Tantalizing, if tentative, details about the redevelopment of the Mall in Columbia emerged on Wednesday night during an otherwise routine presentation before Howard County's Design Advisory Panel by General Growth Properties, Inc., the mall's owner and developer.
The purpose of the meeting was for GGP and its consultants to explain to the panel how its new development project will fit within existing design guidelines for the downtown area and the designated "Mall Neighborhood," giving the panel a chance to offer input before the plans go before the county's Planning Board.
The bulk of the meeting was dedicated to things like aesthetic consistency across the downtown area, storm water management, signage, streetscaping and architectural nuances.
Panel members made a few recommendations and passed a few motions to require small tweaks to GGP's plan, but otherwise praised the plan for its comprehensiveness.
Ho-hum, perhaps.
But amid the technical dialogue also came details that spoke directly to the overall vision for the redevelopment project, details that residents had unsuccessfully clamored for during a public meeting on the project last month.
Though stressing the fact that all details about the project are tentative at this point and subject to change based on changing markets, Jim Whitcome, senior development director for GGP, mentioned the following:
• A major intent of the project is to address calls in the general plan for more interconnected pedestrian routes through the mall neighborhood by reopening what was once the main entrance to the mall and creating a new western-facing pedestrian thoroughfare.
• Other motivations behind the redevelopment include that an existing retail store (unnamed, but almost certainly the L.L. Bean store) currently has too much space, while other retail outlets not currently located at the mall have expressed interest in obtaining new, smaller spaces there.
• The physical location of the proposed project noted at the public meeting, which is at the heart of the mall's existing footprint and includes the current location of L.L. Bean, is unchanged.
• Plans to remove 30,000 square feet of existing retail space and replace it with 75,000 square feet of outward-facing retail space, for a net gain of 45,000 square feet of space, will necessitate building more parking.
• Rather than removing the parking garage near Nordstrom and the AMC Columbia movie theater, as has been speculated, GGP is currently looking into the feasibility of adding a third level to the garage.
• Though numbers are constantly changing, GGP is currently looking at the possibility of having eight new tenants in two or three new, single-story buildings.
• The extent to which the mall will be outward facing is not determined, and GGP is considering multiple different plans, including one that has half of the stores opening to the outside and another that has all of them opening to the outside.
• No new tenants have signed leases yet, in part because the plans are so tentative.