Story of new development in Columbia's Town Center

    If you have been in Town Center of Columbia this year you have noticed the building boom going on right now. Last week I had a chance to learn more about this development on a Columbia Association sponsored tour with Ned Tillman.

   We started out on the newly paved path from Lake Kittaqundi to Symphony Woods

   One of the most amazing aspect of Columbia is the woods and greenery that is still part of our "downtown."

   Most of use remember when you could come into Columbia over this old bridge now abandoned.  Who knew the name of the bridge was the Push Pin bridge.

   We have all watched this office building going up so quickly on the corner of Brokenland Parkway and Rouse Parkway in Town Center.  The building will be the new headquarters for Medstar.  It is the first building of the Crescent Office Park that will transform downtown Columbia in the next few years.

    Over on the other side of Town Center the new 9 story condo building is going up where the old Magic Pan and movie theater used to be.  

     The Wilde Lake Village Center is now the site of a new housing to be opened later this year.

     Along with the housing and office development the Symphony Woods will be transformed with the development pictured above of the Chrysalis which will bring people to Symphony Woods for local productions.

     The Merriweather Post Pavilion is in for a large makeover with a new stage area shown below

    Ian Kennedy the Executive Director of the Downtown Columbia Arts and Cultural Commission talked about the developments with the Pavilion. 

     Greg Fritchitt from Howard Hughes talked to the group about the development of the Crescent Park development that is just beginning.  Soon the buildings will start to go up on the parking area for the Pavilion.  The new parking for the Pavilion will be new multilevel parking garages.

 Moving over to the Columbia Mall area new residential buildings are beginning to go up next to the Metropolitan Building that is already open with new residents moving in each week.

     

 The new business in the first floor of the Metropolitan building have brought a cosmopolitan feel to the area.

     With the new storm water runoff requirements approved in Maryland in 2007 new developments going up in Town Center have to use new methods to have storm water channeled back into the ground and not running off into the storm system used by development that was built before 2007.

  Pictured above is one way that runoff from a building is channeled into a rain garden.

  Pictured above is a rain garden in a new section of the Mall opened in the past couple of years.

   Pictured above is how storm runoff is channeled the pre 2007 way with runoff flowing down a sidewalk and then creating a trench down the hill to a storm drain along Rouse Parkway.   One of the challenges we have today is how to provide incentives to owners of pre 2007 buildings and parking lots to refit their storm water management systems.

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