Baltimore Messenger
September 29, 2005

Redeveloper of Rotunda Reaches Out To Hampden
By Brandon Dudley

Temperatures ran high Sept. 26 – but not only because of a malfunctioning air conditioner – at the Hampden Community Council’s long-sought meeting with redevelopers of the Rotunda mall.

More than 100 Hampden residents, many worried about the effects that the $70 million, mixed-use project will have on the neighborhood and its traffic, packed the Church of the Brethren in Woodberry, where redeveloper Hekemian & Co. presented the plan and fielded questions.

Hekemian is already getting plenty of citizen input from an advisory panel that it formed. It is composed of representatives of neighborhoods that surround the Rotunda, including Hampden.

The meeting was one of several that Hekemian has arranged with the communities. The next one is with the Roland Park Civic League, 7 p.m., Sept. 29, in Room 311 of the Rotunda.

But the Hampden Community Council has complained that is should be the lead advisory body because Hampden is the community closest to the mall and would be the most affected by redevelopment.

Hekemian met with representatives of other communities first, a sign to many Hampden residents that the developer doesn't understand the community or care about its concerns.

With Monday night’s meeting Hekemian reached out specifically to Hampden. While there were emotionally charged moments, most of the questioning was civil as residents fanned themselves with the pages of information passed out by Hekemian representatives.

But there were still misgivings about the plan, which calls for a tiered companion complex to the historic Rotunda building. The new complex would have 200 to 400 condominiums, apartments and town houses, in addition to more retail, a much larger Giant supermarket and parking for 1,800 more cars, twice as much as the city requires.

Shops in the existing building would be reconfigured to face outward. Construction is expected to start in spring of 2007. The existing office space will be kept.

Many Hampden residents worry about the impact of the redeveloped shopping mall on 36^th Street, aka the Avenue, Hampden’s primary retail corridor. They also fear that the project will be too upscale for the area.

“This is not in Roland Park, this is not in Wyman Park, this is not in Medfield,” said Allen Hicks, president of the Hampden Community Council. “This is in Hampden; nobody else claims that.”

“This doesn't look like a Hampden kind of shopping place,” said one audience member. “This looks like a Roland Park shopping place or a university shopping place.”

But Chris Bell, senior vice president of acquisitions and development for Hekemian, said the goal is to make the struggling Rotunda a place for the community “to live, work, play and shop.” The redesign and housing are necessary to the project’s success, Bell said, otherwise the Rotunda would slide back to its depressed state in 15 to 20 years.

“We'll bring life back to the Rotunda,” he said, adding that upgrading such areas and bringing in more people cuts down on crime, according to national studies.

Bell also said Hekemian would work with Hampden to employ as many local people as possible and welcomes community input about the type of stores Hampden wants to see in the Rotunda.

There were also questions about whether local schools would be able to handle the influx of students.

Bell sited studies that showed residences like the ones they favor would bring in 80 new students at most. Most of the people who likely would move into the new residences would be young couples without school-age children and the elderly.

“For lack of a better word, our demographic is newlyweds and nearly deads,” he said.

Bell got some support from Hicks, who said that the local Hampden Elementary School is operating below capacity, in case new children do move to the Rotunda residences.

Local traffic remains one of the biggest concerns. A newly released preliminary report by The Traffic Group, a local traffic engineering and transportation planning firm that Hekemian hired, states that traffic at most surrounding intersections would stay at the same level of service.

However, the corner of Elm Avenue and 40^th Street would see about three times as much traffic during peak afternoon hours, according to the report.

At the meeting’s conclusion, the redeveloper’s representatives saw it as a positive experience and said they will take community concerns to heart.

“You can’t always satisfy everyone’s concerns, but we'll certainly try to,” said Cassandra Gottlieb, a partner in Kann & Associates, the local architectural firm that Hekemian is using. “Projects are always better when you include the community in the process,” she said.

“The concerns people are expressing are real and valid, and we were expecting what we heard,” Bell said.

Community representatives were not quite satisfied.

Hicks said he believes the plan for retail will be positive for the community, but he still has doubts about the residential component.

“I don’t think that (concerns have) been addressed to the point (they) need to be, but we’re not that far in the process yet,” said Genny Dill, chair of the community council’s rezoning committee.