Downtowncolumbia

tl;dr: I testify in support of the plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods and the Planning Board approves it (note: correlation is not causation), Inner Arbor haters gonna hate, and Brad Canfield of Merriweather shocks me. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend and testify at the Howard County Planning Board meeting last night at which the Board unanimously approved site development plan SDP-14-073 [PDF] for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, the project otherwise known as the Inner Arbor plan. Here’s a lightly-edited copy of my testimony: ...

The Chrysalis in Symphony Woods / Merriweather Park in the Inner Arbor plan. (Click for high-resolution version.) Image © 2013 Inner Arbor Trust; used with permission. Marc Fornes, the designer of the Chrysalis, the amphitheater planned for Symphony Woods as part of the Inner Arbor plan, and his firm THEVERYMANY are one of two winners of the 2014 WAN 21 for 21 award sponsored by World Architecture News, “an initiative aiming to highlight 21 architects who could be the leading lights of architecture in the 21st century.” ...

In this post I look into the current schedule for the proposed Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations. For background information see part 1 and part 2 of my discussion of the renovations themselves and their budgeted costs. Recall again that the costs and dates for the renovations are laid out in Exhibits A and B of Amendment 2 to Amendment 12 [PDF] to Council Bill 24-2014. The proposed renovations are based on (but not identical to) the set of renovations described in the recent draft 2014 Ziger/Snead Merriweather Post Pavilion Physical Review Update [PDF], which updated the Ziger/Snead report included in the 2005 final report of the citizens advisory panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion [PDF]. ...

Last night I went to Columbia Association headquarters for the CA board meeting that had been scheduled on very short notice to discuss the Inner Arbor plan. Due to family commitments I had to leave before the main part of the meeting, but I was able to be there long enough to participate in the “resident speak-out” and say my piece: Good evening. My name is Frank Hecker. I’m currently a resident of Ellicott City, and I’ve been a member of various Columbia Association programs. I’ve also blogged extensively about the Inner Arbor plan, and I’m a strong supporter of it. However I’m not here tonight to talk about my thoughts on the Inner Arbor plan; you can go to frankhecker.com if you want to read those. Instead I want to talk about other peoples’ opinions of the plan. ...

I continue my look into why the Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations are necessary, exactly what is proposed to be done, and how much each set of projects will cost. I conclude with the remaining categories of projects, which consume the other half of the total renovation budget. Recall from my last post that the costs and dates for the renovations are laid out in Exhibits A and B of Amendment 2 to Amendment 12 [PDF] to Council Bill 24-2014. The proposed renovations are based on (but not identical to) the set of renovations described in the recent draft 2014 Ziger/Snead Merriweather Post Pavilion Physical Review Update [PDF], which updated the Ziger/Snead report included in the 2005 final report of the citizens advisory panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion [PDF]. ...