'Boomtown' May Finally Have Its Boom

Many Odenton residents are thrilled that revitalization plans finally seem to be moving.

"Maybe we won't have to drive to Columbia or Annapolis or Washington for restaurants and decent shopping anymore," said Holly Groves, who moved to Odenton in 1978 and manages Seven Oaks, an 850-acre planned community.

Seven Oaks, tucked behind the boarded-up China Plus restaurant, Pagoda House restaurant and J&J Pawnshop across from the entrance to Fort Meade at the corner of Route 175 and Charter Oaks Boulevard, has seemed a world away from the seedy Boomtown area ever since it was built in 1987. Its Colonial-style single-family units, apartments and townhouses are home to young professionals, military retirees and Fort Meade workers. The homes go for $250,000 to $650,000. On streets named Colonel, Artillery and Conquest sit neat lawns, well-kept tot lots, three pools and a small four-year-old strip mall anchored by a relatively new Weis supermarket.

"When you turn off Route 175 into Seven Oaks, it's like entering a different world," said Stephen N. Fleischman, a vice president at Halle Cos., the Silver Spring developer that created Seven Oaks. "As things continue to build up around here, those remaining Boomtown retailers will suffer from a lack of business."

It has taken a long time for development around Fort Meade to begin to shift to meet the needs of its current population. Today, the National Security Agency is by far the largest of Fort Meade's 78 government tenants, with 15,000 of the base's 40,000 employees and growing. Other tenants include the U.S. Army Field Band and a cluster of Environmental Protection Agency scientists. It pumps roughly $4 billion into Maryland's economy each year.

"We don't have the same soldier population anymore," said Col. Kenneth McCreedy, Fort Meade's commander since July. "The nature of our workforce has changed."

There are multiple reasons for the decades-long delays. The dream of a town center has been on the drawing boards since 1968. First, it suffered from a lack of funding, and then a 19-year battle with federal and state agencies over how to protect wetlands on the property. And at Boomtown, just down the road, longtime landowners were reluctant to sell because they weren't being offered enough money by developers. Those developers who did buy were afraid of sinking too much money into their properties because improvements promised by the county never seemed to materialize.

For example, when Baltimore philanthropist Yale Gordon died in 1984, his trust could not attract a serious buyer for the five acres it owned along the Boomtown strip, said Sidney S. Sherr, the trust's manager.

Old cars were dumped on some of the lots. Zoning laws were too strict. Water came from a well.

The county promised change for years, presenting one growth plan after another, but it never delivered, Sherr said. "We were waiting for a moment for the area to take off, and it didn't."

So the trust sold the property in December 2003 to Subhash Dhanesar for a lump sum of $650,000.

Dhanesar signed on Mr. Major's Barber Shop, the karate school, a Mexican restaurant and other tenants. But he's reluctant to sink much more money into the property until he's assured that the county will do its part. He wants turn lanes and traffic lights.