Happy Repeal Day!

Today marks the 75th anniversary the 21st Amendment to the US Constitution. Seventy five years ago the prohibition experiment ended in America and we could drink legally again.

Not that prohibition stopped anyone from drinking. Yesterday, on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, Kojo did a half hour program on Washington DC during prohibition. One of the stories was about a notorious bootlegger known as The Man in the Green Hat who actually had an office in the capital building to better serve our nations lawmakers.

My favorite tidbit from the show though, was the origin of the Maryland nickname “The Free State.” I guess always assumed it had something to do with the Revolutionary a War or emancipation but apparently I was wrong. According to one of his guests, that moniker was given to our state during prohibition because bootleg liquor moved so freely across Maryland’s borders.

So go out tonight and support your local innkeeper. Appropriately enough, it is a good weekend for the two cities bar scene. The Second Chance Saloon is opening tonight in the Oakland Mills Village Center in Columbia and last week the Diamondback Tavern opened on Old Columbia Road in Ellicott City.

Cheers!

Scene This Week In...

This picture could have been taken in January or February. Looking at this scene you would not have a clue that it is December and only three weeks from Christmas. Outside of the mall, there is very little evidence of the holiday season. Columbia at Christmas is pretty drab.You can’t mistake what season it is in Ellicott City. Public and private buildings sport wreaths, red ribbons and garland. The town has a festive holiday feel.

In This Months Business Monthly

Some months I struggle to write something that I feel is relevant with an added touch of humor. Weeks before last months deadline I began asking friends and colleagues for ideas and suggestions. It didn’t help that the paper had an earlier deadline than usual because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

None of the suggestions I received provided me with that creative spark I was looking for. A bottle of wine didn’t offer much help this time either though on other occasions this strategy has helped, sort of.

Just as I was floundering around for a topic I ran across a letter to the editor that Barbara Russell sent to The Sun calling for a halt to consideration of General Growth Properties proposed zoning changes for Columbia Town Center. As much as I dislike Barbara and her cockamamie interpretations of what Jim Rouse intended for Columbia I was grateful for the creative spark she provided.

Barbara believes GGP’s plans are irrelevant given their current financial issues. I happen to think that Barbara is irrelevant. Thankfully she no longer serves on the Columbia Council.

You can read this month’s column here.

Red Sky in the Morning

The hardest part is actually getting out of bed. Once you get past that it gets considerably easier and if you have the right clothes a morning run this time of year can be richly rewarding.

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailors delight.

A General Malaise

“You can’t shit a deal”

That’s what a prominent local developer quipped to me during the last recession. This week The National Bureau of Economic Research formally declared that the recession began last December. This was no news to the local commercial real estate community. Developers have seen the volume of deals steadily decline since at least then. For most, this was the slowest summer for leasing in recent memory.

For the past year brokers have been trying to fill vacant space in new buildings while several tenants vacated or downsized in older buildings. Building owners are offering a variety of incentives to both prospective tenants and their brokers in an attempt to fill the empty spaces. Much of that effort is to no avail.

From my experience, companies are hunkering down. Even those who really need to expand are opting to stay in place and make do with what they have as they wait to see happens to the overall economy regardless of what is happening locally.

And locally we are in better shape than most of the country.

The Baltimore Washington corridor is still poised for strong growth with an influx of more than 20,000 new jobs coming to Fort Meade over the next three years. The only problem is that those jobs won’t really start filtering in here until the fourth quarter of 2009. That doesn’t help a building owner looking for rent paying tenants today.

All across the region, building owners and their listing agents are sitting down trying to figure how to position their empty space against the other guys’ empty space. The few prospects actually looking for space are being heavily courted and the profit margins are paper thin. Most don’t expect things to pick up much for at least a year.

That’s not exactly a cheerful note to end the year on.

Back to Blogdom

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday is behind me and with Christmas bearing down on me like a diving Dow, I can get back in the swing of posting here.

The big news, reported in the blogs first by Dan over at Columbia Talk, is the second armed robbery in Clarksville this fall. This time the target was the Pizza Hut. The only thing I have to add to what has already been reported is a comment I heard secondhand from the franchise owner, John Schultze. John is reportedly upset with both the police and the press for reporting that the employees used a cell phone to call 911 from inside the locked freezer. John apparently believes that by divulging this bit of information the press has given a heads up to all future armed robbers to check their victims for cell phones before leaving the scene. I happen to agree with him.

Also reported by Columbia Talk is the upcoming Midnight Madness shopping event in the historic district of Ellicott City this Friday. Stores and restaurants will be open until midnight as well as the B&O Railroad Museum. The B&O Railroad Museum is currently showcasing its Holiday Festival of Trains. The county has suspended parking fees in the historic from now until the end of the year.

This weekend might be a good time to check out the new Diamondback Tavern which opened last week. The tavern is located in the space formerly occupied by the Tiber River Tavern on Old Columbia Road just up the hill from Main Street.

Ah, it’s good to be back.

Holiday Travel Travails

I am traveling with my daughter to Magnolia Springs, Alabama for the Thanksgiving holiday. Chances are that the average reader of this blog has never heard of Magnolia Springs, Alabama. There is a very good reason for that. It is in the middle of nowhere.

Well not exactly nowhere. It is about an hour west of Pensacola, Florida. Compared to Magnolia Springs, Pensacola is a big city. Compared to any city I know, Pensacola is hardly a big city. According to a 2006 US Census estimate, Pensacola has a population of around 53,000. That is smaller than Ellicott City (US Census estimate for Ellicott City is 56,000).

What this means to holiday travelers like my daughter and I is that you have to go through Atlanta to get there. In many small southern towns like Pensacola the locals will often quip that to get to heaven or hell you’ll need to go through Atlanta to get there.

Right now my daughter and I are sitting in Atlanta. We arrived here a little after 5:00 PM. Our connection to Pensacola doesn’t leave here until 9:55 PM. This is one brutal layover. I am sitting here wondering why I didn’t just fly here, rent a car and drive to Magnolia Springs. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20.

We are making the best of it though. Peanut passes the time with her Nintendo DS while I hop on a Boingo wireless connection and work on a blog post. Our seats at the gate are valuable real estate. We watch as others hover around us looking for a spot to drop. We make sure at least one of us always stays with the seats.

Soon we will board another plane for the final leg of our journey.

It can’t come too soon.

Ollie’s Is Coming

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet will soon open a new store in the Columbia East Marketplace. The eclectic discount retailer has signed a lease for 33,000 square feet in the shopping center located at the intersection of Route 175 and US Route 1 in Jessup. This shopping center was originally developed to be an outlet center but that strategy never really worked out for the previous owners. Atlantic Realty Companies purchased the center from the Burlington Coat Factory and recently completed an $8 million renovation of the property.

This Dog Can Dance!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Did It Really Happen?

This past Monday I put up this post about a shooting in Savage. Over the following days I kept scanning the newspapers for the story thinking I’d do a follow up post with a link to it.

I never saw anything about it in The Sun, The Washington Post, The Columbia Flier or The Howard County Times.

This got me wondering if in fact it really was a shooting. It certainly appeared that something major had occurred. The Royal Farm store was roped off, detectives and uniformed police officers were all over the scene and one of the even asked that I not take pictures. When I asked one of the workers at the quick lube place next to Royal Farms what happened they told me there had been a shooting and that the victim had been carted off to the hospital.

Are things that bad in Savage that a shooting isn’t deemed newsworthy?

Somehow I doubt that.

Still, I’m left to wonder what actually happened Monday afternoon at the Royal Farm store in Savage

Main Street Awash in Wine

As I was perusing the pages of the Howard section of The Sun this morning, I noticed a liquor board hearing for a “900 square foot tavern located at 8210 Main Street.”

That address sounded vaguely familiar. It is in fact the space that was formerly occupied by Annabel’s. The new place will be called Pure Wine Café.

According to this sign the place will open sometime this winter.

It is shaping up to be a pretty good winter for tavern goers in the old mill town. There is also a liquor board hearing notice posted at the Diamondback Tavern. As I drove by I saw activity inside. I’m guessing they hope to open soon too.

And there is also the Wine Bin though I am not clear as to whether they will actually have a wine bar. The license they’ve obtained is for package goods.

No matter how you cut it, it’s all good for Ellicott City.

At Least the Lawyers are Making Money

The seemingly never ending saga of WCI’s proposed luxury condominium tower in Town Center continues. Despite the facts that the sales center has closed, the deposits returned and the website taken down, the lawyers for the developer have continued to press their case against the legal standing of the towers litigious opposition.

According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun today, “the Court of Appeals announced last week that it has agreed to examine the lower court decision, which determined that a plaintiff who lives in a condominium next to the tower site has legal standing.”

Although it remains questionable as to whether WCI will actually build this building it does make sense for them to continue to defend their right to build it. A property is worth more with the entitlement to build in place than it would be with a legal issue left unresolved.

In this way, WCI is in the same boat as GGP with its request for zoning changes in Town Center.

So while the steel erectors, architects, and real estate agents wait for an actual building and a better economy, at least the lawyers can make a few bucks with a proposed building and a bad economy.

More Than Just Fifteen Thousand New Trees

The folks over at Columbia 2.0 have put up a nice little video tour of GGP’s proposed plans for Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion. You can find the video here.

Much Better

2007

2008

What a difference a year makes!

Last December, in The Washington Post Marc Fisher wrote two columns about our poinsettia tree. Most people were aware of the first one in which he told the story of GGP’s decision to end this holiday tradition (in which he mistakenly identified GGP as “Greater Growth Properties”) but not everyone saw his follow up story which told a much more personal story of the tree. You can find the story of the poinsettias tree’s creator here.

For more on last years poinsettia tree protests check out this post, this post and this post.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Shooting in Savage

As I was cruising down Route 1 this afternoon I noticed a good deal of police activity around the Royal Farms store in Columbia Junction. As I approached the store I saw that it was roped off with crime scene tape.
A bystander informed me that a man had been shot multiple times as he exited his truck on the side of the store.

My Dry Cleaner

I’ve been going to the same dry cleaner every week for years. Yang Soo Kim runs Hans Dry Cleaners and Tailors on Oakland Mills Road just off Snowden River Parkway. She’s the best.
Last Friday afternoon it was rainy and gloomy out but inside her shop I was greeted by the same warm smile I’ve grown accustomed to over all these years and, just like that, it didn't feel so gloomy anymore.

Tough Sledding for Santa

Back in the day when I was working as a marketing director for The Rouse Company, tradition held that Santa would arrive for the holiday season on Black Friday. Over the ensuing years the arrival of the big guy moved up to the weekend before Thanksgiving.

In an ever increasing effort to jump start the holiday shopping frenzy, Santa now arrives two weekends before Thanksgiving.

It feels way too early. Friday night at the mall the poinsettia tree was still without poinsettias and the lines for the Santastic experience were non existent.

And all the poinsettias and holiday décor can’t cover up the harsh realities of the current economy.

All about Trees

My friend Dave Forrester used to say that there are more trees in Howard County now than there were before Columbia came along. Dave is a former development director for The Rouse Company. We used to bust on Dave by calling him “Dave De-forester” to which he would usually bring up this tree fact.

My response to him was always “who actually counted the trees before Columbia was built?”

Well it appears that somebody has been counting trees, and not just in Howard County. As I drove to work on Wednesday I heard this story by Robert Krulwich about trees on NPR. According to the story, NASA can now “calculate roughly how many trees we have on Earth.”

As it turns out, there are approximately 400,246,300,201 trees on Earth and that works out to about 61 trees for every man woman and child on the planet.

Sounds like a lot doesn’t it?

Well not so much when you consider how many trees we use every year from building materials to golf balls which get their bounce from the gum of the gutta-percha tree. The most mind boggling statistic in the story was the number of chopsticks that are used and disposed of every year. In China alone, some 900 billion chopsticks are discarded annually which equates to about 25 million trees.

The good news is that trees are a renewable resource. The even better news is that, according to this recent post in Columbia Talk, another 1,000 trees will soon be planted in Howard County Parks.

You can read more about trees in Columbia here.

Another Local Merchant Expands

Feet First isn’t the only local retailer placing a big bet on the continued growth and prosperity of Howard County. Eric Stein, the owner of Decanter Fine Wines in the Hickory Ridge Village Center, has opened a second store in the new retail center in Shipley’s Grant.

The Wine Seller is the first new store to open in this well designed small shopping center. It will soon be joined by Starbucks.

I dropped by the store last night and was generally impressed. While they are still in the process of installing store fixtures and wine racks, it is already apparent that this store will offer a nice selection of wines.

Scene This Week In...

It’s that time of year again, the time when otherwise rational people begin turning their homes into tacky light shows. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against nicely appointed holiday decorations. It’s the elephants dancing on circus balls that get to me. What does that have to do with Christmas?

I was in the Home Depot at Chatham Shopping Center last weekend when my eye caught this year’s holiday décor offerings. Every year it seems that the envelope of tackiness is pushed just a little farther. Technology has enabled a whole new era of holiday overkill.

A few years back, an enterprising electrical engineer named Carson Williams outfitted the outside of his home in Mason, Ohio with lights synchronized to the Trans Siberian Orchestras “Wizard in Winter” orchestration. The resulting video became a phenomenon the internet and subsequently was even featured in a beer commercial. This year you can actually purchase your own home light show synced to music for around three hundred bucks. No doubt some of these will debut in neighborhoods around Howard County this holiday season.

For this reason, this elephant décor item is this week’s scene in Ellicott City.

With all the gloomy economic news it is nice to see a local merchant who is thinking of the future. For as many years as I can recall, Feet First has been a mainstay of the local running scene. The locally owned athletic shoe store has served Howard County soccer and running enthusiasts’ since 1979. Up until last month all those years were spent in a small corner store in Wilde Lake Village Green.

Times change. With the arrival of new competition like Road Runner Sports in Gateway Overlook, Jeffery and Karen Cohen decided to up their own game by relocating into an expanded space at the Hickory Ridge Village Center. The new store is about twice the size of the old store and carries a lot more merchandise.

I stopped by yesterday and picked up a brand new pair of Asics GEL Kayano 14’s and six pairs of running socks. The new store looks terrific. For their optimism about the future of their business in Columbia, I made Karen and Jeffrey this week’s scene in Columbia.

GGP Stock Trading Below a Buck

At yesterday’s close of the markets, General Growth Properties stock closed at $0.49 per share. In trading this morning it was down another $.06 per share.

With all the bad financial news surrounding the company I was surprised to find that Rich Moore, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets in Cleveland, has an “out perform” rating on the company’s stock.

According to this article in today’s Washington Post, Moore believes the company is trying to “put pressure on creditors and alert investors to the risks confronting General Growth after the company's previous management team was criticized for not being "as upfront as they could be…”

Moore believes that the company’s filing yesterday was meant to send a message to its creditors saying “Let's be real. This is what we're facing. If we don't get it done, there are going to be consequences.”

Stay tuned.

Its Back!

The poinsettia tree is going back up in the center court of The Mall in Columbia. After it’s banishment into the cold as part of the Symphony of Lights at Merriweather Post Pavilion last year (sans poinsettias), the Columbia holiday tradition is returning to its rightful place.

To be honest, I didn’t think this would ever happen. Even when Claire Lea, Sandy Carbotti and Janet Shinski organized a quiet protest demonstration over its removal, I didn’t think there was much chance that it would ever come back.

Thankfully I was wrong.

You can find the posts about last years protest here and here.

Happy Veterans Day!

So how come this federal holiday is not part of a three day weekend?

It’s because the origins of the holiday go back to the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month when the armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany in 1918 at the end of the First World War.

It was briefly homogenized by Congress into a three day weekend in 1968 but changed back to the 11th day of the 11th month in 1978.

You can find the historical timeline here.

GGP Now Using the “B” Word

According to this article by Alby Gallun in yesterdays Chicago Real Estate Daily, General Growth Properties is now openly suggesting for the first time that it may have to seek bankruptcy protection. In a quarterly report filed after the markets closed yesterday, GGP reported that “Our potential inability to address our 2008 and 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts about our ability to continue as a going concern,”

The Sum of a Columbia Man’s Life

I attended a funeral last Saturday. It was for James Binckley, the father of my buddy Jim Binckely. The funeral was held at Christ Church “New” Brick church on Oakland Mills Road. Ironically, for a guy who personified the typical early Columbian he spent his last repose at a church that predated Columbia instead of one of the “interfaith” centers that Columbia pioneered.

Jim and Dottie Binckley were amongst the first families of Longfellow in the Village of Harpers Choice. They bought a new Ryland home on Lighthouse Court in the late sixties for around $33,000.00 and raised six kids on that prototypical Columbia cul-de-sac. The family grew as Columbia grew.

I knew three of the Binckley bunch, Jim, Dave and Betsy. But if you knew any of the kids you certainly knew their dad. He was one of those dads who loved to engage his kids’ friends. If he busted your chops it meant he liked you.

But my acquaintance with Jim’s dad was peripheral at best. That was made very clear to me as I perused the two tables of memorabilia that his family assembled for the reception following the funeral. Amongst the items on display were his college yearbook, his wedding photo, newspaper articles, golf memorabilia and other physical representations of a full and varied life.

Yet what really struck were the photos. There were the early group family photos when the kids were growing up followed by the later photos with an ever increasing clan of spouses, children and grandchildren. In all them there was Jim’s dad sitting in the middle, smiling, happy, and proud.

It struck me that this indeed was the true sum of the man.

Just Horsing Around

My colleague Tom Whelan sent me this video clip today. It is from a security camera mounted in front of a friend’s brothers’ real estate office in Saratoga Springs, New York. Back in the summer of 2007, Roohan Realty installed a horse sculpture in front of their offices as one of thirty four “Saratoga Style” horses in a citywide arts project. The statue was subsequently vandalized a few times which prompted the installation of the security camera.

Last Sunday the camera caught these urban cowboys demonstrating their horsemanship skills. Supposedly these aspiring cowpokes wandered over from a wedding reception across the street.

I think alcohol was involved.

Big Boy Toy Store Closing

According to this story in the Business section of yesterday’s Washington Post, high end electronics retailer Tweeter is closing all of their stores including the one in Dobbin Center in Columbia.

This is becoming an all too familiar story in these tough economic times.

Harris Teeter Coming To Turf Valley?

In a previous post I speculated that Greenberg Gibbons Commercial was negotiating with Harris Teeter for their new shopping center in Turf Valley. In order for that to occur the developer first needed to amend the Planned Golf Course Community zoning to allow for a 55,000 square foot grocery instead of the 18,000 square foot grocery allowed under current PGCC zoning.

According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun today, the County Council voted unanimously on Monday evening to approve this request.

It is no secret that Harris Teeter is trying to expand its footprint in Howard County. They opened their first county store in the Kings Contrivance village center earlier this year and have already started work on a second store in Maple Lawn. A typical Harris Teeter store is 55,000 square feet.

In This Months Business Monthly

“Blue Cross used to be the gold standard of healthcare.”

That is what a friend of mine said to me last month as he articulated his frustration with increasing premiums and declining service. I’m not so sure about the “gold standard” thing but I will say that it seems like my recent dealings with big blue have been more frustrating than they used to be.

Then again, I didn’t used to think much about health insurance. For me it was just like automobile insurance or homeowners insurance. I was happy just to have it and I hoped I’d never really need it.

Sadly that is no longer the case. As I have gotten older heath insurance has become more important because that is what drives the quality of health care I receive and that care begins with my primary care physician.

My previous primary care doc was a good guy. His office, on the other hand, was a nightmare. It was common to sit in his waiting room for at least half and hour after arriving for a scheduled appointment. When I’d finally be ushered into an exam room I’d typically wait another twenty minutes before actually seeing him. I’d then get about ten minutes of quality time. In return for this privilege I paid my big blue insurance company over $300 per month.

I put up with this situation until it literally became unhealthy. A little over a year ago I came home from my morning run and was feeling pretty beat up. At Mama Wordbones insistence I scheduled an appointment with my doc for later that week. When he finally entered the exam room for our “quality time” I told him that my chest felt tight and I was feeling generally lethargic.

“Stop running and see me again in a week.”

Three days later I had a heart attack. I never saw him again. After some research I found a new primary care doc.

Now my doc has decided to move his practice to a non insurance model. He will no longer deal with big blue or any other insurance company for that matter. He does not believe that the insurance reimbursement model allows him to deliver quality care to his patients. If I want to continue seeing him I will need to pay him directly. I have decided that this makes perfect sense for me.

And the response of my big blue insurance company?

They’ve told me I need to pick another primary care physician.

Unbelievable!

You can read this month’s column here.

Fired Up Fan

Apropos to nothing locally, there was this brilliant football fan story by Matt Zapotsky in the Washington Post this morning. After tailgating at the Monday Night Football game at FedEx field, a fan placed hot charcoal from their grill into the trunk of their car before heading inside to the game. The resulting inferno took out a total of ten cars and took the fire department 25 minutes to bring under control.

“…one person whose sport-utility vehicle was burned said she suspects it was a Steelers fan”

The spokesperson for the fire department offered up these words of wisdom “The lesson learned is don’t put hot coals in the trunk of your car.”

Who would have known?

Never Say Never

Back in February I wrote this post about a brief conversation I had concerning yesterdays presidential election. When I was asked who I thought would be our next president I replied that if I were a betting man I’d put my money on Barak Obama.

“Never gonna happen,” was the gentlemen’s reply.

I can't help but wonder what he is thinking this morning.

Election Day Line Etiquette

As I stood in line waiting to vote this morning I chatted up the folks around me like I normally do. The topics we discussed ranged from the waiting time (it wasn’t bad at 10 AM at my polling place) to the Redskins loss to the Steelers last night. Notably omitted was any discussion of politics.

Apparently this is quite common. As I drove to the office I was listening to The Diane Rehm Show on WAMU. She was taking calls from people all around the country sharing their voting day experiences. Those who said they spoke with others while standing in line also said that they spoke about everything but politics. Maybe we are a more civil people than it sometimes appears.

And doesn’t it just figure, the one time I actually rooted for the Redskins they had to go and blow it.

He Makes It Sound So Easy

Once again Alan Klein shows his depth of understanding of an issue. In an article by Jonathan Pitts in The Sun yesterday, Alan demonstrated a keen sense of the Central Library issue in Town Center.

Instead of embracing a plan that could transform an overcrowded functionally obsolescent facility with a world class center of learning modeled on the groundbreaking Cerritos Millennial library, Alan and his CoFoDoCo adherents have opted to lecture us on sustainability.

“"The first rule of sustainability is 'use what you've got,'" Klein said. "Let's put our good ideas into the library we have."”

And just how does CoFoDoCo suggest we do that?

Let’s say for a moment that we could figure a way to incorporate the current building into the type of facility that GGP envisions. The current library building is maybe 25,000 square feet. The type of library that GGP is talking about would require a building of about 90,000 square feet. It would be impossible to put a building that size at the current library location. It just won’t fit.

Scene This Week In...

It can’t be much fun for Greg Hamm these days. No sooner is he ready to advance his case for the redevelopment of Town Center than his company is hit with a perfect storm of a credit crunch that threatens its very existence. Last week, at forum held by Bring Back the Vision, the first question put to him was whether The Mall in Columbia is up for sale. It is tough enough that he has to deal with the local folks who think things are just fine the way they are, he also has to deal with the uncertainty that surrounds GGP’s financial woes. The expression on his face in this photo says it all and that makes Greg this weeks’ Scene This Week in Columbia.

It is that time of year when I start shutting down the home lawn care operation. This year, that task involved removing the blade from electric lawn mower and taking it in to be sharpened. It has been awhile since I’ve had to do that and I wasn’t sure where to take it. I don’t think the chain home improvement stores provide that type of service. The old hardware stores do though and thankfully some of them still exist in Howard County.

I took my dulled blade up to Clarks Hardware on Route 40. This store still looks and smells like a hardware store. Every time I go there I find the staff to be both accessible and helpful. They sharpened my lawn mower blade on the spot for eight bucks.This really should not surprise me. Clarks Hardware has been in Howard County longer than even an old dog like me can remember. The first time I ever visited their store it was located on Maryland Avenue across the street from the train station in Ellicott City. Years later they moved to St. Johns Plaza before finally building their own new store farther up Route 40. Despite all these moves they still provide the same down home local service and for that reason they are this weeks Scene in Ellicott City.

An Uncertain Future

General Growth Properties is on the ropes. In his column in The Sun today, Jay Hanock summarized the depth of the companies’ financial distress.

“It faces a balloon payment of nearly $1 billion, due Nov. 28, which it doesn't have the cash to pay and which it will have extreme difficulty refinancing in this credit market.An attempt to sell up to $2 billion in preferred stock flopped. Hence the need to sell malls, quick.”

And it’s not just the malls for sale either. The company openly acknowledges that anything and everything is for sale.

"We're certainly happy to discuss other properties" with qualified buyers, General Growth spokesman Jim Graham said. "We've had plenty of inquiries about properties all over the country."

Ironically, that may prove to be the company’s ultimate redemption. GGP isn’t the only one trying to unload real estate to raise cash these days, particularly retail real estate. It’s a great time for the few buyers too. Everyone is bottom feeding. No one is going to pay the true value of these assets right now. It may be in GGP’s creditors’ best interest to renegotiate with GGP rather than put them in default. They would stand a better chance of being made whole on their loans if they allow the company to get through this period than they would if they force the company into bankruptcy.

A Ghoulish Tale in Howard County

Just in time for Halloween there was this story by Jonathan Pitts in The Sun today. The Rhee family in Clarksville is claiming that the developer of their subdivision, Highland Development, removed headstones from a 300 year old cemetery on their lot before building a house on it and never revealed this material fact to the purchasers.

No word as to whether the former inhabitants have made their presence known to the newer residents.

Happy Halloween!

A Balanced View

There is a nice opinion piece about General Growths proposed zoning changes for Columbia Town Center on the editorial page of The Sun today. The last paragraph says it all:

“Outright rejection of the plan would set a dangerous course. It could lead to unplanned, piecemeal development of the property with negative consequences for the county, citizens and General Growth. More open communication and compromise would produce a better result.”

Amen to that. You can find the complete editorial here.

Firewater at the Old Firehouse

In a previous post I wrote about a rumor that a wine bar would be the new tenant of the former firehouse on Main Street in Ellicott City. The other day when I was checking out the 90 year old tree that knocked out power in the old town, I spotted this liquor board hearing notice on the old firehouse doors.

It looks like the new joint will be known as the Wine Bin. Their application for a full blown (beer, wine, liquor) Class A-1 license was approved at the Liquor Board hearing this past Tuesday.

Timber!

A big ol’ tree came crashing down in Ellicott City this morning blocking the intersection of Church Road and Main Street. As the tree came down it took some power lines with it which resulted in this fire.

Perhaps it is time to consider burying this spaghetti of power lines on Main Street.

Feelin' Fallish

Last night Mama Wordbones and I cruised through the mall. It was the day before her birthday and we were visiting jewelry stores. We visited six of them to be exact. The one she liked best was Littman Jewelers and the worst was Kay Jewelers.

One of the six we visited was Connell Jewelers. This is a non chain locally owned jeweler. Last night I discovered that the Connells had sold their store. I didn’t catch the new owner’s names but they seemed like good guys. It remains a non chain locally owned store.

Around 7:00 PM this dog’s stomach was growling and so we decided to hop over to Clyde’s for dinner. It felt cold as we walked down to the lakefront.

“Feels like fall now,” I remarked. Mama Wordbones said her feet were cold.

Much to our surprise when we walked into Clyde’s there were more than a few available tables. Later, Paul Kraft, the GM, stopped by our table and he acknowledged that it was an unusually slow Friday night.

“It’s the economy,” he speculated.

Mama Wordbones and I thought that it was the sudden arrival of a chilly night that was keeping folks at home.

It was most likely the economy though. The ripples of the financial crisis are certainly being felt locally. General Growth Properties is facing a “perfect storm” of its own financial crisis. Faced with a heavy load of debt that is coming due they find themselves trying to raise new capital in a very difficult and uncertain lending market. It is not an impossible task but it will take a herculean effort on the part of the company and its dedicated employees to get there. I wish them success.

To raise some cash, the company is soliciting offers for two Town Center office buildings. Neither of these buildings would be affected by the proposed redevelopment plans for that area of Town Center. Even though these Class A office properties are attractive assets they will have a difficult time fetching a top dollar offer given the current environment where most buyers are focused on distressed assets.

By the time we left Clyde’s around eight thirty, all the tables were full. As we walked back outside it seemed as if it had actually warmed up a bit.

Things are seldom as bad as they seem.

Smarter Growth

“Rather than continuing to suburbanize the agrarian landscape, we should urbanize more of the existing suburbs. This is the essence of ‘smart growth’”

In his “Shaping The City” column in today’s Washington Post, Roger Lewis makes the case for the very plan that GGP has proposed for Columbia Town Center. You can find it here.

A Local Snopes

Last night Mama Wordbones and I attended a cocktail reception to celebrate the newly constituted Reese & Carney law firm. On September 1st, Reese & Carney officially became Carney, Kelehan, Bresler, Bennett & Scherr. The event was held in the Great Room at Savage Mill.

I spoke briefly with Jen Terrasa, the County Councilperson representing District 3 (which happens to include Savage). I asked if she was in favor of General Growth Properties proposed zoning changes for Columbia Town Center. Being an adroit politician she avoided making a commitment. I’ll cut her some slack on this since it is still early and no public hearings have been held.

We got to talking about blogging and the internet and its impact on local politics. We both lamented the fact how bad or even outright false information often gets taken for gospel. It was Jen who suggested that it would be great if we had a local rumor checking site like Snopes.com where residents could check the veracity of any local rumor they may have heard. She shared with me how one of her constituents had heard that the council would be voting on GGP’s plans at the end of this month. I could only laugh at the thought that government would ever move that quickly. That only happens when Wall Street needs $700 billion.

But I digresss…

I told Jen that I also thought a local Snopes site would be a good idea. I mentioned to her that James Howard had already created a search engine for local issues. Perhaps he could take that to next level and address this concern too.

Just an idea anyway…

2008 Howard County CoRE Tour

If you were driving around Howard County yesterday you may have been suddenly stopped in traffic by a police escort of three Eyre’s buses. Did you wonder who the hell could possibly be in these buses that they required a police escort?

Was it some foreign dignitaries?

A sequestered jury pool?

Some mortgage brokers being run out of town?

You would probably be surprised to find out it was just a bunch of bankers, developers and commercial real estate brokers participating in the 2008 Howard County CoRE Tour put on by the Howard County Economic Development Authority. This tour is held every eighteen months to highlight the key commercial real estate development projects in Howard County. This was the first year it was afforded the police escort.

Was this a little overkill?

I happen to think so. I have been on similar tours in Anne Arundel County where they have had police escorts so it is not as if this is something that new, it’s just that it is new to Howard County. In my opinion, it really wasn’t necessary and I am not even sure if it helped to speed things up.

Aside from that, it was an interesting tour, as they usually are. I did learn two new things that I was previously unaware of. The first is the plan by W.R. Grace to develop an office park on 70 acres of their existing corporate headquarters campus on Grace Drive in Columbia near the village of River Hill. This is certainly a prime location along the Route 32 corridor.

The second piece of big news is that Trammel Crow has received a signed Letter of Intent for 150,000 square of the 200, 000 square foot Franklin Center building at 6841 Benjamin Franklin Drive in Columbia Gateway. It was just a little over a week ago that I wrote a post about this building and the high vacancy rate in that park.

This is great news for the local economy and it’s a further indication that our area is better off than most areas of the country right now.

A New Hangout for Terps Fans?

I noticed this sign on the windows of the closed Tiber River Tavern on Old Columbia Road in Ellicott City today.

I asked the boys in the office what they thought a “Maryland Style Tavern” was. The consensus was that it would be a place you could get crabs and beer. And, perhaps some terrapin soup as well.

These 19th century buildings are known as Taylors Row. They were originally a collection of barns built between 1830 and 1870 for the “ livery trade.” A little over 10 years ago they were transformed into a restaurant called the Mill Town Tavern which was then replaced by the Tiber River Tavern.

The sign did not give any indication as to when one might actually enjoy a libation again in these old horse barns.

Weekend Words

It’s been a pretty good day. The Ravens won big in Miami. It was a bit chilly but the sun was warm. It’s really feels like fall now. I need a new book.

Actually I’ve needed a new book since late August when I finished “Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America,” by Walter R. Borneman. James K. Polk. presided over the largest territorial expansion of the United States. He was nominated at the Democratic convention in Baltimore.

Now I am in search of another book. Today I saved the book sections of The New York Times and The Washington Post. I haven’t had time peruse them yet though.

My morning started with a supply run. First stop was Costco in Gateway Overlook. At 11:15 AM the lot was packed and the store was jammed. I asked one of the checkout ladies if this was an unusually large crowd for a Sunday and she confirmed that it was. Costco is one of those retailers that benefit from the current constriction in consumer spending.

This was the situation at their gas station. The price for high test was $2.83 a gallon. I don’t quite get that. Last night I filled up with mid grade for $2.99 a gallon at the Carroll Independent Fuel station at Dobbin Center. There was no line. I’m thinking that all those cars idling waiting in line at Costco are burning up any savings not to mention the added pollution.

As I headed for my next stop, the Giant at Lynwood, I lamented the lack of a Harris Teeter that was closer to home. I’m trapped between a Giant and a Safeway.

I suspect that Harris Teeter is angling to open a store at Turf Valley. According to this story by Derek Simmonsen in the Columbia Flier this week, Mangione Family Enterprises, the master developer of Turf Valley and Greenberg Gibbons Commercial are seeking a “major” zoning change that will allow it to expand the permitted size of a food store within a “Planned Golf Course Community” from 18,000 square feet to 55,000 square feet, the average size of a new Harris Teeter.

Turf Valley is the only development in Howard County that has this zoning.

It still wouldn’t put a Harris Teeter store any closer to me but I’ll bet the folks on that side of Ellicott City would like it. At least some would anyway. The owners of the Waverly Woods Shopping Center have already voiced their concern. They are worried that a new grocery store, especially a Harris Teeter grocery store would put their Weiss Markets out of business.

If I were Weiss Markets I’d be worried too, very worried.

There will be a public hearing on this proposed zoning change tomorrow night.

Transportation Trash Talk

Liz Bobo is “skeptical about Columbia gaining mass transit anytime soon because of high costs.” That’s what Derek Simmonsen wrote in the first of a four part series on General Growths downtown redevelopment plan in the Howard County Times this week anyway.

When I read this I thought,”fat chance we can get any government mass transit dollars for rich old Howard County.” Then I wondered if we can’t get mass transit here “anytime soon” when can we?

And what exactly is anytime soon, five years? Ten years? Twenty years?

I think it makes a difference. GGP is proposing a thirty year development plan for Town Center. At the end of that time, not the beginning, there would be 5,500 new residences. Why can’t we start laying the groundwork now so that in thirty years we’ll be in good shape?

Maybe Liz shouldn’t be so shortsighted and think more long term.

And speaking of transportation Alex Hekimian is claiming that GGP’s Town Center traffic study “is not credible.”

Alex believes he knows better since he is a “retired transportation coordinator” for the Maryland-National Capitol Park and Planning Commission. What exactly is a transportation coordinator?

The title calls to mind someone who manages a motor pool. Would that make him an expert on traffic studies?

It certainly would be valid for Alex to have some objections to certain criteria in the study but to say that a traffic study prepared by a professional traffic engineer is “not credible” is both a little over the top and insulting. Martin Wells, that very traffic engineer responded that he “followed the Howard County design manual that lays out guidelines for traffic engineers and the conclusions were similar to those reached by other firms that have studied downtown.”

You can see Martins Wells traffic credentials here. You can see Alex Hekimians traffic credentials here.

Who looks more credible to you?

Scene This Week In...

Earlier this week, this sign popped up on the corner of New Cut Road and Montgomery Road in Ellicott City. The actual property being auction is on College Avenue, about three miles from this spot.

What struck me is that this is an “absolute” auction and that includres real estate and “contents.” Many real estate auctions contain a “reserve” price which enables the seller to reject any offer that doesn’t meet that reserve price. In theory, any bidder who shows up with the $10,000 needed to bid could walk away with the whole eleven acres and even a “Corvette” for that price. In reality it will likely go for much more but one thing is certain, it will be sold by Trac Auctions on November 1st. You can get more detail on the offering here.

I had the opportunity to look at this property about year ago when it was listed with Kimberly Kepnes. As you wind down a rutted dirt road you enter into a place that more resembles Appalachia than Howard County.

It is an unfortunate sign of the times and so I decided to make it this weeks Scene In Ellicott City.

I was at the traffic light at Dobbin Road and Rouse Parkway waiting to make a left turn when I noticed this Choose Civility magnet on the car in front of me. I wondered if the upside down juxtaposition was intentional or a prank. These magnetic stickers are pretty easy to manipulate after all.

Than I wondered if it was intended to be that way, what are we to infer by it?

Seeing this also called to mind the Embrace Hostility blog that comes complete with a full line of Embrace Hostility in Howard County accessories and this “Choose Hostility in Howard County” bumper sticker that I spotted back in early August on the same road

Anyway, I snapped a quick photo before the light turned green with my trusty Sony DSC T100 and made it my Scene This Week in Columbia.

Tax Day

I filed my taxes today, my 2007 taxes. Today is the last possible day you can file your taxes without a penalty. It is truly a day for procrastinators.

I’m not alone either. TW, who sits in the desk next to me, is still working on his and when I picked up my paperwork from my accountants office this afternoon, there were several other clients’ files waiting to be picked up as well.

Since this is the very last day, it is considered a good idea to send them in by certified mail. This necessitates a trip to post office. I’d say it was mildly busy this afternoon. The lady who waited on me smiled when she realized what I was mailing.

“Have you seen a lot of these today?”

“The past couple days,” she corrected me, “though I have seen many more of them today.”

It’s nice to know that there is colony of fellow procrastinators out there. I told her about TW. “How late are you open this evening?”

“Seven o’clock but don’t tell that to your friend”

The clerk standing next to her behind the counter chuckled at that too.

What about BRAC?

An anonymous commenter on my last post posed a simple yet poignant question “So, what’s going on with BRAC? Weren’t we supposed to get huge numbers of jobs that need office space?”

The simple answer is yes…but not quite yet.

BRAC, the Base Realignment and Closure initiative of the US Department of Defense is intended to make the military more efficient by closing some military installations and consolidating activities into others. One of the larger beneficiaries of this initiative is Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County which is just across the Howard County line. Beginning in 2010, 5,400 government jobs will be added to Fort Meade when the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), The Adjudication and Office of Hearings and Appeals Offices, and Defense Media Activity relocate to the base.

According to this article by Raymond McCaffrey in the Washington Post, “The transfer of DISA positions to Fort Meade will be part of the anticipated growth of 22,000 defense and private-sector jobs related to BRAC, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which considered job gains at the National Security Agency, other defense-related organizations and businesses leasing property at Fort Meade.”

The rule of thumb for commercial office space is approximately 170 square feet per employee. That equates to approximately 4 million square feet of new office space demand over the next three years.

While this is all good news for the long term, it doesn’t offer much immediate relief for those owners with empty buildings today.

Happy Columbus Day!

Today was one of those “optional” holidays. Government offices were generally closed. No mail. No banking. No trash pick up and so on. On the other hand schools were open, the stock market was open and, for more than a few companies, it was business as usual.

Or not.

Because it has become a sort of optional holiday, finding someone to actually do some business with you on Columbus Day can be a bit of a crap shoot.

For me, the day started with an appointment with an existing client. This particular client had recently eliminated a self funded start up and thus their space needs had been significantly reduced. Unfortunately, they still had a few years of lease term left. This is hardly an isolated occurrence. The recent economic slowdown has resulted in an increase in the amount of space offered for sublease in Columbia.

As I left the appointment I heard on the radio that the Dow was up 400 points or so.

At noon I met Ed Ely for lunch at the Ellicott Mills Brewing Company. Ed and I go way back. He used to be the guy you had to see if you wanted to buy any land in Columbia. But we apparently go much farther back than that. He knew my older sister Pat from Catonsville days when they both attended St. Mark CYO dances!

I told him a little about my morning meeting and the overall state of the commercial real estate market in Columbia. It has been pretty slow since the spring. Today, according to CoStar, the office vacancy rate in Columbia Gateway is 21.6% but when you factor in the available sublease space it jumps to 24%. Town Center is actually fairing a little better in this regard. The office vacancy rate in Town Center is currently 15.9% with the sublease space only jacking it up to 16.2%.

When I got back to the office the Dow was up 600 points.

Later in the day I had to drop off a couple of checks. One I had to take to my accountant, whom, I should mention, is the best dam accountant on the planet earth and another one to the HCEDA 2008 CORE Tour. This is a half day symposium and bus tour covering commercial real estate in Howard County. I’m happy to report that the HCEDA offices were open for business today.

As I left their offices in Columbia Gateway, I decided to take a look around the park to see what a 21.2% vacancy rate actually looks like. It was just too nice of day to rush back to the office.

It is relatively easy to see. The vacancy rate for this part of Columbia is largely due to three buildings that stand within a quarter mile of each other. All are new, never been occupied buildings. The oldest one is 7021 Columbia Gateway Drive. This building was finished over a year ago and was once even offered for sale. Today the doors were locked. This counts for 105,215 square feet of the vacancy.

Just a little further down the road is 6811 Benjamin Franklin Drive. This buiding was finished in March. It adds 57,600 square feet to the vacancy rate.

The third building is 6841 Benjamin Franklin Drive. The building, known as the The Franklin Building, is just now nearing completion. It adds 200,573 square feet to the vacancy rate.

As I drove back to the office the radio announced that the Dow has closed up over 900 points. It was some kind of record.

Happy Columbus Day!

Portable People Meters Proliferating

Over three years ago I read an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about an evolutionary business change that Arbitron was making. Locally based Arbitron is in the business of rating and measuring the audiences of radio stations. For as long as I can remember, they accomplished this by getting randomly selected listeners to fill out a diary of their daily radio listening habits. Back in April of 2005, the magazine story told of new device the company had developed called the portable people meter (ppm) which would eventually replace the diaries. The ppm is worn by survey participants during the day and plugged into a cradle at night. It automatically picks up inaudible signals sent out by radio stations wherever the survey participant goes. Needless to say it greatly enhances the value of the information as it is no longer relying on someone’s memory at the end of the day.

As with any evolutionary technology, the Arbitron ppm has generated some controversy. This past Saturday, Paul Fahri wrote in The Washington Post that “African American and Latino listeners have raised questions about the new systems accuracy”

“Attorneys general in New York and New Jersey filed suits to stop Arbitron from making its people-meter data available to stations and advertisers in the New York area, which is the nation's largest radio market. Later yesterday, Arbitron responded by filing countersuits against the attorneys general to prevent them from blocking the data; the company denied the attorneys general's allegations that its electronic system is "fraudulent."”

You can find the full text of that article here.

It’s never easy being an evolutionary. The ppm was developed in Columbia.

Creighton’s Run

The Columbia Town Center neighborhood of Creighton’s Run was the featured neighborhood in The Washington Post real estate section feature “Where We Live” yesterday.

This is the only neighborhood of single family homes in the village of Town Center.

CH1LL

I was cruising down Rouse Parkway around eleven this morning, listening to the wild gyrations in the stock market on the radio. I had just passed Thunder Hill Road and was heading east to Tamar Drive when a late model white Mercedes pulled up in the lane next to me. I glanced over at the pretty lady behind the wheel and as she slid past me my eyes moved to her license tag.

CH1LL

Whoever you are, thanks. I needed that.

Blandair Blues Again

According to this story by Larry Carson in The Sun, the plan for Blandair Park has been revised once more. The new plan moves the skate park and multi purpose building from the perimeter of the south side of the park to a location in more in the middle.

This final plan, pictured here, will be voted on by the Parks and Recreation board next Wednesday.

Though the county acquired the property over ten years ago, the earliest you can expect any construction to commence is “sometime in the year 2010 or later.”

If you are wondering what has taken so long for this central park to come to fruition, you can thank a certain guy in Centreville, Ohio for much of this delay.

In This Month’s Business Monthly

When someone first mentioned putting a structured parking facility in Ellicott City a few years back, I immediately thought of the existing public parking lot behind the former post office on Main Street, otherwise known as Lot D. It is large enough of a space and the existing topography seems to favor it.

It turns out that I was not the only one who thought this. The 2003 Ellicott City Master Plan also recognized this as the proper location for a parking facility and called for it to be built in five years.

Five years later not only is the parking facility not built it is not even designed.

What’s up with that?

It turns out that a very vocal minority of the businesses that surround Lot D are opposed to the parking facility in this location because of the disruption it would cause to their businesses during construction. Some of them are promoting an alternative location behind the former firehouse.

While I can certainly empathize with those businesses it does seem to be a case of cutting your nose to spite your face. Though it will undoubtedly disrupt some business while it is under construction in the long term it will benefit all businesses in the old town. The delay this focus on an alternative location has caused means that the earliest a parking facility in Ellicott City could become a reality is sometime in the year 2011.

The wheels of change turn very slowly in the old mill town.

You can read this month’s column here.

Election Day 2008

I was standing in line at the main post office on Oak Hall Lane in Columbia today when I noticed that the guy in front of me was holding an absentee ballot.

“You voting today?”

“Yeah I’m going out of town so I’m sending in my absentee ballot.”

“I’ve thought about doing the same but not because I’m going out of town. I’d do it just to put the whole deal behind me. The only thing that is holding me back is the fact that I actually enjoy going to my polling place. It is that whole sense of community thing.”

He agreed. He said that if he wasn’t going to be out of town he’d probably wait until November 4th. That being said he admitted that he was relieved to be done with it as well. He said the drawn out primary season had given him a bit of election fatigue.

I heard that too.

GGP Replaces CFO

Lacey, a commenter on the post “The Winds Are Shifting Part Two,” pointed out that nine senior executives of General Growth Properties “dumped millions of dollars of stock on around Sept. 26, days before the amendment submission.”

It turns out that the bulk of those insider stock sales were by one guy, the chief financial officer. From September 18th through October 3rd, Bernard Freibaum sold 6,460,381 shares. According to this story from The Sun this past Saturday, Mr. Freibaum has “$3.4 million of margin debts outstanding” and “is no longer with the company.”

You can see how Mr. Freibaum sales compared with the other eight senior executives sales here.