The Metropolitan Downtown Columbia will be a six-story, 380-unit development that the Howard Hughes Corp. plans to build in a joint venture with Kettler of McLean, Va., and Orchard Development of Ellicott City, on land next to The Mall in Columbia.

Rents are expected to range from $1,600 a month for a one-bedroom apartment to $2,800 for a three-bedroom unit — making them among the highest in the region. Plans by Design Collective of Baltimore also call for a parking garage with 675 to 750 spaces, 14,000 square feet of retail space, and amenities such as a swimming pool, two large courtyards, a fitness center and a public promenade.

“Columbia hasn’t seen a new apartment development in a decade,” said Asheel Shah, Kettler’s senior vice president for real estate investments. “The industry has changed over the last 10 years. Designs have changed over the past 10 years. Renters’ desires have changed over the last 10 years. This project reflects that.”

Marsha McLaughlin, director of planning and zoning for Howard County, said she was impressed by the plans.

“It’s well-designed,” she said. “It has a good scale that fits in with the context of buildings nearby on Broken Land Parkway and Little Patuxent Parkway. They’ve put a lot of thought into it. I think the public promenade will be very attractive and will draw people. It’s the kind of project we were hoping for. It will set a bar for others to follow.”

The privately financed project represents the first residential development to get under way in Columbia’s Town Center since the Howard County Council adopted a revised development plan that allows up to 5,500 new residences there. It is the first phase of an 817-unit development proposed by Howard Hughes Corp., Kettler and Orchard for a 12.8-acre tract next to the mall, along Broken Land Parkway.

Developers released preliminary designs and details in preparation for a public meeting about the project on Tuesday. The meeting is part of a review process that the developers must complete in order to obtain construction permits. Interest in the project has been high because it is the first submitted for the Town Center since completion of the long-range plan to guide downtown development.

The developers said they expect the residences to appeal to everyone from young professionals to empty-nesters.

Shah said he believes prospective residents will come from Howard County and the region, attracted by the development’s features and by its proximity to the mall and other parts of Columbia. The development team wants to bring to Columbia the sort of high-end project found in the Harbor East section of Baltimore, or in Bethesda or Arlington, Va., he said.

“The luxury apartment market is not underserved in Columbia. It’s not served at all in Columbia,” he said. “We’ll be setting the high-water mark.”

The preliminary design calls for five levels of housing over one level of commercial space, which is likely to include a cafe and other businesses.

The county’s planning board gave final approval to the 817-unit development last month, but the team still needs approval for individual phases to begin construction.

Howard Hughes Corp. controls much of the land once held by the Rouse Co., Columbia’s original developer. General Growth Properties was Town Center’s master developer from 2004 to 2010, when the Chicago firm spun off part of its real estate business as the Howard Hughes Corp. as it emerged from bankruptcy.

General Growth retained control of Columbia’s mall, while Howard Hughes took over much of the undeveloped land around it.

Howard Hughes selected Kettler and Orchard last year as its partners for the multiphase project, which will contain up to 70,000 square feet of commercial space.

McLaughlin said she believes the first phase will set the right tone for the next wave of Town Center development.

“It reflects the discussions we’ve had about what the town center should be,” the county planning director said. “I’m very eager to see it move forward.”

“A lot of people have been waiting a long time to see Columbia become what’s envisioned for downtown,” said L. Earl Armiger, president of Orchard Development, one of three developers behind the project. “This is going to get the ball rolling. It’s going to be a ‘wow’ project, more upscale than anything Howard County has seen ever.”

Officials with Orchard, Kettler and Howard Hughes Corp. will hold a pre-submission community meeting on Tuesday, May 22 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 400 of The Rouse Company Foundation Student Services Hall at Howard Community College. The developers spoke with the Howard County Times in advance of the meeting.

The meeting will kick off the site development plan process for the project. Developers are looking to move quickly, hoping to begin site preparation work before the end of this year, start construction early next year, and move in the building’s first residents by the second quarter of 2014.

More projects on other downtown land would soon follow, on property near the mall, near Lake Kittamaqundi, and around Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods, according to John DeWolf, senior vice president for Howard Hughes.

But the first is a building, named The Metropolitan Downtown Columbia, that would include luxury apartments, including loft, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments, ranging in size from about 600 square feet to about 1,400 square feet, and ranging in monthly rents from about $1,500 all the way up to $2,800.

The demand is there for these kind of high-end urban residences, said Asheel Shah, Kettler’s senior vice president of real estate investments.

“We feel this area is not underserved — it’s just not served [at all] for high-end multi-family residences,” Shah said. “Overall Columbia and Howard County is incredibly attractive. The demographics in this area are fantastic. The school system is outstanding. And the wave of homeownership is changing. More and more people are looking to rent their home.

“We really embrace the urban model. It will represent some change for what’s historically been here in Columbia, but we think that it will catch on, and catch on fast,” he said.

Creating an ‘urban space’

The building itself will be five or six stories, with “more luxurious finishes” throughout and with numerous amenities both inside and outside, Shah said, including a large promenade to the east of the building that will be open to the public, and that eventually will run in a line with other green spaces by other proposed buildings.

“This is one of the only places in downtown Columbia where kids can run around outside while people shop or have a cup of coffee,” he said. “We are absolutely trying to create an urban space that is vibrant. Ultimately those types of things attract more people, and continue to attract more people to want to be at your project.”

There will also be multiple courtyards, a swimming pool, a fire pit, a fitness center, and a space outside for projecting movies, he said.

A portion of the first floor will be dedicated to three or four retail establishments, which could include businesses such as a coffee shop, convenience store, dry cleaner or restaurant.

“It’s pedestrian-friendly, within walking distance to amenities,” Shah said. “I don’t know how much better you can get here than walking to the shopping and dining.”

Parking for the building would be fully contained within the southern side of the building.

“We don’t want to be dependent on any adjacent owner for any of our parking needs,” Shah said.

More on tap

Meanwhile, more projects are in the works nearby.

Howard Hughes is planning to put two mixed-use buildings on land just to the north of this project. Those buildings could be open as soon as 2015, DeWolf said, though the company is first seeking to set up a partnership with other developers, possibly the same companies working on the first project.

Bob Jenkins, vice president of engineering for Howard Hughes, accentuated that the company will remain involved in the development of downtown Columbia, and will not merely build projects and then seek to sell them to others.

“We’re long-term holders of the property,” he said. “We have a vested interest in making sure the whole thing happens.”

Projects near Lake Kittamaqundi and the “Crescent” land near Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods could soon follow.

All the while, more development could be going on in downtown Columbia, including the Columbia Association’s plans to turn Symphony Woods into a more vibrant park, and General Growth Properties’ desire to open up part of the Columbia mall and make it more pedestrian-friendly and better integrated with the surrounding redevelopment.

“We want people to live in these apartments. We want them to park in the parking deck, walk to the mall, to the waterfront, to the amphitheater, and then when they need to leave Columbia they go back to their car,” DeWolf said.

This is the first new building, but this is just the beginning, he said, of a place where people live, eat, shop and work downtown, and possibly go to college classes or medical facilities.

“This will be a bit of a snowball going down a hill,” he said. “This is the start, but there will be some critical mass that happens, too.

“It won’t just be the residential. I’ll be a re-envisioning of Merriweather. It’ll be the adding of things, like a great grocery store, some more great restaurants, redoing the restaurants here.

“What I’d like to see is us well under way to a lot of this,” DeWolf said, “that we’re building inside of the ‘Crescent’ inside of five years.”

The purpose of this meeting is to present information to the community regarding the proposed development and its Site Development Plan (SDP), and to allow community residents to ask questions and to make comments.

Following the process as adopted in the General Plan Amendment approved in February, 2010, this meeting is one of the steps in the public engagement process for redevelopment in downtown Columbia. 

Downtown Columbia

Howard County’s Planning Board has approved the initial plan for the Warfield neighborhood for downtown Columbia. Let the New City begin again.

Across 10 acres of undeveloped land adjacent to The Mall (see image), downtown Columbia master developer The Howard Hughes Corporation is planning for up to 817 residential units and a little more than 76,000 square feet of retail space. Explorehoward.com, the Columbia Flier online, reports,

In addition to the retail and the residences, this first phase of development in Warfield will include a 6,000-square-foot playground, dubbed the Warfield Playground, and 28,500 square feet of promenade in the southeast. The West Promenade is expected to extend into the Symphony Overlook neighborhood to the south and create a connection to Symphony Woods Park.

Land for the project, between Broken Land Parkway and the Sears side of The Mall, will be divided into three blocks and incorporate three new connecting roads.

There is excitement surrounding the redevelopment of downtown Columbia as it is seen as an opportunity to buck the nation’s decades-long preference for suburban sprawl, one that has grown to burden infrastructures, gobble farmland, as well as provide undue strain on energy consumption and the environment. Downtown Columbia’s revitalization seeks to take advantage of new trends in development, such as reducing traffic to make for more bicycle and pedestrian-friendly travel, incorporating greener buildings and better managing storm water run off, and allowing residents the opportunity to live more efficiently via the closeness of work and amenities, making day to day chores less automobile dependent.

Specifics of the project, now in the first half of the county’s 16 stage development review process, will come forth in the second half of that process. Howard Hughes Senior Vice President John DeWolf  told the planning board, “We’re sorry we can’t be more specific tonight about what we’re doing, but we know that time will come soon,” explorehoward.com reported.

To read the full explorehoward.com report of the Planning Board meeting, click here.

Documents submitted to the Planning Board for review at this stage of the process can be found here.

Howard Hughes Corp. plans to build up to 817 residences and 76,098 square feet of retail on slightly more than 10 acres of undeveloped land, located between Broken Land Parkway and the Sears side of the mall. The development will be divided into three blocks.

In addition to the retail and the residences, this first phase of development in Warfield will include a 6,000-square-foot playground, dubbed the Warfield Playground, and 28,500 square feet of promenade in the southeast. The West Promenade is expected to extend into the Symphony Overlook neighborhood to the south and create a connection to Symphony Woods Park.

The first phase of Warfield development also includes two new connecting roads. One will come off of Broken Land Parkway and connect to Mall Ring Road directly south of the development. The other will extend Twin Rivers Road across Broken Land Parkway to Mall Ring Road, which will be improved as a part of the development.

Because part of the area that is being developed currently serves as overflow parking for the mall, the plan involves converting a 2.6-acre grass-covered parcel of land — located across Mall Ring Road from the parking lot that serves Macy’s and Nordstrom — into a temporary overflow parking area.

Few other details on the development were provided in the Final Development Plan the Planning Board approved. The FDP, covered in the first half of the 16-step development review process for downtown Columbia, provides general design guidelines Howard Hughes must follow as it builds out an area of downtown.

“We’re sorry we can’t be more specific tonight about what we’re doing,” Howard Hughes Senior Vice President John DeWolf told the board. “But we know that time will come soon.”

More project specifics will be revealed in the Site Development Plan, which is the second half of the development review process. After the board vote, DeWolf said he expects the SDP process to begin in a couple of weeks with advertisements for a pre-submission community meeting.

Detailed or not, board members appeared pleased with the company’s plan, approving it in a unanimous vote.

Expert testimony

In presenting its plan to the board, Howard Hughes called upon a number of experts on its development team.

Christopher Streb, an ecological engineer, said all the buildings in this phase of the development, which can be a maximum of seven stories, will be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Urban planner Cecily Bedwell said the mixed-use Warfield neighborhood, located between the mall and existing residential neighborhoods, “creates the transition, where there really isn’t now.”

She said the area will include features such as bike lanes, broad sidewalks, street trees and parallel parking.

Planning Board member Josh Tzuker asked Bedwell how the plans “make driving more of a pain in the butt than walking,” an overall goal of downtown Columbia redevelopment.

“(It would be) nice to get the parking on the periphery, have parking garages that one can park in and get out sooner, so there’s not too many cars coming into the core,” Bedwell responded.

Asked by a resident of downtown what type of retail is suitable for the development, Bedwell said the retail would be “inviting to people who live in the neighborhood.”

She added: “It would be great to have some restaurants across the street (from the restaurants currently located by the mall), so there would be some synergy.”

Before the board took its vote, three residents testified on the plan.

Linda Wengel, who spoke on behalf of the Town Center Village Board, cited concerns about traffic. She said the studies Howard Hughes conducted ignored “the reality of the heavy Mall Ring Road traffic” during weekend and holiday hours.

Tzuker said while he understands the village board’s concern, he thinks “the whole purpose of this endeavor is to create a new reality.”

He added: “It might not be as car-friendly, but it’s more people-friendly. And I think that’s a good thing.”

Former Planning Board member Joan Lancos said she was impressed with the plan.

“It really shows the thoughtfulness that this wonderful new development deserves,” she said. “I’m excited to see its implementation.”

The grocery chain is so highly coveted that it can “effectively cherry pick” prime locations all across the country, and its negotiations with Howard Hughes to open in the development company’s building at 10275 Little Patuxent Parkway had dragged out before finally stalling, the official said.

But according to John DeWolf, a senior vice president for Howard Hughes based in Columbia, finding a new tenant for the lakefront building is the company’s “top priority.”

Currently, there are only 13 employees working in the three-level, 150,000-square-feet building, which can hold 650 people and at one time did, according to Nancy Tucker, the company’s community relations manager.

Even the building’s reception desk sits vacant, with a telephone and a sign that gives visitors a number to call for assistance or to announce their arrival.

The location of the Howard Hughes building is right in the middle of large amounts of land slated for new development in the downtown area, and could be considered coveted in its own right. It’s very near a 1.1 acre property that recently sold for $3.5 million.

Despite needing about $20 million in “base building improvements,” the structure has vast potential and could accommodate a large variety of uses, DeWolf said.

The building could easily serve as a company’s headquarters, as “that’s really what it’s designed for,” DeWolf said.

But it could also become home to a mix of companies, he said.

DeWolf said he could envision a grocer on the first floor with a fitness center facing the lake below and an event center above.

DeWolf said Howard Hughes is looking for development partners and those looking for leases in the building.

The “reuse of the building” is what the company wants, he said.

DeWolf would not comment on Whole Foods or on whether there were active negotiations with other potential tenants.

Warfield Neighborhood Design Guidelines
Warfield Neighborhood Implementation Plan
Final Development Plan
Neighborhood Conceptual Plan

When you stop and think about it, that is kind of amazing because it is estimated that there are some 2 billion parking spaces in the country or about eight spots for every car, some suggest enough pavement to cover Connecticut and Vermont.  That’s a lot of parking.

Parking lots are ubiquitous. We can’t seem to live without them and, virtually every place we go, we expect them. If a business wants our business, it has some sort of parking arrangement. It’s been a vital part of the American way of life since some six decades ago which was about when critic Lewis Mumford pointed out, “The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone possesses such a vehicle is the right to destroy the city.”

Obviously, many see parking lots as blight, a necessary evil. But, let’s turn this car around and consider “ReThinking a Lot”, the soon to be published book by MIT urban planning professor Eran Ben-Joseph that takes a serious architectural look at parking facilities, pushing them conceptually into the 21st Century:

With purposeful design, Ben-Joseph argues, parking lots could be significant public places, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks, or plazas. For all the acreage they cover, parking lots have received scant attention. It’s time to change that; it’s time to rethink the lot. (MIT Press)

It turns out that parking lots are full of life, full of interesting behavior. Studies show those that park at the first available spot they come to and walk to their destination save time (and stress) over those that trawl for the spot nearest the door. An empty parking lot finds drivers ignoring lines and taking short cuts, but more carefully looking out for pedestrians than were those same drivers to move through a lot crowded with row after row of cars. Good for them.

At off times, parking lots fill with other uses: become flea markets, host lunch vans, become bus stops, impromptu sporting grounds, for instance. Look no further than the perimeter of the Columbia Mall parking and you’ll see the Goodwill truck set up, taking donations. That lot’s even the staging ground for Fourth of July and Festival of the Arts parades. Busy places. People places.

Not just somewhere to rest a car, parking lots are “the real entrance to a building.” This is something to think about, key to considering architectural responsibility in their design, development and maintenance, keeping in mind ways the space gets used, incorporating best new (green) practices, making better these places of utilitarian purpose and public gathering.

Can’t wait for the book? Check out the recent New York Times article (January 8, 2012) by architecture critic Michael Kimmelman that looks at the book and explores the issue in detail. Make sure to check out the accompanying photo gallery.

Another look at the book and article can be found here, at architizer.com.

Design Guidelines (pdf)

Warfiled Neighborhood Guidelines (pdf)

FDP (pdf)

Warfield Neighborhood Implementation Plan (pdf)

Neighborhood Concept Plan (pdf)

The first residential and commercial project for redevelopment — next to the Columbia mall — is being spearheaded by Howard Hughes Corp., which plans its first phase to include a maximum of 817 residential units and no more than 76,098 square feet of retail space. The building designs, which have not been done, will determine the actual numbers. More buildings are slated to come in future phases of construction, both in the Warfield neighborhood and throughout the area around the mall, Lake Kittamaqundi and Symphony Woods.

The panel’s recommendations only serve to inform the government’s future decisions. On Wednesday, the panel’s attention went to the design guidelines for the overall project rather than the first phase. Besides walk-ability, the panel suggested paying attention to the transition from Twin Rivers Road, which will be extended into Warfield; and having the signage in Warfield influence what signage in other neighborhoods will look like.

“I think it was all reasonable feedback,” Robert Jenkins, Howard Hughes’ vice president of engineering, said after the meeting. “We’re going to evaluate all their suggestions and accommodate them where we can.”

The project is very early in the approval process and still must have future hearings before government boards and committees.

The specific number of buildings to be constructed in the first phase could be three, or it could be more, depending on the designs, Jenkins said.

Documents that Howard Hughes filed with the county government projected one parcel with 14,000 square feet of retail space and 390 residential units on 4.78 acres of land. Another parcel could have 29,680 square feet of retail space and 267 residential units on 2.54 acres. A third parcel could have 32,418 square feet of retail space and 160 residential units on 1.85 acres.

The neighborhood of Warfield is eventually slated to add up to another 1,000 residential units and up to another 283,780 square feet of retail space. In total, downtown Columbia is expected to have a maximum of 5,500 new residential units.