Downtown Columbia's planned office building expansion

   Yesterday I blogged on the redevelopment of the old Rouse Building into a Whole Foods store and CA facility but today I wanted to share some additional information on the other major change we will soon see in our downtown area.

      We already see the beginnings of the new residential housing that is starting to go up next to the Columbia Mall.  But next year at this time we might be seeing similar work taking place on the other side of Little Patuxent Parkway along Brokenland Parkway.

 
     We have all become used to seeing this area be a treed area and open space near Merriweather Post that is used to sell Christmas trees in December.  With the plans developing this area is poised to look very different.

     As the drawing above shows this area may soon become a large office building corridor that will compliment the existing office buildings along Little Patuxent.  With this area's development beginning as soon as this time next year the number of new jobs and employers in our downtown will significantly increase.  If you travel on Route 29 during rush hours you will see that more cars are coming into Columbia than are leaving.  This development will only increase this traffic flow reality.  This expansion is in line with Jim Rouse's vision that Columbia be not just a suburban residential community but a community that had significant commercial  activity that gave residents of the new town an opportunity to work in as well as live in Columbia.  The residential part of our town's development is almost complete and the growth of the commercial sector is soon to move into high gear in making Columbia more urban moving into our future.  The types of businesses and other employers attracted to our town will probably be the clean, hi tech, high income jobs that will continue to provide a healthy tax base to continue to fund the high quality services to which we have grown accustomed.

P.S.
  One other area of development in the area around the new Whole Foods store will be some new buildings in newly created promenade from Whole Foods moving east. The drawing below shows the new construction in orange.