this little video I now have a better understanding of what I am looking at.

The B&O Railroad Museum is a great rainy day excursion if you like trains and history. With rain in the forecast for this Sunday it might be a good time to drop in and check it out.

Liz Bobo as CA President?

Every once in awhile, I’ll lob an easy one across the plate just to see who will take a swing at it. When I heard the rumor about a backroom deal brokered by certain members of the Columbia Council that would theoretically hand the job of Columbia Association president to Liz Bobo, I thought I’d have all kinds of commenter’s scrambling for the batter’s box.

I guess I was wrong. The few anonymous comments I did receive were all positive. No one seemed to be bothered about the possibility that such a deal may have been made on the side.

Of course it was just a rumor. Still, I was surprised. That is not to say that Liz couldn’t do the job. She does have experience as an executive of a large organization (Liz was the county executive before Chuck Ecker). If true, this would certainly shed some more light on her active involvement in promoting certain candidates for the Columbia Council in last month’s elections.

Anybody else want to take a swing at this?

Wegman's Saga Part Four

According to this article in the Howard section of today’s Sun, Wegman’s has now received Planning Board approval for its 92 foot clock tower.

Town Center Phase One

Last night GGP unveiled plans for phase one of the Town Center redevelopment. The most striking feature of this first phase was the absence of a residential component. With all the controversy surrounding the discussion of increasing residential density in Town Center, GGP appears to be deferring that conversation until June when they plan to petition the county council to amend the existing New Town zoning.

Smart move. The phase one plan calls for 300,000 square feet of new retail space, 150,000 square feet of new office space and a 300 room conference center hotel. They can develop all of these uses under the existing New Town zoning.

GGP’s phase one plan also calls for creating new “pedestrian friendly” connections between Symphony Woods and the mall and between the lakefront and the mall.

The drawing above shows how the new retail component will connect to the mall at the food court. Actually, this rendering conflicts a bit with Greg Hamm’s verbal description. Greg and his consultants pointed out that the grade drops 100 feet from Governor Warfield and Twin Rivers Road to the lakefront. As part of this phase of development, GGP would raise the grade of the food court entrance resulting in the entry being on the second floor of the mall. The food court would end up being 15 feet below grade. The rendering still shows the entry on the ground level.

In front of this new entry will be a plaza that will feature some type of public amenity. GGP envisions a public space that could function as outdoor concert venue in the summer time and perhaps be used as an outdoor ice rink in the winter months. This public plaza would be surrounded by street level retail in are that GGP was calling “Market Square.”

This drawing shows the planned connection to Symphony Woods. The new proposed 300 room hotel is in the foreground on the right hand side. Part of GGP’s phase one development includes a makeover of Merriweather Post Pavilion which would add more seats under a new roof structure and more ancillary buildings to accommodate more restrooms and other uses. The backstage area would also be expanded to provide better accommodations for visiting artists. The other buildings shown in this rendering are all on CA property. GGP is suggesting that new arts and cultural facilities would be ideal to fill in around Merriweather. Though Greg referred to certain “much loved, little utilized” amenities in Town Center I think it is doubtful that the old line Columbians would ever agree to this degree of development activity in Symphony Woods.
This drawing shows what GGP is calling the “Spanish steps” after the famous area of the same name in Rome, Italy. This is how GGP envisions the lakefront connection to the mall. This new pedestrian passageway would come accross the existing GGP building lower parking lot and would also serve as “sub watershed” with a water feature running down the left side of this passageway.

Greg Hamm told the audience that the new Town Center development program would be guilded by four principles of connectivity, restoration, inclusion and amentities. So far these plans seem to address those principles very nicely.

Stormy Monday

Last night I attended the much anticipated presentation of the GGP Draft Master Plan for Columbia Town Center. The three hour presentation was held in the Spear Center in the GGP building in Town Center.

Before going to the presentation I dropped by Clyde’s where GGP was hosting a small cocktail reception for some business folks before the presentation. Much of the cocktail chatter was about the recent Columbia Council elections. Suffice it say that not everyone was pleased with the results. One of the more interesting things I picked up was a rumor that some kind of deal has been struck with a group of council members that will essentially give the job of CA president to Liz Bobo.

Seriously.

It seems that some folks see nefarious designs behind Liz’s heavy involvement in supporting her chosen candidates. My own take on this is that while it is plausible that such a deal could have been made it doesn't seem probable.

Then again, who knows?

The presentation itself was somewhat less than uplifting. In my day at The Rouse Company (the predecessor of GGP), if we had a presentation to make, our objective would have been to blow peoples socks off. We routinely set up multi projector slide shows that were scored with music and narration. By the end of one these slide presentations we’d have people fired up about our plans. Anyone whoever attended a Rouse Company shareholders meeting knows of what I speak.

GGP’s presentation last night was not quite up to that standard. As Paul Skalny, a local attorney quipped to me “I hope their planning is better than their presentation.” Greg Hamm and his consultants could have benefited from more preparation time.

That is not to say that the presentation wasn’t informative. It was. In fact, I applaud GGP for the approach they are taking. Rather than attempting to plan out all of Town Center at once, they are taking a phased approach. This consisted of outlining an overall conceptual plan that can be modified along the way while focusing on the details of what will likely be done first.

I’ll have more on that in a separate post.

It also appears that GGP has created a new logo for Town Center. I wonder if the village of Town Center will adopt this a replacement for the existing village logo. I, for one, think it would be an improvement of the current one.

A Pleasant Discovery

Friday night Mama Wordbones and I attended a performance of the Gemini Piano Trio at the Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College.

Though this wonderful arts facility opened in August of 2006, Friday evening was the first time we saw it up close.

In a word, nice: In two words, very nice.

The performance we attended was in the John G. Monteabaro Recital Hall. This recital hall seats about 125 people and features state of the art acoustics. It is an ideal place to experience a chamber music concert.

You would think that an internationally acclaimed chamber group such as the Gemini Piano Trio (so named because the pianist and the violinist are brother and sister and the cellist is married to the pianist) would have no problem filling the seats.

You would be wrong.

I counted about 30 people. At least five of them were somehow associated with the performance. Another group of approximately 10 were students who apparently were there as part of a Music Appreciation class. That left just about 15 members of the general audience.

Maybe the place just hasn’t caught on yet.

Happy B-Day JR!

Tomorrow, April 26th is Jim Rouse’s birthday. Coincidentally it is also the day of the Columbia village elections. Getting out and voting would be a nice way to honor the memory of the guy who dreamed up Columbia in the first place.

Jim Rouse had a profound impact on my life and my career. His philosophy that “what ought to be can be” has always encouraged me when the going gets a little rough.

The picture above was taken on August 20, 1994 at a reunion of former Rouse Company employees. I think that shirt had two buttons too many…

A Lovely Day for a Run

This morning, at 8:15 AM, 1,336 runners took off on a 6.2 mile jaunt around Columbia in the 30th Annual Clyde’s American 10K road race. Unlike last year when I opted out because of the cold, wind and rain, this year I posted. It wasn’t a picture postcard Columbia spring morning but it wasn’t bad either. No rain fell upon the course.

This is the only organized run I do anymore. I have run several of these Clyde’s races over the years as a sort of rite of spring thing. I figure that if I can get out and run this challenging course in the middle of April it means I’ve made it through the winter without too much damage.

Did I mention the course is challenging?

In my reckoning, I count five significant hills in the course: the first being the run up Governor Warfield Parkway from the firehouse towards Twin Rivers Road: the second being the run up Columbia Road to the Fairway Hills golf course clubhouse: the third being the run up Route 108 to the entrance to Running Brook: the fourth being the run up West Running Brook from (I think) Homespun to Darting Bird: the fifth being the run up Little Patuxent Parkway from Governor Warfield Parkway to the entrance to the mall. After that particular hill it is downhill to the finish line.

One of the things I enjoy most about this race is the sense of community. This year I showed up alone with no prearranged running buddy. No sooner had I arrived than I ran into Chris Marasco. I know Chris both from the gym I go to and from his work with a local bank. We decided to start out together. As we gathered behind the starting line I ran into Calene Theodore. I know Calene from Clyde’s. She works there. Apparently they get free registration. Sweet.

It wasn’t long into the race that it became obvious to both of us that Chris was able to keep a stronger pace than I. I bid him good speed and ran by myself for a few miles dropping a comment once in awhile to a complete stranger like “this is one tough hill” and such. Coming out of Running Brook I met a guy named Ken Schreier who lives in Owen Brown. Ken was about my age and after talking for a bit we decided to finish the race together. As we headed down Little Patuxent to that fifth and last hill, I spotted Gordon Mumpower and Honi Bamberger stuck in traffic waiting for the runners to pass. Gordon and Honi cheered us on as we went past. That’s the spirit people.

Just as I was about to hit the finish line, Dave Tripp, a longtime Howard County Strider, called out on his megaphone “Where have you been all this time 628? Writing an editorial?”

Ah, but it’s good to be recognized.

Ken and I cruised down to the finish line within three seconds of each other. It’s a great feeling to be finished.

For the record, the top three male finishers were (in order of finish) Tom Williams (32) from Columbia, Mike Colaiacovo (38) from Baltimore, and Stephen Moxley (29) from Columbia. The top three female finishers were Vanessa Cox (46) from Laurel, Katie Breitenbach (27) from Elkridge, and Robyn Humphrey (44) from Ellicott City.

The top time was 33:27:45. The slowest, 1:28:06.35

And wordbones stats?

I finished in 854th place out of 1,325. My official time was 1:00:27.90. I had a great time and I feel good. My buddy Chris finished in 721st place with a time of 57:56.85.

There is always next year.

Fallen Star

On February 18th, the Lone Star Steakhouse and Saloon closed in Columbia. This once popular restaurant had been in business for about 12 years.

I was involved in bringing this particular chain restaurant to Columbia. My former business partner and I “discovered” Lone Star while on assignment for another client in Fayetteville, North Carolina. That began a long courtship that eventually resulted in the company purchasing four acres of land in the Columbia Corporate Park on McGaw Road.

The restaurant enjoyed great success when it first opened. It was not uncommon to have to wait an hour and half to get a table; much like it is now at the Cheesecake Factory in Town Center.

That was hardly the case in recent years. Some lay the blame on the fact that it was hard to get to but that did not seem to deter those early patrons. The visibility of this site was so strong that it generated the following front page story by Dan Morse in the Sun back on January 12, 1997:

Business lament: Site unseen; Columbia: As bigger, brighter signs appear on the eastern edge of town, merchants feeling invisible in older areas argue for more wattage.

“Sign envy is gripping Columbia.

Listen to saloon owner John Heyn, who for years has tried to make a go of it in this tidy planned suburb that boasts some of the strictest sign restrictions in the nation.
Every day, residents drive past his Last Chance Saloon -- buried in the courtyard of a neighborhood retail center -- without knowing it's there.

Some residents even walk through the courtyard itself without noticing his bar.
Life, for Heyn, has no neon. And so as the barkeeper crested a hill along Route 175 on Columbia's eastern edge two months ago, he was shocked to confront -- a half-mile away but very much in his face -- the words "Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon" illuminating the side of his new competition.

"Damn," Heyn remembers thinking. "What a great sign." He's not alone in his admiration -- or his envy.

Throughout Columbia, merchants are turning green over Lone Star's beacon.
For the new town's almost 30-year history, they've been restricted to tiny, often hidden signs.
Heyn says he can't even plug in a simple "Open" sign and hang it inside his window.
The sign envy -- though hardly a fatal condition -- underscores tensions felt by merchants in Columbia's downtown and neighborhoods as they try to compete with the growing number of chain restaurants and warehouse-style retailers cropping up on the community's eastern edge.

"Clearly, there's a double standard," says Bill Miller, co-owner of the Today's Catch seafood shop buried in Columbia's Wilde Lake Village Center.

By contemporary standards, the Lone Star sign is hardly spectacular.
There actually are three of them -- on three sides of the restaurant. They measure about 18 feet across and 8 feet high.

And they're actually smaller than what the 205-outlet western-style steak giant first proposed, says Thomas Brudzinski, a design director for the Rouse Co., Columbia's developer.
If the signs were along U.S. 40 or Ritchie Highway, "Lone Star" would undoubtably fade into a haze of halogen.

But this is Columbia, designed in the 1960s to allow residents -- in the words of its founder, James W. Rouse -- to "feel the spaces of nature."

And so for nearly three decades, the Rouse Co.'s criteria for signs essentially have been to subtly post small ones. A favorite spot has been behind the town's many berms, or man-made grassy knolls.

For the most part, Columbia residents seem to enjoy the uncluttered look. Lone Star also should be pleased -- for its star shines brightly against the subdued suburb's relatively dark backdrop.

But those merchants with sign envy want to know: How'd the steak king get permission for such a bright sign?

Lone Star officials wouldn't discuss their new Columbia outlet, other than to say they followed local sign restrictions. The steak chain -- based in Wichita, Kan. -- makes no bones about wanting to be seen, though. "If they're driving and are making a dining decision," said John White, Lone Star's chief financial officer, "we want to be part of that decision."

Officials at the Rouse Co., which controls signs on the Lone Star property and other commercial areas in Columbia, say the Lone Star sign is no big deal.
They say they're allowing other new businesses and restaurants on the town's eastern, largely commercial edge to post these larger signs.

And even the most envious of central Columbia merchants concedes this is appropriate to some degree. After all, that area is not adjacent to Columbia's neighborhoods. But no other restaurant in that area is perched on such a conspicuous hill above a major thoroughfare.
So no other sign is more visible to drivers entering Columbia from the east -- particularly because huge spotlights are trained on it.

And in Columbia, some residents, particularly some longtime residents, take a dim view of any bright lights. Just last year, for example, some neighbors of Columbia's Oakland Mills High School erupted when educators hung a relatively modest, but lighted marque outside the school -- the only such sign in their neighborhood.

As for that Lone Star sign, "James Rouse would roll over in his grave if he saw that sign," says David Reynolds, who lives in Columbia's Town Center. Reynolds jokes that the Lone Star sign is so bright that pilots flying at 12,000 feet could use it to land in the middle of the planned city.

But now that Lone Star has set a new community standard for candlepower, many Columbia merchants want more of the same for themselves. Fred Paine, a former Rouse commercial property manager who now manages Hunt Valley Mall, agrees. For years, he says, he tried to get his bosses to allow bigger, brighter -- but tasteful -- signs in Columbia's older core. "If I was a retailer," he says, "I'd just be livid."

At the Fresh Choice restaurant -- hidden without a road sign in Columbia's downtown, a large parking lot away from the nearest road -- manager Denise Antinnucci is close to livid.
She says she'd have more customers if drivers were informed a restaurant was nearby. "If they have a sign like that," Antinnucci says of Lone Star, "I should be able to have a little sign" by the road.

Similarly, at the nearby Silver Shadows nightclub, its owners say lost patrons constantly call them from their cellular phones and must be guided to the club by bartenders -- much like air traffic controllers.

Even some Columbia residents say the brighter and bigger, the better.

Which brings us to east Columbia resident Robert Thomas, a relative newcomer to the town who is perhaps not imbued with its original ethos.

Says Thomas: "These Columbia purists, they're back in {the '60s}. I don't think that sign is big enough."

A local developer recently purchased the property for $2.95 million. The new owner is apparently receptive to a new restaurant taking over the building.

Less Than a Week Later…

A confession…from a neighbor no less!

We now know who killed Bryan Antoine Adams Jr.. According to an article in today’s Sun, Antajuan L. Wilson confessed to the shooting yesterday. Antajuan is one year younger than his 20 year old victim. He lives less than a quarter mile from where he gunned down Bryan.

As I mentioned in a comment to a previous post about this, I was planning on going shopping at Wilde Lake Village Green this past weekend to pick up a new pair of running shoes from Feet First.
Sunday afternoon around 3:30 PM I fulfilled that task. The parking lot was pretty empty but it was Sunday afternoon. As I walked across the green I saw people patronizing Absolutely Wine & Spirits but otherwise it was quiet inside the center as well.

Inside the store I spoke with Andre about what effect, if any, the shooting had on business. “It’s not even noticeable” he claimed. At this point in time there were more sales clerks than customers in the store so I sort of gave him a look that said “really!”

“Yesterday we were really busy. Sunday afternoons is usually slow.”

I’ll buy that.

This store is usually pretty busy around this time of year. Feet First is one of the sponsors of Clyde’s American 10K race which is being held this Sunday. Starting this Thursday race participants will be able to pick up their race packets and t-shirt at the store.

I ended up getting shorts, socks and a shirt in addition to my brand new Asics. Another customer came in as I was finishing up so the customer to sales clerk ratio reached parity.

Mai Tais & Black Tie

The Columbia Festival of the Arts will host "Mai Tais & Black Tie, an evening with Paula Poundstone on Friday, May 9th in the Spear Center at the GGP building in Town Center. The dinner and performance are the spring fundraiser for this year’s festival.

I had never heard of Paula Poundstone so I checked her out on You Tube and found this clip. Pretty funny.



Tickets cost $150.00 each but it’s a pretty good deal. You get live entertainment, dinner and drinks and you don’t have to drive out of town.

You can download the ticket order form here or call the festival office for more information. The number is (410) 715-3044

Howards First Homicide of 2008

Bryan Antoine Adams Jr. was gunned down today. Just before noon, in broad daylight, along Twin Rivers Road, right in front of the Wilde Lake Village Center, he was shot four or five times and later died at Howard County General Hospital.

He was a 2005 graduate of my alma mater, Wilde Lake High School. My thoughts go out to his family and his friends.

This is very familiar ground for me. I grew up in that neighborhood. I have walked this sidewalk and ridden my bicycle down this sidewalk. I have driven by this spot innumerable times.

The thought that strikes me is that Columbia today is a far different place from the Columbia of forty years ago.

Thank you to Columbia Talk for giving me the heads up on this.

Did She Go And Have A Private Meeting With GGP Without Telling Us?

Last night my buddy Jim Binckley attended the Village of Harper’s Choice candidates forum at Kahler Hall. He had the opportunity to query the incumbent Columbia Council representative, Cynthia Coyle about the deplorable state of the dock and piers tower in Town Center. Ms. Coyle had twice voted against any restoration funding for this centerpiece of the town. Jim wanted to know why she did that.

Apparently Ms. Coyle has everything under control. Jim told me that Ms. Coyle announced to those in attendance that she voted against restoring the existing structures because she is going to see to it that an entirely new “dock” will be built in its place.

Here’s the best part though. Jim told me that Councilperson Coyle has received assurances from GGP that they will pay for it.

How good is that!

Then I wondered how she got that assurance because I haven’t exactly heard anyone else talking about this.

Could it be that a member of the Columbia Council, acting on behalf of the Council, held a private meeting with GGP?

God forbid.

Scene This Week In...

It is hard not to take pictures of flowering trees this time of year. Columbia explodes with white blossoms on the thousands of Bradford Pear trees planted around town. There is a liberal sprinkling of pink from the various cherry trees as well.

But that is not what caught my eye today.

I was actually on my way to Wilde Lake Park to snap some pictures of flowering trees when I noticed all of the activity at the Wilde Lake barn. A closer inspection revealed that the barn is undergoing a fairly extensive renovation.

I was glad to see that. Given the abysmal state of some of the other Columbia icons, it’s nice to know that at least this one is getting some attention.

I still wanted to find some flowering trees though so ventured a mile up the road from Wilde Lake to Centennial Lake. Technically, once you cross Route 108 you are in Ellicott City after all.

Centennial Lake is home to grouping of cherry trees which I believe is dedicated to the memory of Jim Rouse. The trees are planted on both sides of the lake path. The lakefront was sparsely populated with an assortment of runners and fishermen. I was sort of surprised to see as many people as I did. It was around two o’clock in the afternoon on a cold and damp spring day.

I spoke with a guy named Chris. He was one of the fishermen. He said he’d caught a few bluegills but he was really hoping to hook a catfish.

It turns out we had a catfish thing in common. Both of us had visited the Bass Pro Shop in the Arundel Mills Mall yesterday to see the giant catfish that Ron Lewis caught in the Potomac. The 67 pound behemoth was supposedly in the giant fish tank at the store. It turns out that this particular fish is still in a “transitional tank” and that the big one I saw was only 64 pounds.

That’s still a big catfish.

Chris was taking a day from his landscaping job in Annapolis. I imagine the landscaping business is a little intense right now and so he probably needed a day of fishing.

That’s what I’m saying anyway.

Thanks Anon 10:49 AM!

This blog has always been wide open to anonymous posters. This policy invites both benefits and detriments such as the occasional spam post that exists solely to divert traffic to a different site or god knows what else. I routinely delete this spamoola as soon as I see it but that’s about the only thing I’ll delete.

I enjoy all dialogue, both fine wine refined and sushi grade raw. And sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll get an anonymous comment on a post that I’ll really like because it gets me to thinking a different way. I got one of those yesterday.

Anon 10:49 AM commented on my Friday post about the county putting the Ridge Road property up for sale. The current administration intends to “return this land to the county tax rolls.” This would ultimately result in the heavily wooded ground being developed in some fashion. From a pure economic perspective the highest and best use of this property would be retail. It is currently zoned POR. (Planned Office Research).

Anon 10:49 AM believes the county would get a greater value if it preserved these twenty four acres as a park. Anon 10:49 AM’s park would include a pedestrian overpass over Route 40.

Anon 10:49 AM estimates that the county would likely net $6 million from the sale of this property. Anon 10:49 AM wonders if the county could ever buy 24 acres of heavily “forested” in Ellicott City at that price.

In my opinion, with current POR zoning, the county is more likely to net around $5 million.

Ironically, it was then County Executive Jim Robey who got the county to purchase this property. It was also his administration that developed the Route 40 Enhancement Study.

The current administration says that it needs the proceeds to fund the renovations of the existing county complex. No one can argue that those buildings need renovating, they’ve never been right. Jim once quipped to me that he’d throw the builder in jail if he could. You may recall that Jim was also the former chief of police.

The thing is, according to an article by Larry Carson in the Howard section of the Sun today, the renovations will cost $22 million. The county also plans to purchase office space in the Meridian Square project in Oakland Mills. That will cost an additional $3.9 million for a total of about $26 million.

It sort of puts that $5 million dollar profit into perspective and I’m starting to like the park idea a lot. Maybe the now "Senator" Jim Robey can cajole some extra funds out of the state coffers to make up for the shortfall.

Prime Development Opportunity? Perhaps.

When Jim Robey was the County Executive he envisioned creating a new county office complex on 24 acres of land at the intersection of Rogers Avenue and US Route 40. The County purchased the property in 2000 for $3.7 million.

The county put out a bid proposal to the development community. The competition was whittled down to Trammell Crow Company and our own hometown national developer, Corporate Properties Office Trust (COPT). COPT won. I should note here that development proposals of this scale are rather extensive and expensive. The developer enlists architects, lawyers, engineers and other consultants to help them prepare a vision for the project. These costs can easily exceed $100,000.

Now the county has changed it’s mind, or at least the current administration has. The county has now decided to renovate the existing county complex and purchase a floor of space in the proposed Meridian Square development. They have decided to sell the Rogers Avenue property to fund these plans. COPT and its hard won right to develop the project for the county is left holding the bag so to speak. True, while this can just be racked up to the cost of doing business, it still hurts.

It’s a shame. This property sits at one of the major gateways into historic Ellicott City. A government complex here would have had a significant impact on transforming that portion of Route 40. Right now it is a collection of strip shopping, auto dealers, fast food and a porn shop. Talk about an area that could use some revitalization!

Hopefully someone with vision will snap this up. Perhaps COPT will go ahead and take a shot at it.

Maybe we will.

The county paid a little over $150,000 per acre eight years ago. Right now the going rate for prime office land (think Columbia Gateway) is around $600,000.00 per acre. The major difference being that the land in Gateway is ready to go. It is cleared and rough graded. When you buy 24 acres, you get 24 acres. The land on Rogers Avenue is heavily wooded. The euphemism that is commonly used is raw. The purchaser won’t get to use all 24 acres. They’ll get somewhere between 15 and 20 acres to build on if they are lucky.

Still, it will probably fetch a pretty nice number and the county will likely end up with a fair return on their investment in Ellicott City real estate.

Stale Bread

When I stopped by Orinco Coffee Shop this morning I saw two tractor trailers backed up to the entrance of the Atlanta Bread Company at the opposite end of the strip of eateries on McGaw Road.

A closer inspection revealed this note taped to the door.
The closing of this eatery comes as no great surprise to me. I ate there once and never went back. The food was, at best, average and I felt the prices were high for the value received.

This is a great location though and I expect it won’t be long before another food operation fills the space.

In This Months Business Monthly

A little over a year ago I wrote a column about the Columbia Association Board of Directors and their reluctance to renew the contract of the association’s president, Maggie Brown. In that column I lamented that Columbia residents would not likely pay much attention to the machinations of the Columbia Council until “hundreds of CA employees run amok, thousands of acres of land go untended, dozens of facilities enter a state of disrepair and a $63 million dollar plus annual budget is squandered.”

Well the situation is getting pretty close to that. Check out this post from fellow blogger Bill Santos at the Columbia Compass blog or consider the fact that Columbia’s premier golf club, Hobbits Glen, is hemorrhaging members. What makes this state of affairs even more alarming is the fact that the majority of the CA board members are seemingly most concerned with capping increases in the CPRA assessment.

The good news is that not all CA board members are bad. The bad news is that the good people are currently outnumbered. This month Columbia residents will have the opportunity to change that.

You can read this month’s column here.

Wegmans Saga Part Three

It appears that the grocery workers union and Giant and Safeway have reached a new labor contract and have averted a strike. Local resident, Buddy Mays, president of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local Number 27 must be pleased. A strike right now would seem to be a very bad idea. This is no time to piss off any more consumers. Dave Wissing has a nice post about his recent trip to a union store.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no bone to chew with the union. I only ask that I have a choice of where I spend my dollars. I would suspect that any store staffed by paid union professionals would have to be better run than some store staffed by mere mortals. Surely the union can see that they have an advantage here.

Buddy Mays apparently doesn’t feel that way. He is behind the effort challenging the legality of Wegmans, a non union grocer planning to open a store at the intersection of McGaw Road and Snowden River Parkway. He has issues with the zoning amendment that allowed a grocery use in what was originally an industrial zone, albeit an industrial zone that already allowed for such “industrial” uses as gas stations, banks, restaurants and home improvement stores.

I’m with Dave. Wegmans can’t come soon enough. Let them have their clock tower too.

Wegmans Saga Part Two

click to enlarge

I am one of those dogs who can’t help but sniff out a zoning notice so when I spotted one at the proposed Wegmans site on Snowden River Parkway and McGaw Road I had to stop and check it out.

It appears that Wegmans is not taking “no” for an answer on their bid to include a 92 foot clock tower as part of their store.

I don’t see why the clock tower is a problem. It is not an advertising sign, it is an architectural feature. Since this proposed clock tower would be just down the road from a 120 foot (+/- ) water tower it would not exactly be ruining the skyline.

Jim Rouse Tribute www.marcsilverstein.com

Mark Smith, the editor of The Business Monthly brought this YouTube video to my attention. I love the story about the muskrat.

Village Center Initiative

I dropped by Ken Ulman’s press conference at Wilde Lake Village Green yesterday. I stood with local activist Jud Malone and Bill Miller, the owner of Today’s Catch seafood market. Along with the three of us and the county executive, there were councilpersons Mary Kay Sigaty and Jen Terrasa.

Alan Klein was there of course, pontificating as usual. Steve Meskin was in attendance as well. Steve is running against Sue Waller for Columbia Council representing Town Center. You may recall that Steve was one of those who sued to stop the construction of the Plaza Tower condominiums. He was of course joined in that action by Lloyd Knowles who was also in attendance.

I also saw Tony Tringali. Tony was the first barber to open a shop in Columbia. He has been a tenant, in the exact same location, since the village center first opened. I believe he is the only original Columbia merchant that is still in business.

Just before the press conference started, Jud Malone quipped to me wondering if Ken would mention the “d” word (density) anywhere in his remarks.

He didn’t.

He did use the word “evolve” quite a bit though. Could that be the new euphemism for density?

Hayduke had a pretty good post about Ken’s speech here.

The gist of the press conference was the announcement of a legislative initiative to amend part of the New Town (NT) zoning regulations. As it now stands, only General Growth Properties (GGP), as the successor to The Rouse Company, can request changes to an existing use in the NT zone. This arrangement worked fine when The Rouse Company controlled the village centers as well as virtually all of the commercial property in Columbia.

Since The Rouse Company divested itself of the village centers several years ago it could be well argued that GGP has conflicting interests with the owners of the village centers, particularly when it comes to village center’s “evolving.”

All of this is positive and the county executive is to be commended for taking this initiative. If the village centers are to remain viable commercial centers they need greater flexibility to “evolve.”

Scene This Week In...

Last Thursday was the vernal equinox which marks the first day of spring. It actually occurred at 5:58 AM. In Ellicott City, this means that Rita’s on Frederick Road is open again. Rita’s celebrates the first day of spring by giving away free Italian ices. The cooler weather last week did not deter folks from stopping in and welcoming them back.

Of course Columbia has a Rita’s too at Harper’s Choice Village Center. Soon it will be joined by a second one in the Kings Contrivance Village Center.

In Town Center, the harbinger of warmer weather was the workmen readying the outside tables for Clyde’s. Soon these tables will be filled with folks enjoying the lakefront. Until GGP’s master plan for Town Center gets underway the outdoor dining at the lakefront will have to suffice for a “vibrant” Town Center.

Name That Wreck!

Bill Harrison believes that the “50’s vintage” junk that was pictured in this recent post is a 1957 DeSoto.

Could be.

Reinventing Wilde Lake Village Green

This is kind of a good news bad news deal.

The good news is that Kimco, the owner of the Wilde Lake Village Center, is willing to make a $40 million investment to remake the oldest village center in Columbia.

The bad news, at least for some folks, is that the future center will not likely have a grocery store.

I think the good news outweighs the bad news in this instance. Kimco Realty Corporation owns interests in 1,973 retail properties in 45 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Chile. They have long standing relationships with just about every major food retailer in the country. If they are unable to attract a grocery store to Wilde Lake it is highly unlikely that anyone else could. They didn’t just rely on their chain store contacts either. They also attempted to get David’s Natural Market and Produce Galore to split the former Giant space giving each merchant an expanded store. Word has it that while David’s was interested, Produce Galore took a pass.

It’s probably time to accept the fact that a traditional grocery store will no longer be part of this village center and be grateful for the fact that at least someone is willing to make a major financial commitment to give the center a new life.

Belmont Stakes 2

Last August I wrote a post about the continuing saga of the Belmont Conference Center in Elkridge. Today there was an article in the Howard section of the Sun by Sandy Alexander about the end of the controversial relationship between local homebuilder Harry L. “Chip” Lundy and the college and the Belmont property. Just over three years ago, Chip lent the college $1.3 million dollars for the down payment on the 81 acre historic conference facility that borders the Patapsco State Park in Howard County.

Last week Chip and his partner David Adler were repaid the loan without interest which conservatively would have been around $200,000.

That is a far cry from what Chip had envisioned four years ago. In the original deal he had hoped to gain control of the 13 acre Dobbin property which is attached to Belmont but sits on a separately recorded parcel. He and his partner had hoped to construct senior housing there.

The fate of the Dobbin property remains in the air. According to the article, the county Department of Parks and Recreation offered $1.75 million for the property but the college turned down the offer.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

To set a proper tone for this day of all things Irish I offer a story from this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. It is an Irish tale, complete with an ailing mother, a starving widow, mermaids and scoundrels.

Cheers!

In honor of the patron saint of Ireland, our office will likely close around noon today. I expect, at some point in the day, to stop by Clyde’s. They have put on a pretty good St. Patrick’s Day celebration for as long as I can remember. I was four years out of college when I picked up this button. I know some folks in town have Clyde’s “Irish Power” buttons that are even older.

So…,if anyone comes up to me at Clyde’s today wearing a button older than this one, I’ll buy you a drink.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

What Would You Have Me Do Two

Earlier this week I posted about a sign that was nailed to a tree on College Avenue. The sign said that there was a “beautiful waterfall” next to an “open dump” just ahead in the woods. It called upon residents of Taylor Village to “wake up and unite.”

Whatever that meant.

In any event, I also wrote that, this weekend I would venture beyond this sign to see what it was all about.

The first thing I noticed was that the sign was down.

The next thing I noticed was this terrain is very hilly with many bramble patches. You cannot move “straight ahead” as the former sign suggested.

My daughter and I wound our way down the slope until I spotted an abandoned vehicle and a pile of rubbish. What was noteworthy about this “open dump” was it’s age. This is not a new or current dump. I can’t make out the model of the car but it is definitely a 50’s vintage.

The beautiful waterfall turns out to be a bit of an exaggeration. It is beautiful but it is also rather small.

The old dump was actually pretty interesting. At one time people lived back in here. We discovered a few old foundations and other evidence of the former inhabitants.

Again, I am not certain whether this is private property or part of the Patapsco State Park. As I mentioned in the original post, the boundaries are little fuzzy around here.

All in all, my daughter and I enjoyed our investigative hike. It was a great way to spend an early spring afternoon.

Jamming a Square Peg Into a Round Hole

Allow me to begin this post by stating that I happen to like our county executive, Ken Ulman. I voted for him and so far I think he has done a pretty good job for the citizens of Howard County.

That doesn’t mean I always agree with him.

The Meridian Square issue is a case in point. Ken has proposed that the county purchase 15,000 of office space in a 60,000 square foot office condominium building being developed by Metroventures in the Oakland Mills Village Center on the site of a former Exxon gas station. County Councilperson Calvin Ball and the village board believe this project is crucial to the revitalization efforts in the village. Ken recently defended this proposal in this article by Larry Carson that appeared the Howard section of the Sun this week.

While I agree that the county can be an important catalyst for rejuvenating the village center this is not, in my opinion, a very good vehicle for doing it.

Why do I think that?

The main reason is that no market exists for a 60,000 square foot office condominium building in the Oakland Mills Village Center. Oakland Mills is not an office market and a 60,000 square foot building is a pretty big building. It is twice the size of the Columbia Association building in Town Center (where Clyde’s is located). The Stevens Forest Professional Building (9650 Santiago Road) located right next to the site for this proposed building struggled for years to attract tenants. This 25,000 square foot office building was built in 1984 and it took until 1997 before it finally reached 100% occupancy. Today there is a 1,100 square foot office suite available that has been vacant for two years.

When The Rouse Company redeveloped the village center for Food Lion they eliminated the office component for just this reason. There are just too many good alternatives for office tenants in nearby Town Center and around Columbia in the established office parks. If the county moves forward with this plan they run the risk of being the only tenant in the building for years. What happens then?

Does the county then feel compelled to buy the remaining floors in order to protect their investment?

A better solution would be for the county to buy the site from the developer and put up whatever building best fits the needs of the agencies that it wants to be located there. That is a much better approach than having the county be the only tenant in a building that is simply too big for that area.

Produce Galore No More

It appears that once again the blame for the demise of yet another local retailer is being laid at the doorstep of “the developers.” Delegate Liz Bobo has even gone so far as to suggest that “with the support from the local government, we could prevent something like this.”

What kind of support does Liz envision that to be?

I remember when Produce Galore first opened in Wilde Lake Village Green. At the time I was working for The Rouse Company and my boss, Kemper Sullivan was approached by Kent Pendleton who at that time wanted to set up a roadside fruit and vegetable stand in Columbia. Of course there was no room in the Columbia “plan” for a roadside stand so Kemper convinced Kent that a better alternative would be to open a simple fruit and vegetable stand in the Lynx Lane annex of the Wilde Lake shopping center. Kent soon opened a bare bones operation in approximately 1,500 square feet in a space that is now part of David’s Natural Market. It was the smallest retail space available in the center at that time.

It wasn’t long before Columbians discovered how much fresher his produce was than the produce found in the Giant grocery store across the parking lot. Produce Galore soon expanded when the adjacent retail space became available. The business continued to grow and prosper. Before long, Kent made the big jump and took over the space that was originally occupied by Columbia Hardware which went under soon after Hechinger’s opened in Dobbin Center (in a building now occupied by a Havertys furniture store). Columbia Hardware was a local retailer.

About ten years ago, Kent decided he’d like to get out of the business. He enlisted Darrell Nevin, a local commercial real estate agent, to help him find a buyer. The word on the street was that the stores labor costs were too high to justify the price he was seeking. Though Darrell was unsuccessful in finding a buyer, it was widely understood that Kent remained interested in selling.

So now the end game is here. Unable to find a buyer he has opted instead to throw in the towel. I don’t blame him but he should not be blaming the loss of Giant and the arrival of other new retailers as the reasons for his stores declining sales. Much like Bun Penny, Produce Galore did not adjust well to the demographic changes in Columbia. New competition will either make a store better or it cause its demise.

The people in Columbia and Howard County have many choices as to where they spend their money. Every day shoppers make decisions as to where they will shop. Mama Wordbones and I discussed this last night. I had stopped by the grocery store on my way home to pick up a few items including fresh fruit. The most convenient grocery store to my office on Dobbin Road was the Safeway in the Long Reach Village Center. I drove right past it on my way to the Giant on Centre Park Drive.

Scene This Week In...

With the move of our offices from the airport area to Columbia I have settled into a new commute pattern. I always stop for coffee somewhere along the route because the decaf stuff in our offices doesn’t quite cut it. On my old route my preferred stop was the Dunkin Donuts at Route 1 and Montgomery Road in Elkridge. With my new route I pass a Dunkin Donuts, Donnas, Riverside, and Orinoco. So far I’ve made Orinoco my new regular stop. I really like their coffee.

When I was coming out the coffee shop earlier this week I was stuck by a the sight of these birds all nicely lined up along the roof line of 8830 Stanford Boulevard. I decided to make this aviary hangout my Scene This Week in Columbia.

Driving through Ellicott City the other day, the red caboose that is part of the B&O Railroad Museum: Ellicott City Station, stood out in the crisp March afternoon sun. This little museum is well worth a visit whether you are a train buff or not. This was first caboose I ever climbed inside of. It is this weeks Scene In Ellicott City.

Enough Is Enough!

Appropriately enough, that is the cover headline on today’s Howard section of the Sun. The article discusses Barbara Russell’s decision not to run for reelection to the Columbia Council. I could not have said it better.

I usually put aside my differences when someone announces that they are retiring from public service and thank them for their service to the community. In Barbara’s case I make an exception. Enough is certainly enough.

The article cites Barbara’s proudest accomplishments during her eight year tenure as establishing a cap on assessments and preventing the community of Emerson from becoming Columbia’s eleventh village. The legacy of those “accomplishments” is the sad state of affairs of Columbia’s public spaces. She also led the charge to remove Maggie Brown as the Columbia Association president which will create a serious leadership vacuum just as she leaves office. Barbara’s tenure on the CA board has been divisive and highly detrimental to the health and well being of Columbia.

Her departure does not mean that things are likely to get better either. Alex Hekimian, the president for life of the Alliance for a Better Columbia (or as Jud Malone calls it “The Alliance of Bitter Columbians”) is running for her council seat in the village of Oakland Mills. That is akin to jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

What Would You Have Me Do?

I came upon this sign on College Avenue in Ellicott City last week. It is`nailed about eight feet up on tree at the intersection of High Castle Road and College Avenue. The boundaries of Patapsco State Park are little fuzzy through this stretch of road so I am not certain whether or not this sign and the “beautiful waterfall” it refers to are on park land or private property.

That is almost beside the point. What gets me is that someone went through a good deal of effort to create and post this sign that is essentially meaningless. If the poster wants to gain support for rectifying this situation this is not a very effective way to do it. This is merely a shout in the wilderness not a call to action. A call to action would have a name to contact or directions on who to contact. It calls to mind the logic of certain anonymous blog commenter’s.

In any case, I hope to take a hike behind this sign this weekend with my camera to see what it is all about.

Stay tuned.

Dispatch 2 from Spring Training

I meant to post this picture with my earlier post about my "spring training" trip with my college buddies. This is a shot from Thursdays drubbing of the Orioles by Minnesota Twins here in Naples.

Dispatch from Spring Training

I blew out of town Tuesday for five days of “spring training” with nine of my buddies from college. We have held this annual gathering for at least twenty years.

Our spring training is only marginally about baseball but we do take in a game. Yesterday we saw the Minnesota Twins take on the Baltimore Orioles. The hometown boys lost to the Twins 8 to 7.

The rest of the time is spent golfing, boating, eating, and drinking. The boys come from Milwaukee, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, New York, Charlestown and Baltimore. It is not easy to carve time away from family, work and other obligations but I would not miss it for all the tea in China.

For the record, it is partly sunny today, current temperature is 76, the high will be around 85.

In This Months Business Monthly

The title “General Manager of Columbia” has always intrigued me. Some towns have a city manager, some have mayors but Columbia is the only town I know of that has a general manager. Of course it is a little misleading. The general manager of Columbia is not an elected position and the only thing the general manager manages in Columbia is private real estate owned by General Growth Properties. The Columbia general manager is essentially a development director.

Since Columbia is a town that was conceived by a real estate development company the towns’ main development person has always been a pretty high profile position. Each general manager has dealt with a unique set of challenges over the towns forty year history. Greg Hamm will certainly be no exception. I thought it would be fun to dedicate a column to welcoming him.