In This Months Business Monthly

Every so often I’ll write a column, sit on it for day or so, then tear it up and start all over. That was the story with my August column in The Business Monthly.

The August column started out being narrative of sorts about the July meeting of Columbia Association Board of Directors. This was the meeting where a motion, put forward by the boards Planning and Strategy Committee, was to be discussed and voted on. The motion was intended to lay out ground rules for the Columbia Association staff before they sat down with representatives of General Growth Properties to discuss the company’s draft master plan for town center. A key element of the motion was the stipulation that no new roads or buildings would be allowed in Symphony Woods Park. This stipulation was in response to GGP’s suggestion that the park become a more widely used and accessible amenity and a gateway to a renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion. GGP is also proposing that this ‘gateway” would also be an ideal place to locate a new headquarters for the association and possibly a new and larger central library.

Unlike most CA board meetings which are lucky to attract more than ten people, this particular meeting was packed. By the time the meeting got underway it was standing room only. Interestingly, the audience seemed to be evenly split between those who supported the motion and those who felt that it was too constraining and counter productive. The resident testimony ran the gamut from the absurd with comments like “When I moved here I was told that nothing more would be built in town center” to the comical “New roads and buildings in the park would be illegal.”

The attendees also shared a common characteristic. They were mostly boomers. The only young person I saw was a guy named Matt Petr. I told him I was heartened to see a young face in the crowd. He explained to me that he was there to get CA to sign off on some utility easements. In other words, he was working. He didn’t have a clue about the big debate of the evening but he was profoundly affected by it. Matt didn’t get to go before the board until just before 11:00 PM. I guess he got to know Columbia pretty well that night.

At the end of the meeting the motion was modified to allow staff to consider “limited new roadways or buildings of a park related scale.” That sounds ambiguous enough for me.

So I wrote about the meeting. I included all the good quotes I had collected. Then I put it aside and went for a ride. I drove into Town Center, parked in Symphony Woods and looked around. That’s when it hit me.

What happened to the Columbia I used to know?

I went back to my computer and started all over. You can find this month’s column here.

Spotted Today @ Rouse Parkway & Tamar

...then again what do you expect from a Steelers fan.

Seeing the Forest from the Trees

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Some people have been raising a fuss about “the removal of two fifths of the trees in Symphony Woods in order to accommodate buildings.” It's pretty easy to get folks all riled up with statements like that.

I don’t know where the two fifths calculation came from but since Liz Bobo mentioned it in her op-ed piece in the Sun last month it seems to have become gospel.

This exhibit from General Growths draft master plan for Town Center puts the tree removal issue into perspective. When you look at it this way the impact of the new buildings and roads on the park just doesn’t seem that significant.

If the “two fifths” cry is gaining traction in the court of public opinion it is partially GGP’s fault. The graphic depiction shown here is found towards the end of the “Vision in Focus: Sustainability / Environment” presentation that can be downloaded from their town center website. The problem is that this presentation downloads very slowly, even with a good high speed connection. Many people will give up viewing this critical presentation long before they get to this particular exhibit. It’s much easier to hang on to a politician’s sound bite than to wade through a slow loading power point presentation for the real story.

I think someone in tech support at GGP should take a look at this.

Water We Going to Do?

Two days ago we received this water cut off notice in the mail from the county. I asked Mama Wordbones if I should start filling the bathtubs and all available containers while we still had service. Mama Wordbones takes care of the household bills in our household. She did not share my humor in this matter.

“I just the paid that bill and it isn’t even due yet,” she told me. I was instructed to call the the next day to find out what was going on.

It turns out that we were not only ones who received a cutoff notice. According to this story in today’s Sun, 1,047 other customers got them as well.

The woman I spoke with in the Water and Sewer Division of the Department of Finance apologized. She told me they were using a new computer program and they apparently were still going through a learning curve with it. She said she had spent most of the day talking to some very irate people.

I wasn’t irate but Mama Wordbones was. I was just relieved.

Scene This Week In...

Driving by the Howard County Off Leash Park on Hillsborough Road in Ellicott City today I spotted these colorful piles of trash. Being the curious type and it being a lovely day I decided to check it out.

There were three or four loosely scattered piles of what are often referred to as “bandit” signs. Bandit signs are temporary real estate signs. I believe they are only allowed to be used over the weekends and that the owners are responsible for seeing to it that the signs are removed by sometime on Monday.

It looks to me as if somebody was policing that policy today.

From the dog park I scooted down 29 to the Wilde Lake Village Center. I needed to stop in at that particular branch of the Columbia Bank. At 2:30 in the afternoon the village center was a ghost town.

Tonight the Wilde Lake Village Board will meet at 7:00 PM. One the guests will be Kevin Allen from Kimco. He will presumably be there to discuss the proposed revitalization of the village center. A number of people are opposed to the plans which include adding 500 residential units to the property. Kimcos plan will also greatly reduce the amount of retail space in the center. This of course, upsets those Wilde Lake residents who stubbornly cling to the notion that another grocery store will come if only Kimco would just try a little harder.

Ahem.

I know Kevin Allen. He’s a nice guy. I think he’s going to have a rough time tonight.

Down but Not Out

In a previous post I wrote that it appeared as if Altieri Homes was closing up shop. That conclusion may have been a bit premature. According to this story in this weeks’ Baltimore Business Journal, the Columbia based homebuilder is still hoping to avoid bankruptcy. According to story reported by Daniel Sernovitz “the company has been forced to slash its staff from 105 to seven employees, eliminate several communities from its pipeline and turn over much of its construction and marketing work to outside firms. Even with those efforts, Altieri said, the company does not expect to reach firm financial footing for at least another year or more.”

Baugher Update

About a year ago I wrote a little post about a roadside farm stand on New Cut Road in Ellicott City. What I did not share at the time was the ongoing deliberations as to the status of this portion of New Cut Road.

The intersection of New Cut and Montgomery Road has always been a little tricky. Cars looking to exit New Cut on to Montgomery often have a difficult time.

The construction of the new Glen Mar United Methodist Church accross the road from Baughers includes a rerouting of a portion of New Cut Road. This new alignment bypasses the little farm stand. Last year the county was contemplating “dead ending” the section of New Cut that runs in front of the stand. This plan did not sit well with the Baughers who have operated this farm stand for over 70 years.

Yesterday, when I stopped to buy some fresh picked corn, Joan Baugher informed me that the road will now be restricted to turn ins only from Montgomery Road when the road work is completed. The family is pleased with this plan. The little stretch of road that runs in front of the farm stand will be renamed “Baugher Farm Road.”

It remains unclear when this work will be completed and these changes put in place.

Excess Capacity

I met a colleague for lunch today at Sushi Sono. It was an absolutely gorgeous afternoon with a slight breeze, picture perfect day at the lakefront in Columbia. There was only one thing missing…people.

Now I can understand that this time of year lots of folks are on vacation so traffic might be expected to be light but this was striking. Town Center at noon on a beautiful Friday in the summertime was dead.

As I walked towards the restaurant I ran into Barbara Lawson. She was sitting at an outdoor table at the Tomato Palace waiting for Mary Ellen Duncan to arrive. She had the same observation. Barbara told me that she recently hosted a family from Columbia’s sister city, Tres Cantos, in Spain. One night, one of her guests asked if they could take a walk to the lakefront. Barbara lives in the Bryant Woods neighborhood near the lake so this was theoretically easy to do. Theoretically easy perhaps but in practicality it turned out to be a bit challenging. She described racing across Governor Warfield Parkway before the crossing light turn red while hoping that nobody ran that light. She then described navigating through the mall ring road and parking lots.. The light was out at Sterrett Place and Little Patuxent Parkway so that crossing was a little dicey too. When they finally arrived at the lakefront it was much like this afternoon…dead.

They walked out to pier and were looking back at the pretty but empty lakefront plaza when one of her guests uttered “Such a pity.”

The Hand of Hamm

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I’ve been going over the numerous exhibits on the Columbia Town Center website put up by GGP. I enjoy it when I uncover a little detail that I missed when I first started seeing these drawings a few months ago.

My latest discovery is the “Hug” statue park. In the first pubic presentation of GGP’s town center draft plan, a new “street” was shown running through the little park between the American City Building. This immediately raised the ire of CoFoDoCo among others.

One month later, Doug Godine was replaced as the General Manager of Columbia with Greg Hamm. Greg arrived in his new post just as the poinsettia tree dust up was going on at the mall. In one of his first official acts as the new sheriff in town, Greg restored the poinsettia tree tradition and immediately earned himself some serious Columbia brownie points.

The poinsettia tree was saved by the hand of Hamm.

Now it appears that the Hug park has been saved by the same hand.

If you look close at the drawing, you will see that a street no longer runs through the little park. Compare this drawing with the one that Doug Godine showed back in November.

True, there are many more changes from that earlier version as well. This one just seems to have a strikingly familiar “community gesture of goodwill” feel like the poinsettia tree decision. I’m calling it another save by the hand of Hamm.

And, in all fairness, the saving of this little park should also be attributed to CoFoDoCo.

An Expanded Symphony Woods

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This drawing illustrates the extent to which Symphony Woods would be expanded in the GGP draft master plan for Town Center.

If you just focus on the new roads and buildings fronting Little Patuxent Parkway you miss the overall picture.

The Lay of the Land

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I like this exhibit from the General Growth Draft Master Plan for Town Center. It puts into perspective the size of the current Symphony Woods Park that is under the control of the Columbia Association in comparison to the land holdings of General Growth. I think many folks have a misconception of how big the actual park currently is and how big it could eventually be.

If the master plan is accepted as currently proposed, the land devoted to the park would be significantly expanded.

Wegmans Saga Part Five

The Columbia Wegmans store moved a little closer to becoming a reality yesterday. According to this article by Larry Carson in today’s Howard section of the Sun, county hearing examiner, Michelle La Faivre, “dismissed an appeal based on alleged discrepancies in the traffic analysis for the store.”

The opponents however, vow to fight on, even it if they have to go to federal court. Wegmans, on the other hand, is still planning to start construction next year.

CA’s Town Center Amateur Hour

Columbia Councilperson Cynthia Coyle (Harpers Choice) is promoting her own vision of Symphony Woods. In an amazing display of hubris, she and presumably others on the board are suggesting that they have a better plan than the one prepared by professional landscape architects, planners and ecological restoration experts. The Coyle vision is detailed in the picture above.

Not exactly awe inspiring is it?

A carousel dropped down into the middle of the park would almost certainly be an economic failure. It may look pretty but it is doubtful that it can draw enough business on its own to survive without hefty subsidies from CA.

Councilperson Coyle has further tried to rally support for her vision by propagating falsehoods about GGP’s plans. In an email to her supporters she states “that much of what is currently known as Symphony Woods (along the front of Little Patuxent Parkway) would be generally cleared of trees. The plan proposes buildings to be constructed in place of the woods. The buildings would include a new fire station, a new library and museum and the new CA Headquarters.” This statement is both inaccurate and misleading.

First of all, it was CA who first proposed putting their new headquarters in Symphony Woods, albeit at different location closer to Toby’s. Secondly, the idea of a new library and museum was merely a suggestion or “vision” of what could be. Ms Coyle certainly knows that. Thirdly, yes there is a new firehouse in the plan and it is on GGP property that is not part of CA owned Symphony Woods. Surely Councilperson Coyle knows where the property lines are.

Yes it is true that GGP’s proposal calls for a new road through the park and new “cultural amenity” buildings along the Little Patuxent Parkway frontage of Symphony Woods. These developments would necessitate the removal of some trees but it would certainly not result in the park being “generally cleared of trees.” Ms Coyle also fails to mention the reforestation with over 9,000 new trees that GGP has proposed.

Then again, what to expect from someone who has difficulty spelling symphony?

Good News for Howard County Coffee Lovers

This old dog is a big fan of the brown beverage. I was even able to make the transition from caffeinated to decaffeinated after my unfortunate health event last fall. In fact, as I bang out this post, I am enjoying a cup from the Orinoco coffee shop.

The good news for Howard County coffee lovers is that while Starbucks is closing some 600 stores across the country, none of those closings are in our fair county. In fact, we will have a net gain when a new Starbucks opens in the Shipley’s Grant development on Waterloo Road. I have previously referred to this area as Columbicott City since it straddles the border of Columbia and Ellicott City.

Starbucks is closing a total of 12 stores in Maryland including one in Harborplace in Baltimore. You can find the complete list of closings here.

Panhandling Columbia Style Part 3

The construction of the pedestrian crossings at Route 175 and Dobbin Road has given motorists a brief respite from the institutionalized panhandling that has become common at this intersection. On most days, legions of reflective vest wearing people with white buckets have worked the captive audience of vehicles stuck at the intersection. The charity they purport to represent does not appear to be based in Howard County.

It must be a very lucrative spot for them since they keep returning.

Now there is even some competition. In the past few weeks two women have also appeared holding up cardboard signs bemoaning their fate (no job, no money for rent, three kids, etc.) as they work the line of vehicles stopped for the traffic lights. Since these women show up everyday I wondered what they did with those hungry kids and how much time are they devoting to finding real work. My sense is that they have determined that this panhandling is rather lucrative.

Since my office is on Dobbin Road, I regularly encounter these panhandlers in my daily travels. Though I initially tossed a buck or two into the white buckets, I have grown increasingly cynical as time has gone by.

One thought that occured to me as I sat at the light watching them work the cars was the irony of the county ban on roadside selling that went into effect a few years ago. Apparently it is okay to beg for money on the streets but it’s not okay to sell produce.

A Failure of Informed Leadership

Last night at the CA Board of Directors meeting, Chris Tsien accused the board of failing “to take an informed leadership role in caring for the Symphony Woods property.” He went on to point out that the board is now failing “to take an informed leadership role in determining the property's future.”

I think Chris hit the nail on the head.

If it were not so tragic it would be comical. Columbia is facing its most important challenge that will profoundly affect the health and welfare of the town for years to come. The organization that should be the strongest voice for the citizens and lien holders is fumbling the opportunity.

That is not to say that the CA board is being passive. The Planning and Strategy committee passed a motion calling for the organization to oppose the construction of any buildings or roads in Symphony Woods. Last night, they modified that stance to allow for restrooms, a small café, and a carousel.

In other words, they seem to want Columbia to go back to a simpler time instead of embracing the future and thinking about future generations of Columbians.

Last night I only saw one person at the standing room only audience who could be classified as a young person. His name is Matthew Petr and I’m guessing that he was under thirty. I was happy to see him there. Unfortunately it turns out that Matthew was there as part of his job to secure utility easements for AT&T. The poor guy had no idea that the evening would be dominated by a debate over the future of Symphony Woods. He didn’t get to address the board until around 9:30 PM.

Jumping the Gun

Tomorrow evening, Columbia Councilperson (Harpers Choice), Cynthia Coyle is putting forth a motion to oppose any plans to construct buildings and roads in Symphony Woods. She has already gotten this motion through the Planning and Strategy Committee. Ms Coyle hopes to have the full board vote on this motion at the monthly meeting of the CA Board of Directors.

I’m wondering what the big rush is.

On the one hand I share the concern about the details of GGP’s plans for Symphony Woods. In my last post I raised the question about the fate of the Central Library. The library would be bulldozed if the proposed new road alignment in Town Center is approved. As one of the anonymous commenter’s to that post reminded me, GGP has alluded to the possibility of replacing the current library with a new expanded library along the lines of the Cerritos Millennial library in Cerritos California. If you are not familiar with this facility you can find a pretty good description of it here and here. It is a pretty terrific facility.

It is quite possible that the Cerritos model is an appropriate one for Columbia. At a minimum it’s an idea worthy of further discussion.

In any event CA, by virtue of its stewardship of the Columbia lien holders land, gets a pretty sweet seat at the discussion and planning table. In order to best serve the interests of a majority of the lien holders, I would think it was their fiduciary responsibility to consider any reasonable proposition that may improve both the quality of life in Columbia and the value of it’s lien holders real estate.

To be even considering Ms Coyle’s motion much less actually voting on it in haste is both unwise and reckless. No one has formally proposed anything to CA yet. This is akin to hanging up on a conversation. It is unnecessary. It’s ready, shoot, aim!

Choose civility for crying out loud and listen to what GGP has to say.

The Library Question

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A close inspection of the proposed new road alignments around Merriweather Post Pavilion shown in this display at the Vision in View exhibit, reveals that the current Central Library in Town Center is in the path of progress. If you look closely at the circled area of the picture above you can see a faint outline of the existing building.

In other words, the current building does not fit into the draft Master Plan.

I don’t have a problem with this as long as the library gets a new (perhaps bigger and better?) building in Town Center in the deal. The question is what is the deal?

Scene This Week In...

In the days before my daughter attended kindergarten, she spent the days with a daycare provider in Sewell’s Orchard off Oakland Mills Road. During the warmer months I would frequently take her to Pete’s snowball stand on Old Montgomery Road on the way home. She loved visiting “Mr. Pete” and his wife Angela.

Pete Barlas is a 78 year old Greek immigrant who came to this country in the 60’s. His snowball stand and fruit and vegetable stand are a neighborhood fixture. Much of the produce he sells is grown right there.

This past Saturday, as we were running errands, I asked my now 10 year old kid if she’d like to go see Mr. Pete and have a snowball. She thought this was a great idea.

No sooner than we had gotten out of the car Pete came to greet us. When we got to the stand I noticed that Pete had installed some rebar in front of the service window giving it the look of a jail.

“Things gotten a little rough around here?” I asked.

“You didn’t hear?” he replied.

Last September 9th, in the middle of the day, three Hispanic men accosted Pete in his stand. One of the men pistol whipped Pete. They tied him up as he lay on the floor. After stealing the cash out of the stand they accosted his wife and held her hostage while they ransacked his home behind the stand.

Despite this $1,000.00 reward offered by the Howard County Police, no one has ever been arrested in connection with the case.

Pete told me that this episode had changed him. “I think maybe I sell the place and go back to Greece now.”

He did say that the outpouring of concern from his neighbors and customers has been overwhelming and that is what keeps him going.

I hope Pete stays. I also hope that they catch whoever did this awful thing to such a great couple.
Pete and his snowball stand are this weeks Scene in Columbia.

The rock sculptures in the Patapsco River just outside downtown Ellicott City are this weeks Scene This Week in Ellicott City. Much has already been written about this summer “art happening” here and here. I even wrote a post last about it last week.

Still, I can’t get enough of this. I love the spontaneity and lack of permanence of the thing. Everyday you might find something different. I took these pictures late Saturday afternoon.

Kudos to Ellicott City resident Teddy Betts for getting this art thing started.

Vision in View Part Two

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The most informative graphic and detailed plan from the GGP Draft Master Plan “Vision in View” exhibit is this one. If you look carefully you can see the existing road network surrounding Merriweather Post Pavilion overlaid on the proposed new alignment of roads. This clearly shows new roads cutting through Symphony Woods and is certain to raise the most controversy.

Liz Bobo has already laid down a gauntlet of sorts in her op-ed piece in yesterdays Sun. She asks “How can the removal of about two-fifths of the trees in Symphony Woods in order to accommodate buildings be reconciled with the current emphasis on green?”

I think this is a little disingenuous on Liz’s part. By now she certainly knows that the current ecological condition of Symphony Woods is less than ideal. Streams are eroding, invasive plants are taking over and the wetlands are failing. She also certainly knows that GGP’s plans include 22.7 acres of reforestation, 57 acres of forest restoration, 4,800 linear feet of stream restoration, 5 acres of wetland enhancement and the planting of 9,200 trees (these do not include landscaping trees). This information was prominently displayed at the Vision in View exhibit that she attended.

This is bound to be a hot topic in the next few months as GGP advances its request for the zoning changes it needs to move this vision forward.

Rockscape!

Fellow Howard County blogger Annethologie, recently wrote a post on the curious rock sculptures that have been appearing in the Patapsco River in Ellicott City this summer. Today, we learn more about them in this front page story in the Sun by Julie Scharper.

Me and Pzguru

A commenter on this blog, who uses the pseudonym pzguru, has been engaged in a dialogue with me originating with this post. For well over a week now we have gone back and forth on an accusation of impropriety by an elected official that pzguru made in regards to a development project in the village of Oakland Mills.

Pzguru has argued that the county department of planning and zoning, under pressure from Ken Ulman, the county executive, “illegally” granted a zoning variance to the developer of the Meridian Square office project at the Oakland Mills Village Center which will allow them to provide onsite parking at a ratio of 3.5 spaces per 1,000 square of rentable space as opposed to 4.5 spaces per 1,000 rentable square feet as mandated for this type of use (office). An inference has also been made about corruption and a “special deal” since the developer also made a sizable contribution to Ken Ulmans campaign.

Our dialogue had reached the point that I decided to dedicate a separate post to this subject to give it a more complete airing and hopefully to put it to bed.

Pzguru has asserted that, at a public hearing, the county office of law informed the DPZ that they did not have the authority to grant this variance. This was after it had already been granted. I argued that while they may have overstepped their bounds but that this sort of thing is not all that unusual. To me the more important question is who is harmed.

This is not a case where a community is fighting a developer. The Oakland Mills community considers this building an important part of their revitalization efforts.

The developer asked for the variance so they could build a bigger building. The argument they used is that the building site is already surrounded by parking lots that are rarely even half full. The Oakland Mills community supported this argument and so DPZ, apparently overstepping its authority, allowed it.

Giving this project a parking variance should be a non issue. True, it probably could have been handled differently but the end result would probably be the same.

Pzguru argues that actions like this from our elected officials are the reason “why people are jaded and cynical about politicians and have no trust in the government.”

I beg to differ. What I see is a county government that worked with the community and a private developer to help them achieve their goals. They considered the unique situation on the ground (existing excess parking) and determined that a literal interpretation of regulation (creating even more parking) did not make sense in this case.

Pzguru is frustrated that I don’t want to hang Ulman by the balls for this. I don’t. No matter how I slice it, I just don’t see a ball hanging offense here.

Vision in View Part One

Last night I dropped by the “Vision in View” exhibit at the General Growth Properties building in Town Center. The exhibit, which is in the Spear Center on the 4th floor, is made up of panels “showcasing key elements of the draft Master Plan.”

There is some good stuff to see and last night there were also plenty of folks from GGP around to answer questions.

My overall impression was that this exhibit needs to be more visible. The Spear Center is a lovely venue but it is a bit out of the way. Despite the open bar and hors d’oeuvres, the attendance last night at the opening reception was light especially when compared to the crowd that had gathered at the lakefront right next to the GGP building for a free concert. GGP may be better served by placing this exhibit in the mall.

Still, I saw many of the usual suspects. Liz Bobo and Lloyd Knowles were there as was Barbara Russell. I also spoke with Chris Tien, Steve Lee, Fred Gottemoeller, Jud Malone John Slater, Barbara Kelner and Jean Moon.

I’ll post more about last night later today or tomorrow.

The Best of the Best

According to this front page article in today’s Sun about Maryland schools MSA testing results, Worthington Elementary School “achieved a first in Howard County. One hundred percent of third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students at the Ellicott City school scored proficient or advanced in reading. Every elementary school in the county had at least 80 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced in reading.”

Congratulations to the staff, teachers and parents who made this happen.

Go Wildcats!

A Build a Bear Boondoggle

This past Saturday I took six ten year old girls to the Build A Bear Workshop in The Mall in Columbia. The occasion was my daughter’s tenth birthday celebration. We started with a cookout in Ellicott City and then trekked over to the mall for fun and games at the Build A Bear Workshop.

Please note that when I say “fun and games” my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek.

That is not to say that it wasn’t fun and games for girls. They had a blast. I am not sure what it is with girls and stuffed animals but it does seem that, for my daughter and her friends at least, they just can’t seem to get enough of them. My deal for them was that each girl could pick out whatever animal they liked and then they could add up to 15 bucks worth of accessories.

In case you have never been in Build a Bear, the “bear” accessories are where they make the real money. Still, with a 15 buck allowance the girls could have fun shopping for an assortment of things. At some point though, each and every one of them pulled me aside and asked if they could just have just fifty cents more.

I very quickly became the Build a Bear Bad Guy. I held firm to the allowance. No exceptions. It is easy to sound tough in retrospect but in reality it was very hard to refuse their “pretty please” entreaties. This of course only served to prolong the shopping experience as they all tried to get as close to that number as they could without going over. At least, I told myself, I helped them work on their math skills. We were there for an hour and a half. At the checkout I really didn’t have the energy left to make sure everyone towed the line on the budget. The total came to just shy of $250.00. Frankly, I was beat and at that point I was on Build a Bear overload and was just happy to wrap it all up. My mind was already anticipating a nice big glass of red wine when I got back home.

I will say that the store staff was great and they went out of their way to make the experience fun for the girls. That is what really mattered anyway.

The BRP Spyder

I was sitting at the traffic light at Snowden River Parkway and Oakland Mills Road last week when this odd looking motorcycle pulled up next to me.

It is a BRP Spyder and it was just introduced this year. The three wheel bike is manufactured by Bombardier Recreational Products. I’m not sure what the EPA gas mileage rating on this baby is but I do know is that at 14 big ones plus (and that’s if you can get one) I think I’d rather have a roof over my head in one of these.

The Spyder looks pretty sexy in July but no so much, I think, in January.

Altieri Homeless

I heard a rumor last week that Columbia based homebuilder Altieri Homes had closed shop. I decided to try and check it out .

I visited the offices at 9017 Red Branch Road. At 10 AM on a Wednesday morning no one answered the door at the second floor corporate offices or the design center downstairs. The next day I dropped by the sales trailer at their Hebron Manor project in Ellicott City. Though the sign said that the sales trailer should have been opened at that time it wasn’t. I left a phone message for the sales agent but I never received a call back. Judging from this limited bit of research I’d have to conclude that the rumors of Altieri Homes demise appear to be true.

Anytime a business closes it is painful. When a home builder closes the pain is a little more widespread. Consider those folks who bought homes from Altieri in the past year. The chances of getting the builder back to fix any problems are pretty slim. That may be a moot point anyway. Judging from these comments, Altieri wasn’t doing a very good job on the following up thing even before this rumor started circulating.

Of course it is not just the customers that are affected by the sudden closing. Contractors and vendors often get stiffed too. When I stopped by the Hebron Manor project there was one subcontractor on site doing concrete work. I couldn't help but wonder if these poor bastards would ever see a dime for that day’s labor.

A Wii Problem

One of the items on my daughters Christmas list last year was the Nintendo Wii. Like any good father trying to maintain the belief in Santa for just one more year I endeavored to get her one. I also thought it would be a fun activity for us during the cold winter months. I knew the game was popular but I had no idea how difficult it would be to procure this particular toy. I went to every electronics store in Howard, Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties in search of the elusive Wii. The closest I came was the Best Buy store at Arundel Mills Mall. There I was told that they expected a shipment that weekend but that people were expected to begin lining up to purchase one as early as 7:00 AM. They didn’t know how many of the games they were getting and so they couldn’t say whether they would have enough to satisfy everyone standing in line. I decided against this approach.

I did discover that I could find one online. All I had to do was pay three times the suggested retail price. I decided against this approach as well.

In the end, the Wii game did not make it under the Christmas tree. I decided instead to get one for her birthday in July figuring that the Christmas frenzy would be well over by then and that they would be more available.

I was wrong. This week I went to Best Buy, Sears, Walmart and Target. It was just like last Christmas. There were no Wii’s to be found in Columbia or Ellicott City. The only difference this time around was that online the prices were now only a thirty percent higher than the suggested retail price and forget about free shipping.

What is up with this?

Two thoughts nag at me. One, I wonder why Nintendo hasn’t ramped up production to meet demand? They are obviously not benefitting from the online retailers who are jacking up the price.

Two, if the economy is as bad as some would make us believe, how is that a two hundred dollar game console is selling like hotcakes? I would expect that discretionary items such as this would be affected by the slump.

In This Month’s Business Monthly

A lot can happen in five years. People get married, people have babies and people get proven wrong. All three of these events happened in my column this month.

Five years ago this summer I wrote a column entitled “Requiem for Rock Palace.” Five years ago The Rouse Company announced its intention to enclose Merriweather Post Pavilion creating a year round, albeit smaller, arts venue. Gone would be the outdoor music theatre that has hosted such rock legends as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and The Who. The plan was to choke off most of the parking with a mix of office and retail development. If they could get a few more housing allocations from the county for Town Center they’d throw them in there too.

It all seemed so inevitable back then.

Not to everyone though. There were many different forces that came into play that spared Merriweather from the wrecking ball, not the least of which was the acquisition of The Rouse Company by General Growth Properties.

Before that occurred however, another of those forces was a grassroots organization called Save Merriweather. It was formed by four young Columbians, Justin Carlson, Ian Kennedy and their girlfriends at the time, Tanya and Lena. They set out to try and stop the inevitable and five years later you’d have to admit that it looks like they largely succeeded, with a little help from their friends.

Five years later the girlfriends are now the wives and Justin has become a daddy. Everyone still lives in Columbia and they are generally encouraged by what they are hearing from General Growth about the Pavilion and its place in the redevelopment plans for Town Center.

Five years later it is time for me to acknowledge that I got it wrong. You can read this month’s column here.

Judge's Bench Pub

Yesterday, after a very humid nine holes of golf at Hobbits Glen, my buddy Alan and I were ready for a nice cold beer. Unfortunately, since it was Monday and Coho’s was closed, there were no cold beers to be had at the clubhouse. I couldn’t help but thinking, “What kind of golf course is this?”

Since we both live in Ellicott City we decided to head on over to the Judges Bench Pub on Main Street. This was Alan’s suggestion. Though the Judges Bench has been around for a very long time, I had never actually gone into the place. I had always understood that it was one of those joints where, when a stranger walks in, the whole room goes quiet.

Perhaps that was the way it used to be but not so much anymore. 17 months ago Mike Johnson bought the bar and the building it is housed in. He immediately made us feel welcome and told us about some of the changes he’s made, the most notable of which is the addition of 17 beers on tap. The previous owners featured two. The new Judges Bench also features live entertainment every day of the week and has a party room/game room on the second floor.

The one thing he didn’t change was the name.

It was a pleasant surprise and yes, the beer was cold. I cooled off with a pint of Peg Leg Stout and then headed up the hill to home.

Scene This Week In...

Once again I am surprised by how little merchandising is done is for Fourth of July holiday. For the second year in a row Mama Wordbones and I have hosted an Independence Day party for our new neighbors in our new neighborhood. Since nobody lived here three years ago,a few of us have created opportunities for all these new people to actually meet each other outside of the bus stop.

We adopted the 4th of July holiday. I like the 4th. It remains one of those few holidays that always falls on the same date. It hasn’t been corrupted into a hybrid holiday like “Presidents Day.”

Anyway, I went searching for patriotic stuff to deck the place out appropriately (and only marginally tacky) and I had a harder than I expected. Halloween, New Years Eve, St. Patrick’s Day, to name a few, all are heavily marketed. In fact you could say that they are over marketed. Not so much with 4th though. I visited Target, Wal-Mart, Party, Party, Party among others and I gotta tell ya, the pickings are pretty slim.

One exception is the Forget Me Not Factory on Main Street in Ellicott City. While their selection was not what you could still call extensive, it was varied and unique. I dropped a few bucks with them today and I had a good time doing it.

The store is owned by a mother/daughter team, Nancy and Janet. Their most visible pitchman is Barry the Bubble Man. All throughout the year Barry dons a variety of seasonally appropriate costumes and stands in front of the store working an arsenal of bubble wands for the passersby. This weekend he will be Uncle Sam in shorts.
An outpost of Columbia exists in closer proximity to Emerson and Maple Lawn than it does to Columbia. It even has a Laurel zip code. The Columbia Horse Center out on Gorman Road is owned by the Columbia Association but it actually run by Columbia Horse Center, Inc.

My daughter is attending Horsemanship Camp at The Columbia Horse Center this summer. Two years ago she attended Pony Pals there too. They are a great group of folks and the kids seem to be having a great time.

I made them my Scene This Week in Columbia because I've always liked the "Whoa" sign.

Hold On A Minute Larry…

At least that’s what my buddy Jim Binckley says. Jim was taking exception at Larry Carsons depiction of Oakland Mills as Columbia’s “second oldest village.”

That distinction belongs to the Village of Harper’s Choice. Oakland Mills is actually the third oldest village in Columbia.In any event, I briefly stopped by the Oakland Mills birthday celebration this past weekend and snapped this shot. Recognize anyone?

Festival Load Out

The 21st annual Columbia Festival of the Arts ended Saturday evening with a performance of the East Village Opera Company at The Jim Rouse Theatre.

Today it was time to pack up the remnants of the sixteen day arts celebration.

Each year the festival hosts a public art project. This year’s project was called “Taking Flight with the Arts, Create a Bird House. For 25 bucks anyone could pick up a bird house kit from the festival offices and create their own vision of a bird house. The completed bird houses were then put on display and sale, first at the three day Lake Fest and then in the Jim Rouse theatre for the ticketed events.Amongst the 50 or so bird house entries was this one that I carried back to the festival offices. It was submitted anonymously and it was the only one not given price for purchase. I thought it was a rather poignant statement on the deepening housing crisis in America right now.

The New, New City

This weekend I got caught up on some reading. I almost always save the magazine section of the Sunday New York Times but I don't always get enough time to read it. Consequently, it doesn’t take long for a collection of them to fill the magazine basket. To manage the process, I mentally assign some issues a higher must read priority. The June 8th issue fell into that category. It was the architecture issue and the topic was The Next City.

The first article that caught my eye was entitled “The New, New City.” Though the article is mostly about large real estate developments in Shenzhen and Dubai, it still provides a perspective on development that is relevant to the discussions about density and development in Town Center and perhaps Howard County in general.

One of the architects featured in the story is Steven Holl, the architect of Linked Hybrid in Beijing, which the writer described as having “a surprisingly open communal spirit. A series of massive portals lead from the street to an elaborate internal courtyard garden, a restaurant, a theater, and a kindergarten, integrating the complex into the surrounding neighborhood.”

“In America I could never do work like I do here. We’ve become too backward-looking. In China, they want to make everything look new. This is their moment in time. They want to make the 21st century their century. For some reason, our society wants to make everything old. I think we somehow lost our nerve.”

Ahem. While I don’t think we necessarily need to “make everything look new”, I still find wisdom in his words. He also goes on to explain that “what makes it possible is density.”

And there you have it.

Collateral Damage

The meltdown of residential real estate in the past two years has largely been the story of financial shenanigans in the mortgage business and troubled homeowners who, as a result of rising rates and falling values, have gotten upside down on their mortgage.

But there is collateral damage to this meltdown as well. Plumbers, electricians, dry wall guys and brick layers are all feeling the pinch.

Today I was reminded that realtors have taken a pretty big hit as well. Approximately three years ago this summer I was involved in the development and leasing of a building called Stevens Forest Green in the Hillcroft Executive Park in Columbia. That summer I negotiated a lease with Keller Williams Select Realtors for 7,000 square feet on the ground floor. This was a new office and a new venture for the veteran real estate brokers who were running this franchise, Randall Nash and Jim Fischetti.

Randall and Jim outfitted the office nicely. They had big plans to fill the space with high production agents.

One year later, the partnership that I was involved with sold the building to Core Plus Properties in Stamford, Connecticut. The sales price of the building briefly held a Columbia record for a Class A office project. The new guys got rid of me and so I lost touch with the project.
Today I drove by and decided to stop in and see how the building was holding up. The Keller Williams Select Realtors office was shuttered. The gold letters of the sign behind the reception desk were peeled off.

Timing was probably the killer here. This office opened just as the residential real estate market peaked and most likely did not have enough time to secure a firm footing before the bottom dropped out.

I’m sure that Randall and Jim are doing fine. They have both been around long enough to have seen a big slump before. Nonetheless I am sure that closing this office in less than three years was not easy to do. I wish them well.

Hope springs eternal in Columbia however. As I drove away from my old building I passed by the HT Brown Century 21 offices on Stevens Forest Road. They had this sandwich board sign out by the curb.

Hanging Shoes

After reading my post about the shoes in the power lines in Scene This Week In…, Jim Binckley sent me a link about “Sneakers on Power Lines.”

While some conjecture that this is some sort of gang symbol others have a different take on the shoes in the wires:

“Another folk belief holds that teenage boys who've just "scored" for the first time — i.e., lost their virginity — are wont to heave an old pair of sneakers over a power line to celebrate the moment and proclaim their conquest to the world (who says teenage boys aren't romantic?).”

I like that better than the gang theory.

Bye, Bye Bridget?

This past weekend as I was informed from two separate sources that the land plan video produced by the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning is going to be edited. The editing will result in the removal of the minute long piece featuring Bridget Mugane, the president of the Howard County Citizens Association. Her appearance in this video was the subject of two previous posts (How Did This Happen and How Did This Happen Follow Up) and my column in last months Business Monthly. Apparently Kim Flowers, the Deputy Director of Planning & Zoning announced shortly become the Business Monthly hit the streets that the video will be modified.

The question of course is when. For now, Ms Mugane still appears five minutes into the video. A friend of mine whose husband works for the county commented, “It's government. Probably only take another 6-9 months to change that minute!”

Stay tuned.

Scene This Week In...

The first thing that caught my eye was the color. A bright yellow car really stands out against a green landscaping and a blue sky. Then what really grabs you is the size. This is a small car, a very small car. It is smaller than a Mini Cooper for crying out loud!

I was looking at a smart fortwo, an interesting little car from a joint venture between Swatch, the Swiss watchmaker and Mercedes-Benz. The EPA gas mileage rating for this pod of a car is 33 city/41 highway mpg. Prices start around $14,000.00.

This smart fortwo was spotted in the parking lot of 6955 Oakland Mills Road (think Ledo’s Pizza and Sizars foodmarket) in Columbia.

It was my daughter who spotted these. We were driving up Frederick Road from downtown Ellicott City towards Rogers Avenue. My daughter was in the back seat.
“There are shoes in the wires daddy,” she comments, “what are they doing there?”

Of course I didn’t see them. I was focused on the road ahead among other things. Then again, I really didn't have to, I’ve seen shoes hanging from telephone wires before. I told her that sometimes people just toss a pair of shoes up into the wires for no good reason at all. That seemed to be a good enough answer for her.

Today, when I found myself heading up the same stretch of road, I looked for those shoes. I don’t know how they got there but I do know that at some point those laces will rot away and a pair of Nike hiking boots will return to earth. On the other hand, those are probably nylon laces so it could take awhile.

For the Film Buffs Out There

The Columbia Festival of the Arts is hosting an Independent Film Forum this Sunday at the Howard County Central Library. It’s free. More details here.

Traffic! What Traffic?

An anonymous commenter on my last post (They Just Keep Coming) wrote that it “is impossible to get near Town Center today…” He goes on to argue that Town Center can’t handle any more housing because of the traffic.

I thought of this anonymous commenter as I cruised through Town Center today. Fortunately I had my trusty camera with me so I decided to document the ease of travel this afternoon around 2:00 PM.

In order to somewhat limit my risk exposure from driving and filming, I can only offer these two brief clips. The traffic was moving so well that I wasn’t able to devote much energy to filming if you catch my drift.

This first clip is traveling west on Little Patuxent Parkway towards the Governor Warfield Parkway split.

This second clip is coming down Vantage Point Road to Little Patuxent Parkway.

And speaking of Town Center…

If you are interested in General Growths plans for Town Center, you might want to check out their Town Center website. You can also get to it by clicking the link “Columbia Town Center” under Links of Interest on the right hand side of this here blog. I had not checked it out in awhile and so I was pleasantly surprised to find videos and transcripts of the April 28th public meeting and the other public meetings that GGP has hosted with its various consultants.

In many ways the website is much better than that public meeting. Now you can download the power point presentation that they should have showed that night if everything had been working right.

They Just Keep Coming…

My sources tell me that Carrolton Bank is moving it’s corporate offices to Columbia. Fittingly, the bank will be moving into part of the space that formerly housed the corporate offices of BGE Home. BGE Home moved to someplace like Essex last year.

This is yet another corporate headquarters deal for Columbia Gateway, arguably the premier office park in the Baltimore Washington corridor. It has also surpassed the Town Center area as the preferred corporate location. Columbia Gateway now has approximately 150,000 more square feet of office buildings than Town Center. That doesn’t include the 400,000 square feet of new space under construction in Gateway. There are no new office buildings underway in Town Center.

What’s the attraction?

The availability of new Class A space is the main thing. In Columbia Gateway, The Rouse Company and now General Growth Properties have been content with selling land to third party developers who in turn built the office projects. With prime real estate abutting I-95 in the middle of the Baltimore Washington corridor, there was no shortage of developers ready to put up speculative office buildings.

In Town Center, office development stopped in 1992 with the completion of 11000 Broken Land Parkway which was then the headquarters of the Ryland Group before they moved to California. The last third party office development in Town Center was the Merrill Lynch building in 1982. All of the remaining office development land in Town Center is owned by GGP.

GGP needs to make Town Center successful. They are now competing with a monster that they created. They have to make a pretty compelling argument to lure potential prospects down the road from Gateway.

And sooner, rather than later, they really need to build something.

Scene This Week In...

I was driving into the Wal-Mart on Ridge Road in Ellicott City when this sign caught my eye. I can’t figure out whether it means a ban on overturned trucks or that entering the lot upside down is prohibited. In any event, it seemed worthy of recognition for Scene This Week In Ellicott City.

The Columbia scene is of Tony Walker and Icarus One. Tony was one of the entries in today’s Kinetic Art parade at the 21st Annual Columbia Festival of the Arts. Tony is a Pediatric Operating Room nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His Icarus One bike is powered by both a solar cell and a wind turbine. According to Tony, the bike “was created entirely from discarded items bound for the landfill. You can learn more about him at http://galleryid8.com/.

He is pictured here with Columbia attorney Chris Tien.

The 21st Annual Columbia Festival of the Arts

This weekend the Columbia Festival of the Arts kicks off it’s 16 day community celebration of the arts with the three day LakeFest in Town Center. There will be a “juried and invitational” Art Park with over 50 artisans, and two stages with continuous entertainment beginning this evening at 5:00 PM with the Rhodes Tavern Troubadours and ending on Sunday evening 5:00 PM with Deanna Bogart and the Glenelg High School Jazz Ensemble.

Tomorrow, the festivities get started at 11:00 am with a Kinetic Art Parade in Town Center.

Be sure to pick up one of the festival programs when you go and look on Page 14. There you will find the names of your neighbors who have given monetary support to make this festival happen. It is interesting to note that while you will find the names of Liz Bobo and Lloyd Knowles (thank you very much), you won’t find Alan Klein, Bridget Mugane or Angela Beltram or some of the other folks who claim to speak for the citizens of Howard County.

Most importantly, look at the names on pages 18 and 19.These are the all important festival volunteers. The festival would not happen at all without the dedication and hard work of these people and for that this old dog is most appreciative.

Let the festivities begin!

Score Another Corporate HQ for Columbia

In today’s Baltimore Sun, Tricia Bishop reports that Integral Systems is moving its corporate headquarters from Lanham to Columbia. The company will move into the Gateway Exchange III building at 6721 Columbia Gateway Drive. The building, which is being developed by Columbia based Corporate Properties Office Trust, is scheduled to be completed this November and Integral is expected to move in “early next year.”

This is the second recent corporate headquarters relocation from Lanham. Last month, Merkle moved its corporate headquarters from Lanham into a new building in Columbia Gateway. Merkle bought 450 employees to Columbia and Integral will add 230 employees.

Anytime a new corporate headquarters moves to town, it is a very good day.

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night…And I Liked It!

Okay, the whole “open thread” thing was really just a lazy way of getting something up on the blog today. Ever since Gordon Mumpower put the word out that I wasn’t posting enough I’ve felt compelled to post more regularly. It is not that Gordon holds some kind of power over me or anything like that. It’s just that when I hear something like that, be it Gordon or some other acquaintance, I often hear my mother’s voice in the background.

Alright already mom, I hear ya. I’ll write a real post today.

My real post is about is last nights storm. It was a dandy. I should note here that I love a summer thunderstorm. Last night I stood just inside my open garage door and watched it roll into from the west. As the storm approached and the winds kicked up I could feel the air charged with electricity. Someone once told me something about the negative ion thing but all I know is that it just felt rejuvenating.

Around 8:30 PM our lights went out. Out came the flashlights and candles. I dutifully dialed the BGE Power Outage hotline and a live, real honest to god person answered and told me they were aware of the problem and that a crew had already been dispatched to fix it. No problem, the same thing happened a couple of weeks ago and the power came back on at 4:00 AM.

I got up at 5:30 AM to go for a run. It was a gorgeous morning. We still did not have power. The talk at the bus stop was all about the power failure. Several of the parents had phoned BGE numerous times. A few were getting agitated. That made me think of this article I read in the Washington Post this past weekend. Life without electric power takes an adjustment period for some I suppose. The latest word was that BGE expected to resume service around noon.

Perfect. I had to come back today at noon anyway. Today is one of three half days the HCPSS tacks on at the end of the school year. I drove to my office in Columbia, charged up my laptop and my mobile phone just in case and then left at 12:30 PM.

When I arrived back at the bus stop I quickly learned that the power still was not back on. I was even asked if I had heard anything. No, I hadn’t.

It is now 3:00 PM in the afternoon. I am sitting in my screened in porch. My daughter is across the street playing with her friends. It is quiet, sunny and there is even a gentle breeze. There is still no electric service so I can’t get on the internet but my laptop is fully charged so I can write. I’ll just post it whenever I can.

My mobile phone is also fully charged so I can call my sister Nancy in Raleigh, North Carolina. Yesterday was her birthday.

I think mom would like that too.

Post Script: The power came back on at 7:30 PM, approximately 7,000 customers of BGE were still without power at that time, down from a total of 78,000 last night. BGE expects to have everyone reconnected by 7:00 AM tomorrow.

Open Thread

This blog has never hosted an “open thread” before so I figured it was time to give it a try. Much like open phones on talk radio programs, an open thread is a chance for the readers of Tales of Two Cities to weigh in on any topic.

Also, recently I made a few minor changes to the layout of Tales of Two Cities. One of those changes was the addition of a daily dose of the Dilbert comic strip by Scott Adams. I have always been a fan of the strip and his humor. You can find Dilbert by scrolling down the right side of the page.

I have also added a widget that tracks the stock markets from all over the world. It provides an interesting snapshot of our global economy and I’ve titled it “Follow The Money.” You can also find it by scrolling down the right side of this page.

So please, feel free to post a comment about these changes or anything else that’s on your mind.

Man It’s Hot Out There!

I’ll bet the students at Howard High and Marriotts Ridge High School aren’t complaining though. Both schools ended their days early today due to “malfunctioning air conditioning.”

Not bad for a school week that already has half days on Wednesday, Thursday and finally, the last day of school, Friday.

For all intents and purposes, come on now; sing it with me….schools...out...for...summer….

Ping Pong Balls Are a Seasonal Item

Last night my stepdaughter played hostess to five of her college aged female friends for a sleepover. One of the requisite activities for a gathering of young adults these days is the game of Beer Pong. Though I have witnessed the game being played on other occasions I was mostly unfamiliar with how the game is actually played and it’s myriad of rules.

As with any college drinking game, the rules appear to be subject to regional interpretation and can be fluidly applied, so to speak.

In any event, as we were preparing for the arrival of her guests, we belatedly discovered that we had no ping pong balls in the house. Mama Wordbones had ditched the old ping pong table before we moved into our new home two years ago and with it went the stockpile of ping pong balls. I volunteered to make a quick run down to the Target store at the Long Gate Shopping Center in Ellicott City to get some.

After three or four passes through the sporting goods aisles failed to reveal any ping pong balls I sought out the assistance of one of the red shirted employees. The Target guy went back over the same turf I had exhaustedly examined and reached the same conclusion that there were not any ping pong balls in the sporting goods section.

He reached for his walkie talkie and called in for assistance, “Does anyone know if we carry ping pong balls?”

“It’s a seasonal item, we only carry them in the winter season.”

Interesting. While I can understand that the game of ping pong is more likely to be played indoors in the winter, it still occurred to me that on a day when the heat index soars over 100 degrees, ping pong playing indoors in a cool basement could be a welcome respite from the heat.

It is also likely that across this fair county of ours, in the homes where college students have returned for the summer, beer pong players will be practicing their game to stay in shape for the return to college in the fall.

It might be time for Target to rethink the seasonality of this product.

Fowl Play

I’ve just learned that McDonald’s has submitted a Site Development Plan for a 3,886 square foot restaurant with a drive-thru on the site that is currently occupied by Boston Market at Snowden Square. The 1.15 acre property changed hands two years ago for $1,725,000.

Though it is still open, it appears that the Boston Markets days are numbered in Columbia, for awhile anyway.

A Hurdle Too High?

At the tail end of an article by Larry Carson in yesterday’s Howard section of The Sun, I learned that County Council added a little caveat to the approval of the purchase of a full floor at the proposed Meridian Square office building in Oakland Mills Village Center in Columbia. The County Council is now requiring that Metroventures, the developer, must “sell or lease at least forty five percent of the 60,000 square foot building before the county makes a purchase.”

That is a very high hurdle for Metroventures. In today’s financing climate most lenders are looking for a significant preleasing or presales commitment on a speculative office project before they’ll release the funds for construction. This means that Metroventures will need to get someone, besides the county, to commit to the project before it comes out of the ground. The difficulty for Metroventures lies in the fact that there is plenty of existing or already under construction office projects that a prospective tenant or purchaser can consider without waiting for Meridian Square to get started. Columbia never has been a very strong preleasing/presales office market…it is more like “build it and they will come.”

I actually think this was a prudent move on the council’s part. As I wrote in a previous post, the Merdian Square office building is really too big for this location. Judging from prior history of office leasing and sales in the Oakland Mills Village Center area coupled with the ready availability of similar office space in other nearby locations in Columbia it will likely take more than two years (following shell building completion) to reach profitability. I have serious concerns as to whether the developer can wait out the length of time it will take to get there. A typical office building development pro forma in this market usually anticipates lease up to profitability in eighteen months.

And that’s in a good market. Right now, the office market in Columbia is somewhat sluggish which is causing existing landlords and developers to get very aggressive in making deals with the few office tenants that are actually in the market. That does not bode well for new development in marginal locations.

I’d give this project less than a 50% chance of starting in the next year…if at all.

In This Months Business Monthly

In case you hadn’t noticed, I sometimes get my inspiration for my column in The Business Monthly from one of my posts here. That was certainly the case this month. My discovery of Bridget Mugane in a starring role in the DPZ video on the county land development process gave me a topic I knew I could have a little fun with.

I also figured it wouldn’t hurt to shine a little light on Ms. Muganes growing influence in the DPZ.

Though I built the story around the notion that Kim Flowers would call me back and tell me how this came to be I never really expected to hear back from her on this. It doesn’t really matter anyway. My objective was to draw attention to the long reach of the tentacles of the HCCA. It also gave me the opportunity to question just how representative of the county HCCA is.

No doubt some will take issue with my calculations and I admittedly took some liberties but I stand by the offer of a free lunch at Clyde’s to the first person that can prove to me that a cross check of the membership lists of the Howard County Citizens Association, The Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown and the Alliance for a Better Columbia would not show that at least a third of the members belong to all three organizations.

That could be an interesting lunch.

You can find this month’s column here.

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.