Towne Centre Is Mix Of the Old and New

"Anyone looking at the Annapolis skyline will see it's been altered by this," said County Executive John R. Leopold (R). "But the stark reality is we're facing a population pressure. This kind of mixed-use project is an example of how to address that in a responsible way."

For more than a decade, developers had pitched projects for the wide swath of land in Parole, an unincorporated neighborhood off Route 50 outside the Annapolis city limits. In the 1960s, it had been the site of the Annapolis area's main shopping center. Then, the Westfield Annapolis Mall opened a stone's throw away, and the site slowly deteriorated until it sat nearly empty and dilapidated. Greenberg Gibbons won approval for its proposal by presenting a vision for an integrated development that promised to allay the concerns of residents. "It was not an easy thing to do," said Brian Gibbons, the company president.

Walking through the nearly finished streets this week as crews hammered some finishing touches into place, Gibbons pointed out a new community center nearby. His company partnered with a local church and donated $2 million to build it.

And to placate environmental concerns, the company spent $6 million before the construction began to clean up chemicals a previous tenant had leached into the site and then spent $5 million on a stormwater management system to filter water flowing back into the Chesapeake Bay.

"They made us promises about the type of place this would be," said County Council Chairman Cathleen Marie Vitale (R-Severna Park), "and they exceeded all those expectations."

One concern that has persisted in Annapolis is the economic effect. Since it began four years ago, officials have grumbled and worried that such a large center just outside the city limits would draw visitors and money away from the downtown area, the lifeblood of the city's tourism economy.

But this week, with the Towne Centre about to open, many talked of coming to terms with the project.

"My initial reaction was horror," said Gregory Stiverson, former president of the Historic Annapolis Foundation. "But as I thought more about it, I realized this kind of high-density development on the city's fringe is all but inevitable, and we should try to figure out how to make that an asset for Annapolis."

Stiverson, who in recent years started a city-planning foundation called Envisioning Annapolis, talks of creating a rapid trolley system serving the Towne Centre, the mall and downtown -- using Annapolis's biggest draws as attractions to reinforce one another.

The reality, he says, is that places such as Parole are the future of Annapolis. "What they've built in Parole can be a town center in ways downtown can't be anymore," he said. "There's no room to develop downtown any more than it is. But what we can do is help them complement each other."