The Crescent development by the numbers

Rendering of proposed Crescent development in downtown Columbia. Click for high resolution version. Image © 2014 Howard Hughes Corporation; used with permission.

tl;dr: The Crescent development in downtown Columbia is going to be a (very) big deal.

As reported by Amanda Yeager in the Baltimore Sun, the Howard County Planning Board recently approved FDP-DC-Crescent-1, the final development plan for phase 1 of the Crescent neighborhood of downtown Columbia, a development of the Howard Hughes Corporation. Unfortunately due to family issues I was not able to attend the Planning Board meeting and see for myself the presentations of the plan. However I did find and review copies of the Department of Planning and Zoning staff report [PDF], the final development plan itself [PDF], and the accompanying neighborhood concept plan [PDF]. For anyone interested I here briefly review what’s going on with the development. (For additional background see my post from a year ago, “The Crescent development in downtown Columbia: Areas and phases”, although a lot of the information in that post is now out of date.)

In Howard County planning terminology a “final development plan” is not really the final plan; that role is filled by the “site development plan”. The final development plan contains proposed boundaries for phase 1 of the Crescent development, intended uses for the various parcels and associated square footages and building heights, and other information relevant to the plan. It does not contain detailed plans of the actual buildings to be built. However just the raw numbers themselves are interesting and informative. To quote the Baltimore Sun,

The approved outline proposes 2,300 residences; a 250-room hotel; 1.475 million square feet of office space; 313,000 square feet of retail and 225,000 square feet of civic and cultural uses spread throughout four development areas on the property.

A map of the parcels and lots comprising the parts of the Crescent neighborhood covered by FDP-DC-Crescent-1. Click for high-resolution version. Image taken from page 3 of FDP-DC-Crescent-1, “Final Development Plan, Downtown Columbia, Crescent Neighborhood Phase 1”.

The four development areas are known (rather unimaginatively) as Areas 1, 2, 3, and 4, with locations and proposed uses as follows:

• Area 1 includes Parcels A and B on the map shown, in the northwest corner of the Crescent development near the intersection of Broken Land Parkway and Little Patuxent Parkway. It is intended for office use along with a hotel, with some retail and restaurant space.
• Area 2 includes Parcel C on the map, south of Area 1 on the east side of Broken Land Parkway. It is intended for mixed office and residential uses, with some retail and restaurant space.
• Area 3 includes Parcel D on the map, south of Merriweather Post Pavilion and north of Broken Land Parkway. It is intended as the main “downtown” of the Crescent development, with office and residential uses, a much larger allotment of retail and restaurant space, and cultural and community facilities.
• Area 4 includes Parcel E on the map, east of Area 1 just south of Little Patuxent Parkway. It is intended primarily for office use, with a small amount of retail and restaurant space.

There is also a significant amount of space that will be left undeveloped , including Lots 1, 2, and 3 on the map shown. These will serve as natural open space for the project, and can be considered extensions of the western and southern portions of Symphony Woods.

The table below summarizes all of the uses proposed for Areas 1 through 4, including the associated square footage and related details (from page 1 of FDP-DC-Crescent-1).

Area	Use	Planned
Area 1 (Parcels A and B)	Office	600,000 SF
	Retail/Restaurant	25,000 SF
	Hotel	250 rooms
Area 2 (Parcel C)	Office	300,000 SF
	Retail/Restaurant	30,000 SF
	Residential	500 units
Area 3 (Parcel D)	Office	400,000 SF
	Retail/Restaurant	252,000 SF
	Residential	1800 units
	Cultural/Community	225,000 SF
Area 4 (Parcel E)	Office	175,000 SF
	Retail/Restaurant	6,500 SF
All areas
	Office	1,475,000 SF
	Retail/Restaurant	313,500 SF
	Residential	2,714,000 SF
	Hotel	150,000 SF
	Cultural/Community	225,000 SF
	All uses	4,877,500 SF

The final development plan does not describe the exact nature of the 225,000 SF of “Cultural/Community” space in Area 3. However in the pre-submission meeting Howard Hughes representatives discussed building in Area 3 a new Central Branch library (100,000 SF), a conference center (50,000 SF), an aquatic center (50,000 SF), and an indoor concert hall (25,000 SF).

In the pre-submission meeting Howard Hughes representatives also discussed locating all 2,300 residential units in Area 3 along with the 250-room hotel; no office space was planned for Area 3. The final development plan moves the hotel from Area 3 into Area 1, moves 500 residential units from Area 3 to Area 2, and puts 400,000 SF of office space into Area 3.

One major omission in the final development plan (really, the major omission) is a detailed discussion of parking. The slides presented in the pre-submission meeting contained detailed information on the number of parking spaces to be provided in each area through either surface parking lots or parking garages (which would eventually replace all the surface lots). None of that is in the final development plan. Apparently the exact parking arrangements will be covered in the site development plans to be submitted for each area, including proposals for how to compensate for the loss of the current gravel lots used for events at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

Overall the Crescent development will make a major impact on downtown Columbia and Howard County overall. One good comparison is to look at Reston, Virginia, the other major planned community in the Washington/Baltimore area, and Reston Town Center, which is currently undergoing its final commercial buildout within its 84-acre core. Based on the figures in the Reston Town Center marketing brochure [PDF] published by its developer, here’s how Reston Town Center compares to the planned Crescent neighborhood:

	Reston Town Center (Present and Planned)	Crescent (Planned)
Total acreage	84 acres	68 acres
Office	2.017 million SF	1.475 million SF
Retail/Restaurant	424,077 SF	313,500 SF
Residential	1,998 units	2,300 units
Hotel	518 rooms	250 rooms
Cultural/Community	Unknown	225,000 SF
Parking Spaces	9,073 spaces	TBD

When you factor in the office space just north of Little Patuxent Parkway (including 700,000 SF purchased by Howard Hughes Corporation from GGP) the downtown Columbia area will have roughly equivalent office space to Reston Town Center. When you add in the 1.438 million SF of leasable space at the Mall in Columbia the retail space will be significantly larger than in Reston Town Center. Finally, Reston Town Center has no equivalent to Merriweather Post Pavilion (or, for that matter, to the planned Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods). (However Reston Town Center does now have access to mass transit via the Metro Silver Line, as well as a much more vibrant office market in the surrounding area.)

As I noted in discussing the history of Howard County Council redistricting, on the tenth anniversary of Columbia former county commissioner and council member Charles Miller expressed regret that Columbia had ever been created. Now as Columbia approaches its 50th anniversary, current County Executive Allan Kittleman has promised that he will work to “[attract] large businesses to downtown Columbia so it may truly become the economic engine for our County”. The Crescent development will be the key to making that happen.

The Crescent development in downtown Columbia: Areas and phases

UPDATE: The information in this post is now out of date based on the approved final development plan for the Crescent neighborhood phase 1. For more current information please see my post “The Crescent development by the numbers”.

Downtown Columbia including the Crescent and Areas 1 though 4 within it. Click for high-resolution version. Image adapted from Downtown Columbia Plan: A General Plan Amendment (Howard County, Maryland, Adopted February 1, 2010), Exhibit E, “The Neighborhoods”.

Enough random impressions of the proposed Crescent development—what’s actually proposed to be built? In the pre-submission meeting representatives of the Howard Hughes Corporation outlined their proposal to develop in four separate areas of the overall Crescent property, with construction to occur in three separate phases.

The overall Crescent nighborhood surrounds Symphony Woods on the west, south, and east like a giant letter “C” open to the north, hence the “crescent” name. On the west and south the Crescent is bounded by Broken Land Parkway and the exit ramp from US 29, on the east by US 29 itself. Within the Crescent development will be restricted to four areas, designated Area 1 through Area 4. (See the accompanying image; at the pre-submission meeting John DeWolf of Howard Hughes joked about the unimaginative naming.) The remainder of the Crescent will be retained as natural space, with no development planned except for the construction of a few paths through the woods. (Some of this natural space is currently not wooded, but will be replanted with trees as part of the overall development.)

Of the four areas, Area 3 is the most important in terms of defining the new Columbia downtown. As envisioned by the Howard Hughes Corporation it includes six residential buildings, a hotel and convention center, a concert hall (possibly named “Merriweather Hall” or similarly), an aquatic center suitable for competitive swim meets, a new Central Branch of the Howard County Library System, and lots of retail and dining space, for example occupying the first floors of the hotel and residential structures. At least some of the residential structures could be up to 20 stories tall; the remaining structures in Area 3 (including the hotel) could be up to 15 stories tall. Parking in Area 3 would be in the form of parking garages in the residential buildings and a parking garage behind the hotel, conference center, and library.

Rendering of proposed Crescent development in downtown Columbia. Click for high resolution version. Image © 2014 The Howard Hughes Corporation; used with permission.

Areas 1, 2, and 4 are more conventional. Area 1 and Area 4 are proposed to contain general office buildings; in the pre-submission meeting DeWolf expressed a desire to have a single major corporate tenant occupy all the space in Area 1 (for example, a company like McCormick & Co. Inc., currently considering relocating its headquarters from northern Baltimore County, or a large Federal contractor). Area 2 is currently proposed for use as medical offices. All three areas are proposed to have small amounts of retail space as well, in total well less than 5% of the space in those areas.

The development of the Crescent is scheduled to occur in three phases. Based on John DeWolf’s comments in the pre-submission meeting, apparently Howard Hughes changed the originally-proposed schedule to front-load more construction in Area 3. If so I think this was a wise move: It more quickly brings the benefits of the various public and civic uses (which are of interest to people throughout Columbia, Howard County, and beyond) as well as bringing some initial residents to downtown Columbia to liven the scene and provide a local customer base for shops and restaurants constructed in phase 1. Without any Area 3 development in phase 1 the Crescent would simply look like another corporate office park.

The overall Crescent schedule then looks as follows:

Phase 1 would see initial office space in Areas 1 and 2, initial residential, retail, and dining space in Area 3, and the hotel, conference center, library, and aquatic center also in Area 3. Parking would be provided primarily by surface lots in Areas 1 and 2, and by parking garages in Area 3.

Phase 2 would add more office space in Areas 1 and 2, along with a small amount of retail, and more residential and retail space in Area 3. The surface lots in Areas 1 and 2 would be cut back in size to make way for office space and parking garages, and more parking garages would be constructed in Area 3 as part of the residential development.

Phase 3 would add yet more office space in Areas 1 and 2, along with a bit more retail, and more residential and retail space in Area 3. The surface lots in Areas 1 and 2 would be completely replaced by office space and parking garages, with more garages being constructed in Area 3 as well, again as part of the residential development.

Overall construction of office space would be spread roughly equally over all three phases, as would construction of residential units in Area 3. Most if not all of the restaurant and dining space would apparently be constructed in phase 1, with more retail space coming along in phase 2 and especially phase 3.

For more on the details of exactly what will be built and when see my next series of posts, beginning with a look at phase 1 development.

No fooling, Columbia’s becoming a city

Rendering of proposed Crescent development in downtown Columbia. View is of Area 3 looking east, with the proposed swim center to the right. Click for high-resolution version. Image © 2014 Howard Hughes Corporation; used with permission.

Columbia is well on its way to becoming a real city with a real downtown. (This is not an April Fools’ joke.)

Last night I attended the pre-submission meeting at which Howard Hughes Corporation presented its plans for the Crescent area next to Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion. (I arrived a few minutes late, missing the introduction of the presenters and the opening remarks.) For now I’ll leave a more complete description of the meeting to the professionals (see Luke Lavoie’s story today in the Baltimore Sun) and will just give some initial somewhat disconnected impressions.

The attendance seemed a bit less than that for the pre-submission meeting for the Inner Arbor plan. (Luke Lavoie concurs, citing 75 people attending the Crescent meeting and about 100 at the Inner Arbor meeting.) I find that a bit strange in at least one sense. In the case of the Inner Arbor plan people got exercised over what I consider relatively minor things, like identifying the exact number of trees to be removed from Symphony Woods, and presumably showed up at the meeting in force to make sure those concerns got on the record. To me this is a case of not seeing the forest for the you-know-whats, given that the Crescent development will change Columbia in ways far more radical than anything that might happen in Symphony Woods. In the immortal words of Vice President Biden, this is a big [expletive] deal.

Without really trying to I ended up sitting next to Jane Dembner of CA; the same thing happened to me at the Design Advisory Panel review of the Inner Arbor plan, and (if I remember right) at the Inner Arbor pre-submission meeting as well. I keep running into the same people at these events; I get the feeling that there’s a core group of perhaps a few hundred people at most who have influence over, strong opinions about, or (in my case) an abiding interest in what happens in Columbia and Howard County—call them the Howard County 0.1%.

The presentation itself was divided into two parts: One section on the site plan, roads and pathways, public amenities, design guidelines, sustainability, and related matters, presented by two Howard Hughes employees whose full names I didn’t catch, and a second section providing more detail on the actual buildings, presented by Howard Hughes SVP John DeWolf. This second part was apparently an adaptation of a pitch DeWolf does for investors and potential tenants, so it included a lot of high-level marketing stuff about the appeal of Columbia and Howard County, the desirability of a vibrant downtown Columbia, and the ability of Howard Hughes to execute on that vision. Due to time constraints DeWolf had to march through this second presentation in about 30 minutes, including interspersed questions and answers; this was unfortunate since this section contained some of the most interesting material from my point of view.

DeWolf was clearly enthusiastic about the project (as he himself said, the man likes to build stuff). He went out of his way to emphasize the importance of Merriweather Post Pavilion to the Crescent project, particularly as a way to “make Columbia cool” and attract a younger demographic. Whether the hip twenty-something with a lip ring depicted on one of his slides will actually want to live in Columbia (as opposed to just attending a Merriweather event) is an open question, but full marks to DeWolf for trying. DeWolf didn’t mention anything specific about Merriweather renovation or plans for Merriweather parking, but did make a brief aside about his tiff with Ken Ulman. He didn’t mention anything about the Inner Arbor plan. In general DeWolf is an entertaining presenter, though having done lots of sales presentations myself I think I can tell what’s unforced enthusiasm and what’s a bit feigned for the benefit of prospects. (For example, does DeWolf really think the lengthy multi-step Howard County approval process is a great thing for developers, as he seemed to imply?)

As Luke Lavoie’s story indicates, the possibility of 20-story-high buildings in downtown Columbia was a major theme and concern at the meeting. It reminded me of the controversy several years ago over the proposed 22-story WCI Plaza tower near the Columbia lakefront. For various reasons that plan eventually died an ignominious death, but by all indications thus far the Crescent proposal should escape that fate, 20-story buildings and all. For what it’s worth, I think 20-story buildings in the context of the Crescent development are appropriate to the setting. They don’t stick out as stand-alone structures, but appear to exist in the context of nearby buildings of somewhat smaller size. I don’t mind the contrast with the adjacent Symphony Woods either; it actually reminds me of the buildings next to New York’s Central Park, a juxtaposition I find striking and attractive. There’s an open question as to whether and how much those buildings will shadow Symphony Woods at various times of the day and year; I hope to see something about that in future presentations from Howard Hughes.

Speaking of “massing” (to use the technical term for defining the overall shapes and sizes of buildings), I think the Crescent plan actually works pretty well in relation to its site. One person commenting at the meeting was concerned about the implications of the Crescent area being relatively isolated, in the sense that it was hemmed in by Symphony Woods and Merriweather to the north and by existing roads and development to the east, south, and west—not to mention the areas within the Crescent development itself that are unsuitable for building and will remain in a relatively natural state. Far from being a bad thing, I think this might actually work to the benefit of the development. Among other things, the compact and constrained site forces a higher density of development and helps prevents the sort of “micro-sprawl” I’ve noticed in places like Tysons Corner and Reston Town Center, where large urban-scale buildings and their associated “structured parking” sit next to low-density suburban-style strip shopping centers with large open-air parking lots.

The compact site and relatively high density will of course lead to increased traffic, which was another major concern expressed, along with concerns about the implications of that increased traffic for pedestrian access to and within the Crescent area. I suspect that true mass transit (e.g., heavy or light rail) will be a long time coming to downtown Columbia, if it ever does, so I don’t expect any relief on that front. Nevertheless I’m reasonably optimistic about the traffic situation, based in large part on the advances occurring in automobile automation that will likely be widely adopted within the longer-scale time frame of this development. Even if we never get to fully-autonomous “self-driving” cars, I think increased intelligence in automobiles will go a long way to making cars more safely co-exist with pedestrians, as well as potentially speeding up traffic by allowing cars to intelligently cooperate with each other to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion caused by stops and starts due to humans’ poor reaction times.

Other thoughts: I was surprised by the interest shown in a proposed swim center (or natatorium, if you want to get fancy). I wasn’t paying much attention to the discussions over the future of CA’s swimming pools, so missed the fact that there is a fair size group of people actively lobbying for a high-end professional-quality swim center that could host local and regional swimming competitions—something Howard County currently lacks. It sounds like a worthy facility, and one which could attract lots of visitors to the proposed hotel and restaurants in the downtown area. There was also mention of locating a new library downtown, but not much discussion of that. For the record, I think the Crescent area would be a better location for a new Central Branch than near the location of the present facility. I for one am looking forward to the possibility of a large multi-purpose central library of some architectural distinction.

Finally, as implied above I didn’t really get a good feeling for how parking at Merriweather will be addressed as the various phases of construction proceed. However I did glimpse some slides that may shed some light on that question, and if I can find out more I’ll post again.