Towne Centre Is Mix Of the Old and New
Some Residents Wary About Upscale Development

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 11, 2008

For decades, Annapolis has counted on the charm and old-town feel of its historic streets to bring in tourists. But a new sight now greets visitors heading into town.

Rising up like a modern-day luxury palace just outside the city limits is a cluster of high-rise condominiums, stores and offices that make up Annapolis Towne Centre, an upscale development that opens its doors tomorrow.

The 32-acre, $500 million project, which features some of the tallest buildings in Anne Arundel County, has produced mixed feelings among locals: excitement over the slew of upscale stores it brings to town but also concern over the high-density project and how it will change the look and feel of Annapolis.

"It feels out of place. It reminds me of the suburbs you pass on your way into Washington, not something you'd pass going into Annapolis," said Alexandra Fotos, a lifelong Annapolitan. Fotos, 54, said that this summer, while flying home from vacation, she looked out the window and suddenly realized that the plane was passing over her home town. And the landmark that jumped out at her most? Not City Dock or even the State House, but the looming towers of Annapolis Towne Centre.

"It was a little strange that this is now the first thing you see coming into town," she said.

But for all her reservations, Fotos said she, like many others around town, are eager to check out the new shops.

The project's planners said they tried hard to design a look that fit the old-town feel of Annapolis -- at least as much as a 12-story structure could.

"With it being located at Annapolis, we wanted to respect the historic nature with all the brick and white precast blocks," said the site's master planner, Charles Harker. Old-fashioned streetlamps line the streets and small storefronts line the walkways in an attempt to re-create a Main Street look, he said.

Even the large, attention-grabbing domes that cap the high-rises were designed with Annapolis in mind, in the tradition of the domed roofs at the State House and the Naval Academy, he said. "The idea was to do classic and traditional with nouveau twist to it."

The center -- office space, condos and storefronts built along two intersecting walkways -- features a Target that is atypical of most big-box stores and is built on the third floor with small stores and parking on the two floors below. Also in the works is the country's second-biggest Whole Foods stores.

Only Target and two other stores, Coldwater Creek and Great Gatherings, will have their grand openings tomorrow. Nearly two dozen more stores and restaurants are expected to open by Thanksgiving. The condos and the site's three other anchors -- Whole Foods, 24 Hour Fitness gym and Bed Bath & Beyond -- aren't due to open until spring.

County officials are touting the project as a success. At a pre-opening reception this week, leaders praised the developer, Greenberg Gibbons, for building a center that allows people to live, work, dine and shop in one location.

"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."