Columbia/Howard County Development News

[hpal3]

Originally Posted by MasonsInquiries

Summer/Fall 2010 delivery? cool!! more good news for HC!!

Can't wait to see what is lined up for the retail part of this.

[hpal3]

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v...localnews&om=1

[hpal3]

New man picked to run tower project


WCI taps Robert Grabner to oversee construction of controversial condominium
01/24/08
By Andrei Blakely


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The company that is building a controversial 22-story high-rise condominium in downtown Columbia has appointed a new person to oversee the project.

Robert Grabner, the vice president and senior project manager of the Tower Division at the Florida-based WCI Communities Inc., which is building the Plaza Residences on Wincopin Circle, will now head the project, according to a Jan. 16 statement from WCI.

He replaces William Rowe, who left WCI to work for the Annapolis-based Petrie Ross Ventures LLC, according to Jean Moon, a spokeswoman for WCI.

In taking over the Plaza, Grabner assumes responsibility for a project in which WCI has conducted initial work on underground utilities for the building but has yet to begin the tower's construction, despite the fact that Howard County officials approved the condo two years ago.

If built as planned, the building would be the highest in Howard County.

Four county residents have mounted a legal challenge against the condo. They claim that an illegal zoning change to permit residential development in downtown Columbia cleared the way for the Planning Board to approve the project in January 2006.

Attorneys for WCI Communities have countered that the residents lack the legal standing to challenge the project because it does not specially aggrieve them.

The residents have lost in each step of the case, which is now awaiting a June hearing in Maryland's second highest court, the Court of Special Appeals.

Loss from sales defaults

WCI has been a leading builder of upscale housing in Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Virginia and Maryland for 60 years, according to the company's release.

In November, WCI reported a net loss of $69.7 million in revenue during the quarter that ended Sept. 30, 2007, according to a company financial statement. Company officials attributed part of the loss to defaults on sales in the Tower division, the statement said.

Before he left WCI, Rowe said preliminary work on the Plaza would continue, adding that WCI was working with Baltimore Gas & Electric, Verizon Communications Inc., and Comcast Corp. to relocate phone lines and cable lines at the Wincopin Circle site in preparation for the building's construction.

Grabner also will be responsible for WCI's Tower projects in Virginia, which include The Club on Quincy, a mixed-use condominium development in Arlington, according to the company.

He did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

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County looks to boost redevelopment effort
Low-interest loan program targeting U.S. 1 corridor expanded to include U.S. 40
By Larry Carson | Sun reporter
January 23, 2008

During the first three years of Howard County's Revitalization Loan Program for the U.S. 1 corridor, local banks made 17 loans for developments. The past three years, there were seven -- including two in 2007 -- which is why county officials gathered a group of bankers to try to spark a resurgence of activity.

"Frankly, I'd like to see a lot more deals being done, and I'm sure you do, too," County Executive Ken Ulman told the bankers at a meeting in the George Howard Building late last week.



The program, in which banks offer small-business owners and property owners low-interest loans while county officials help speed approvals, was designed in 2002 to speed redevelopment along sometimes seedy-looking stretches of the county's oldest commercial strip. The program is being expanded to include the U.S. 40 strip in Ellicott City. Since 2002, $26 million has been lent for the program.

The fruits of the first burst of activity in the nine-year-old U.S. 1 effort are just now becoming evident in the form of new mixed-use residential-commercial buildings and hundreds of new townhouses and apartments. More is coming, but Ulman and Economic Development Authority Chief Executive Officer Richard W. Story want the bankers to help reverse the slowdown.

The county rezoned 1,500 acres along U.S. 1 in 2004 in ways designed to promote redevelopment, and Mina Hilsenrath, chief of environmental and community planning for the county, said there are seven projects planned for 87 acres zoned for urban-style uses under the new Corridor Activity Center designation. These contain 1.1 million square feet of commercial space, and 3,700 homes and apartments. In addition, plans are moving forward for a large, mixed-use project at the Savage MARC train station that will include a hotel, 416 apartments, commercial space and a 1,000-space garage.

"We need the next couple of projects to pop so people can see that and say, 'Oh, that's what they mean. Maybe I can do that with my property,'" Ulman said.

Howard County has a dwindling supply of undeveloped land that is zoned for development, but the county is starting to promote redevelopment of older areas, too, to prevent further decline and blight, he added.

"I want us to be able to redevelop before that ever happens," Ulman said.

Mary Ann Scully, president of Howard Bank, said the slowdown in loans occurred because "there just haven't been that many development projects."

Michael Galeone, executive vice president of Columbia Bank and a member of the county's Economic Development Authority, said the program promotes the bank and "also fulfills community reinvestment" for banks that want to be good corporate citizens and see the county continue to prosper.

"They're good investments," he said about the loans.

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Talk focuses on Oakland Mills' plans
East Columbia Briefs
January 27, 2008

Gregory F. Hamm, regional vice president at General Growth Properties Inc. and general manager of Columbia, will speak to the Oakland Mills community at 7:45 p.m. Feb. 12 at The Other Barn in the Oakland Mills Village Center.

He will address the village board and neighbors on the community's Master Plan for the village center area and how the plan relates to the company's plans for downtown Columbia.



Discussion will also cover the Route 29 pedestrian overpass and pathways that connect Oakland Mills to Columbia's downtown area.

The Other Barn is at 5851 Robert Oliver Place.

[MasonsInquiries]

nice find, hpal. gotta' love the growth in the HC.

[hpal3]

http://www.columbia-md.com/colbusiness.html

Profile of corporate buisiness located in Columbia

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The old is new again in county office plan
Officials choose to renovate the Howard Building
By Larry Carson | Sun reporter

After nine years and $7.1 million spent on planning for ways to provide a modernized county government office complex, Howard County's leaders are returning to their first and cheapest idea -- renovating the George Howard Building.

"It's not perfect. We can't afford perfect," County Executive Ken Ulman said Monday, adding that he has been wrestling with the costly, difficult proposal since taking office almost 14 months ago.

The decision means delaying next week's County Council vote on one small part of the office-space plan -- Ulman's $4 million request to buy one floor of a proposed four-story office condominium building considered central to the revitalization of Oakland Mills Village Center. Several council members expressed reservations about the Oakland Mills project at a work session Monday.

The entire project -- including the Oakland Mills building -- would become part of the fiscal 2009 capital budget that Ulman will announce about April 1. The council will vote on the budget at the end of May, and it will take effect July 1.

Ulman said that the 32- year-old George Howard Building is structurally sound, and that renovations would extend the life of the building another two or three decades. He said it can be renovated for about $20 million, a price the county can afford, compared with the estimated $140 million price tag of a new building.

By scrapping the previous plans, however, a proposed Circuit Court building and two parking garages, which would have driven the total price tag up to about $260 million, die with it.

Ulman said he had hoped to concentrate county offices in one place, based on the plans developed by former County Executive James N. Robey. The county will keep and renovate the Gateway Building and the Dorsey Building, both in Columbia, if the council approves the latest plan.

"We've gotten by, and we'll continue to do so," Ulman said.

Ulman's new plan would cost about $40 million initially. The cost would be reduced later by the sales of surplus county properties, and by energy savings a renovated building would achieve, he said.

The plan includes:

• About $20 million in renovations to the George Howard Building, including new air-handling equipment, windows, outer metal skin, insulation, bathrooms and a redesigned interior intended to use space more efficiently. The building would be empty for a year while the work is under way. County Council meetings likely would be held in high school auditoriums during construction.

• A new $3 million, 60,000- square-foot warehouse on the parking lot of the sprawling Dorsey Building off Route 108 in Columbia. The warehouse would be used to create space in the current building that could then be used by county agencies displaced by the renovations.

• The $4 million purchase of one floor -- about 15,000 square feet -- of the proposed Metroventures' Meridian Square office building at Oakland Mills Village Center.

• $10 million in renovations to the Dorsey Building and the Gateway office building in Columbia's Gateway Business Park.

The renovation plan would involve a giant shuffling of agencies among county buildings.

Ulman said he intends to sell two county-owned parcels in Ellicott City. One is the 27-acre wooded lot on Rogers Avenue near U.S. 40 bought in 2000 for an earlier plan to build an office complex. Another is about 20 acres the county owns near the District Court building on Court House Drive. The county would also sell the former Gateway School building in Clarksville, Ulman said. The capital budget still contains $10 million for the campus project that can also be used to pay for the new plan.

"We have to move forward with a solution," Ulman said, noting that the George Howard Building has not been renovated since it was built in 1976, and its major mechanical systems are worn out.

[hpal3]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...,3463133.story

[hpal3]

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v...localnews&om=1

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Rank County Median
Household
Income
1 Douglas County, Colorado $82,929
2 Fairfax County, Virginia $81,050
3 Loudoun County, Virginia $80,648
4 Hunterdon County, New Jersey $79,888
5 Los Alamos County, New Mexico $78,993
6 Morris County, New Jersey $77,340
7 Somerset County, New Jersey $76,933
8 Falls Church, Virginia $74,924
9 Santa Clara County, California $74,335
10 Howard County, Maryland $74,167
11 Putnam County, New York $72,279
12 Nassau County, New York $72,030
13 Montgomery County, Maryland $71,551
14 Marin County, California $71,306
15 Fayette County, Georgia $71,227
16 Hamilton County, Indiana $71,026
17 Collin County, Texas $70,835
18 San Mateo County, California $70,819
19 Williamson County, Tennessee $69,104
20 Forsyth County, Georgia $68,890
21 Rockland County, New York $67,971
22 DuPage County, Illinois $67,887
23 Fairfax, Virginia $67,642
24 Livingston County, Michigan $67,400
25 Delaware County, Ohio $67,258
26 Lake County, Illinois $66,973
27 Stafford County, Virginia $66,809
28 Scott County, Minnesota $66,612
29 Washington County, Minnesota $66,305
30 Prince William County, Virginia $65,960
31 Calvert County, Maryland $65,945
32 Carver County, Minnesota $65,540
33 Chester County, Pennsylvania $65,295
34 Suffolk County, New York $65,288
35 Sussex County, New Jersey $65,266
36 Fairfield County, Connecticut $65,249
37 Bergen County, New Jersey $65,241
38 Rockwall County, Texas $65,164
39 Summit County, Utah $64,962
40 McHenry County, Illinois $64,826
41 Kendall County, Illinois $64,625
42 Monmouth County, New Jersey $64,231
43 Broomfield County, Colorado $63,903
44 Fort Bend County, Texas $63,831
45 Contra Costa County, California $63,675
46 Westchester County, New York $63,582
47 Norfolk County, Massachusetts $63,432
48 Oldham County, Kentucky $63,229
49 North Slope Borough, Alaska $63,173
50 Arlington County, Virginia $63,001
51 Waukesha County, Wisconsin $62,839
52 Ozaukee County, Wisconsin $62,745
53 Eagle County, Colorado $62,682
54 Elbert County, Colorado $62,480
55 Will County, Illinois $62,238
56 Charles County, Maryland $62,199
57 Juneau, Alaska $62,034
58 Fauquier County, Virginia $61,999
59 Oakland County, Michigan $61,907
60 Dakota County, Minnesota $61,863
61 Anne Arundel County, Maryland $61,768
62 Johnson County, Kansas $61,455
63 Middlesex County, New Jersey $61,446
64 Aleutians West, Alaska $61,406
65 Poquoson, Virginia $60,920
66 Cherokee County, Georgia $60,896
67 Montgomery County, Pennsylvania $60,829
68 Middlesex County, Massachusetts $60,821
69 Manassas Park, Virginia $60,794
70 Williamson County, Texas $60,642
71 Gwinnett County, Georgia $60,537
72 Manassas, Virginia $60,409
73 Frederick County, Maryland $60,276
74 Geauga County, Ohio $60,200
75 Carroll County, Maryland $60,021
76 Bucks County, Pennsylvania $59,727
77 Ventura County, California $59,666
78 Pitkin County, Colorado $59,375
79 Kane County, Illinois $59,351
80 Hanover County, Virginia $59,223
81 Middlesex County, Connecticut $59,175
82 Tolland County, Connecticut $59,044
83 Orange County, California $58,820
84 Burlington County, New Jersey $58,608
85 Chesterfield County, Virginia $58,537
86 Cobb County, Georgia $58,289
87 Denton County, Texas $58,216
88 Rockingham County, New Hampshire $58,150
89 York County, Virginia $57,956
90 Warren County, Ohio $57,952
91 Anoka County, Minnesota $57,754
92 Placer County, California $57,535
93 Spotsylvania County, Virginia $57,525
94 San Benito County, California $57,469
95 Jefferson County, Colorado $57,339
96 Henry County, Georgia $57,309
97 St. Charles County, Missouri $57,258
98 Harford County, Maryland $57,234
99 Queen Anne's County, Maryland $57,037
100 Washington County, Wisconsin $57,033

[hpal3]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...082901543.html

Here is an article (dated) but interresting, regarding richest counties

[Exrexnotex]

I was browsing forbe's list of richest counties in the country, HoCo was number 3 ( medium income $ 94,260 ). where did you find that list ?

Great job on keeping us updated, hpal.

[MasonsInquiries]

interesting. there's a good 7 to 8 counties in maryland on that list......

[hpal3]

Originally Posted by Exrexnotex

I was browsing forbe's list of richest counties in the country, HoCo was number 3 ( medium income $ 94,260 ). where did you find that list ?

Great job on keeping us updated, hpal.

wikipedia.com

[hpal3]

Originally Posted by MasonsInquiries

interesting. there's a good 7 to 8 counties in maryland on that list......

Nice to see HoCo #1 in MD

[hpal3]

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news0..._counties.html

Here's another source on richest counties

[hpal3]

WCI returns deposits on condo tower
By June Arney | sun reporter
February 1, 2008

WCI Communities Inc. has returned deposits to everyone with reservations for its Plaza Residences - the 23-story tower planned near the Columbia lakefront - while keeping the reservations intact, the company said in a statement this week.

"We appreciate their patience as we look forward to the continued successful development of the Plaza Residences," Robert H. Grabner Jr., vice president/senior project manager of the tower division of WCI Mid-Atlantic U.S. Region Inc., said in a statement. Grabner assumed responsibility for the Columbia project last month.



The glitzy Wincopin Circle showroom for the luxury condos is locked tight, and a sign at the front door announces that it is open by appointment only.

Barbara Byrd, who lives in the nearby Lakeside condos with her husband, was one of those surprised last week to receive a deposit check back from WCI.

"They said they thought it was unfair to hold our money any longer," she said Wednesday. "They said the soonest they could get anything going was mid-2009. I've been waiting since two developers ago for the project to get off the ground."

Byrd said her excitement when she first saw WCI clear the land quickly evaporated when she saw grass planted on it.

"It doesn't look like anything is happening now," she said.

Byrd said she expects the company will change the height of the proposed building.

"I think ultimately they want community goodwill, and so they might make some changes to their initial plan," she said of the project in which height has been an issue.

Her husband is eager to move into the proposed tower, but her enthusiasm has waned slightly, she said.

"Because it's been so long, I'm fairly comfortable where I am," she said. "I don't know how expensive they'll ultimately be."

The Plaza Residences are awaiting a Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruling regarding the appeal of the site development plan. No date for the hearing has been set, and one is not expected before June, according to the WCI statement.

"We remain very optimistic about the project," Grabner said in the statement. WCI was "particularly heartened" by the Jan. 16, Howard County Circuit Court decision dismissing the petition for judicial review, he wrote.

"The ruling to dismiss that petition is just the latest in a string of rulings that favor construction of the Plaza Residences," he said. "We believe the appeal that remains before the Maryland Court of Special Appeals will be similarly situated."

This month, Florida developer WCI announced that it had renegotiated an amendment to its revolver and term loan agreements to give it greater operating and financial flexibility in the lagging housing market.

"The company still has a rocky road ahead of it," Eric Landry, an analyst with Morningstar, wrote in a recent report.

The closure of the local sales office, except by appointment, is not surprising given the housing market, some say.

"It's an example right in our own community of the impact of the housing slump," said Del. Elizabeth Bobo, whose legislative district includes Town Center, where the tower is planned. "What I hear from people in the industry and related industries is that it's hitting the high-end market as hard as any others. It's a major local example of what's happening across the country."

Land for the tower project was acquired by the Rouse Co., which then was purchased by General Growth Properties Inc. That connection, the proximity to planned downtown development and WCI's financial struggles have fueled speculation that WCI and General Growth might make a deal in connection with the property. Some opponents of the project have asked that GGP buy the property back. But there is no evidence to support that such a deal is in the works.

"That transaction was between the Rouse Co. and WCI, and we really have no role in this issue," said Gregory F. Hamm, regional vice president and general manager of Columbia for General Growth Properties. "They lease space in our building, and we wish them the best. It's a very tough housing market."

[hpal3]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...,7418509.story

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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/loc...,6226176.story