tl;dr: Merriweather Post Pavilion gets its own resident orchestra.

Long-time Howard County residents (or people who’ve read my Creating the Chrysalis timeline) may recall that when Merriweather Post Pavilion was built, over fifty years ago, it was intended to become the permanent summer home for the National Symphony Orchestra. A few years later the NSO left Merriweather Post Pavilion, and soon after that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra began playing summer concerts at the pavilion. The BSO eventually left as well, and since then Merriweather Post Pavilion has had no resident orchestra. Until now.

Recently the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission announced that Soulful Symphony, an orchestra led by DCACC artistic director Darin Atwater, would make Merriweather Post Pavilion its new (summer) home. This announcement is interesting for at least three reasons: for what it says about Merriweather Post Pavilion, what it says about Soulful Symphony and the future of classical music, and what it implies for future support of the arts in Columbia and Howard County.

First, why Soulful Symphony and Merriweather Post Pavilion? For reasons discussed below, although they may do occasional performances, it’s extremely unlikely that Merriweather Post Pavilion would ever again serve as an exclusive summer residence for either of the two main regional symphony orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra or the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

What about the Columbia Orchestra? It is rooted in Howard County, has successfully navigated the last forty years of its existence, and based on its most recent annual report appears to have been able to put on a relatively ambitious series of performances, play to near-capacity audiences at its main venue (the 742-seat James W. Rouse Theater at Wilde Lake High School), and manage its finances well.

An initial answer would be, well, Darin Atwater is the artistic director for DCACC and DCACC now owns Merriweather Post Pavilion, so of course Atwater’s Soulful Symphony is a natural choice for a resident orchestra. That somewhat begs the question, though: why pick someone like Darin Atwater for DCACC artistic director in the first place?

My answer, one echoed by Atwater himself in the Elevate Maryland podcast, is that whatever Jim Rouse’s intent may have been in building Merriweather Post Pavilion, its tradition is not that of a classical music hall but that of an amphitheater hosting popular music performances by many of the most important artists of the last fifty years. Merriweather Post Pavilion is famous not because the NSO or BSO played there, but because it hosted concerts by artists like Stevie Wonder, Pink Floyd, the Carpenters, B.B. King, John Denver, Ella Fitzgerald, the Kinks, Miles Davis and Muddy Waters, Al Green, Judy Collins, the Temptations, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and the Beach Boys—to name only a few of the acts featured in just the summer of 1973.

Thus it’s only appropriate that if Merriweather Post Pavilion is to have a resident orchestra, it have one that is not a traditional symphony orchestra but one that has one foot in the classical music tradition and the other in the popular music of America.

Which brings me to my second point: arguably the major problem with classical music in America today is that (unlike classical music in other times and other countries) it has few if any connections to American culture at large. As the critic and composer Greg Sandow wrote, “We don’t connect well with the world. Most of the music we play is from the past, while the people around us are connecting with the culture and concerns of the present.”

And when it comes to music, “American culture” really means African American culture. It is the wellspring from which have arisen all the major American music genres , and its influence has traveled around the globe, from blues-influenced (and sometimes blues-plagiarizing) 1960s British rock to R&B- and hip hop-influenced contemporary K-pop (to name only two).

However, as Atwater notes in his comments, African American musical culture has been only fitfully reflected in classical music, which is to a large degree a foreign growth transplanted to American soil, and all the weaker for it: As Sandow notes, the audience for classical music in America is declining, and is increasingly dominated by the elderly. (For example, according to its 2018 annual report seniors comprised over 60% of the audience for the Columbia Orchestra’s core series of classical music performances, and students less than 10%.)

According to Atwater, his mission is to diversify the classical music repertoire, to help create a music that speaks “the native tongue of the people”: “Music now has to speak to all Americans, it can’t just speak to a segment of America.” In that sense I think Soulful Symphony is a good fit for Merriweather Post Pavilion, and for what the DCACC hopes that the pavilion can be for the residents of Columbia and Howard County.

Thus my third and final point, relating to who’s going to support the arts in Howard County in future:

One major reason why the National Symphony Orchestra left Merriweather Post Pavilion is that Catherine Filene Shouse donated millions of dollars to build (and then rebuild, after a fire) the Wolf Trap performing arts center in Northern Virginia near McLean and Great Falls.

One major reason why the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra left Merriweather Post Pavilion is that Joseph Meyerhoff, who donated the funds to construct Meyerhoff Symphony Hall in Baltimore, worked to secure a new summer performance venue for the BSO in Oregon Ridge Park near Hunt Valley in northern Baltimore County.

In contrast, the wealthiest philanthropist ever mentioned in relation to Columbia and Howard County was Marjorie Merriweather Post, who famously never gave a dime to help fund construction of the pavilion that bears her name. It’s unclear whether we will ever see a private individual who could and would single-handly take on the task of financially supporting the construction and maintenance of a major performance venue in Howard County.¹

But what about all the money from Merriweather Post Pavilion concerts? Leaving aside the fact that event revenue primarily funds ongoing operations, even in this regard Merriweather Post Pavilion is a decided underdog. Operated by I.M.A., a subsidiary of the D.C.-based independent concert promotion and production company I.M.P., Merriweather competes locally with Jiffy Lube Live, the Northern Virginia outdoor amphitheater that is but one of over two dozen operated by Live Nation Entertainment, a $10 billion global corporation.

There is no “somebody else” who will ensure that Merriweather Post Pavilion will survive and thrive. Now that ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion has been transferred to the DCACC, the future of the venue will be dependent on a mix of financial streams: revenue from concerts at the pavilion, corporate sponsorships, and other monetary contributions from Howard County and Maryland residents, whether directly via donations or indirectly through their county and state taxes.

Put simply, the future of Merriweather Post Pavilion depends on us—as does that of the surrounding Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, including the Chrysalis amphitheater. I think that by hosting Soulful Symphony and through its other activities DCACC has made clear its intention to make Merriweather Post Pavilion a place that offers music and other cultural performances for all of Howard County. Now it’s up to us to ensure that that outreach is rewarded.

For further exploration

Besides the Elevate Maryland podcast #53 featuring Darin Atwater, other interviews and features of note include the following:

• HoCoMoJo 3-minute video on the Soulful Symphony Merriweather Post Pavilion announcement.
• Backstage at Merriweather (B@M) #1. A 29-minute conversation between Darin Atwater and Ian Kennedy, executive director of the DCACC.
• Mykel Hunter interviews Darin Atwater. A 12-minute 2010 interview on Baltimore’s Magic 95.9 FM.
• Rock Newman interviews Darin Atwater. A one-hour 2009 interview on the Rock Newman Show.

The following Soulful Symphony performances, among others, can be found on YouTube:

• “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.”
• “Go Down Moses”

Finally, although the Soulful Symphony does not appear to have its own public web site, the DCACC web site has a copy of the press release announcing Soulful Symphony’s association with Merriweather Post Pavilion, and should also have announcements of future performances. (In the B@M podcast linked to above, Darin Atwater advises listeners to “save the date” of June 29.)

tl;dr: OPUS Merriweather 2018 repeated the success of last year and improved upon it.

The OPUS Merriweather festival, now in its second (and hopefully not last) year, has two purposes, one commercial and one artistic: to “disrupt the notions that Columbia is a sleepy suburb” (in the words of Vanessa Rodriguez, director of marketing at the Howard Hughes Corporation, the developer of downtown Columbia), and to “offer a platform for visionary artists to push boundaries, disrupt conventions, and create spaces of provocation and reflection” (per Caroline Maxwell, artistic director of Wild Dogs International, the Brooklyn-based curators of OPUS Merriweather). The OPUS 1 festival in 2017 was an excellent first step in achieving those goals, and the now-renamed OPUS Merriweather event improved upon its success.

This is not a detailed review, but I did want to highlight some things that went better this year, and a few things that I think still need improvement:

First, the quality of the art and music remains high. I don’t think there were any clunkers among the art I saw, and last year’s problem of lines for installations was definitely solved: If you wanted to see an art piece and knew where it was located then there was no problem getting to see it. (The only event where I had some difficulty seeing due to the crowd was Patrick Higgins’s and Monica Mirabile’s dance/music piece “Dossier X” staged under Matthew Schreiber’s laser installation “Gemini.”)

Particular favorites of mine included “Luminal Space Trilogy” by AES+F (surrealistic art films on a super-wide screen), Maren Hassinger’s “Pink Light” (a real crowd favorite for people who wanted to loiter under it and take pictures of one another), and the above-mentioned “Gemini” (one of the most beautiful laser installations I’ve ever seen, transcending the stereotype of flashy concert and planetarium laser shows).

The musical acts I saw were also high-quality: Quantic and Pantha Du Prince did great DJ sets, Kadhja Bonet and Sudan Archives are interesting up-and-coming musicians, and Oneohtrix Point Never is world-famous among people who follow indie music. (An online acquaintance of mine was supremely jealous of my being able to see OPN live, and for free at that.)

The split of music acts between the Chrysalis and the lawn stage worked well, with DJ acts on the lawn stage and other acts on the Chrysalis alpha stage. I didn’t hear much if any bleed-through of sound between the two venues. I’ll also repeat what I said last year on Twitter, that this event very much demonstrates that the Chrysalis is a capable and unique performance venue that is also very fan friendly—I had no difficulty seeing the stage from any spot or getting as close to the artists as I wanted.

Finally, the logistics of the event were pretty good, at least in my experience. Parking was straighforward and close (I had reserved a space in lot 2 right next to One Merriweather), and because I got there early I had no trouble getting food. Everything I had to eat was good, with the lychee and pork salad from Rose’s Luxury probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten at a outdoor festival. (It was expensive, but worth every penny.)

Now some thoughts on areas where OPUS Merriweather could further improve (it’s a fairly short list):

First, I thought the map provided to attendees was confusing and somewhat misleading. As an example, it shows the Yoko One piece “Wish Tree” on the north side of the Chrysalis stage, and I got very frustrated looking for it. It’s actually on the south side of the Chrysalis, next to the driveway down from the VIP parking lot (a much better and more accessible location, in my opinion). Also apparently mislocated on the map was the Hisham Bharoocha + 80881 piece “The Difference Between Difference and Difference Marked By Language,” which I saw the sign for only while leaving the festival.

Speaking of maps, I had to continually turn on the flashlight on my phone in order to consult the (paper) brochure containing the map and schedule of events. The brochure itself advertised an OPUS Merriweather app, but I couldn’t find any mention of it in the iOS App Store. Maybe this app was Android only, or was not finished in time for the event?

Finally, OPUS Merriweather showed yet again that Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods really needs a comphrehensive well-lighted pathway system. While there was a fair amount of ambient light, I spent more time than I would have liked stumbling through the dark trying to avoid tripping over electrical cables and other obstacles. I really hope the Inner Arbor Trust is able to secure funding (whether from the county, CA, or private donors) to be able to build the type of pathway system envisioned in the Inner Arbor plans.

Despite the glitches, I think OPUS Merriweather was overall a very successful event. I found it impossible to see and hear everything I wanted to, and regret missing some things, but that’s to be expected with a single-day festival with multiple simultaneous events going on.

As I wrote on Facebook a few days ago, I don’t think the target audience of OPUS Merriweather is Columbians or county residents, rather it’s residents and (especially) businesspeople in Baltimore and DC who are candidates to live, work, and open businesses in downtown Columbia. For that audience OPUS Merriweather offered a unique and worthwhile experience that they wouldn’t have expected to be in Columbia, and wouldn’t have been able to get where they live.

(As an example, Dan Reed of the Montgomery County urbanist blog “Just Up the Pike” tweeted “I’d love to see MoCo parks host events like #OpusMerriweather.” But Montgomery County has no equivalent to Merriweather Post Pavilion or the Chrysalis, and I think they’re key to making an event like OPUS work—simply having “lots of parks and open space” is not sufficient.)

The bottom line is that Wild Dog International did a great job of pulling together a stellar festival line-up, especially given the constraints of having it be an all-ages event and (presumably) not having art with overly political content. I don’t know whether OPUS Merriweather met Howard Hughes’s goals from a marketing perspective, but I’m glad they saw fit to sponsor the event, and hope they’ll continue to do so. My last act when leaving the festival last night was to visit Yoko Ono’s “Wish Tree,” where I wished for another OPUS Merriweather Festival next year.

Further exploration

• The OPUS Merriweather website provides a good preview of the event prior to its being held. The artist and curator interviews are particularly interesting.
• “In its second year, Columbia’s Opus arts festival aims to be ‘bigger and better’,” Amanda Yeager, Baltimore Business Journal, October 9, 2018. An article discussing the Howard Hughes Corporation’s plans and goals for OPUS Merriweather.
• “Wild Dogs In The Woods,” Karisa Senavitis, Ravelin Magazine. An interview with Ken Farmer and Caroline Maxwell of Wild Dogs International.
• The OPUS Merriweather Instagram feed (login required) offers a sampling of the events and art, with the #opusmerriweather Instagram tag providing reactions from attendees.

tl;dr: I have some final thoughts after completing my series on the Chrysalis and the background to its creation.

My previous post marked the end of my series “Creating the Chrysalis.” After twelve articles and a few hundred hours of writing I’m ready to take a break from writing about the Chrysalis and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, although I’ll continue to support the work of the Inner Arbor Trust through my volunteer efforts (as at the recent Wine in the Woods event) and my donations.

However before I leave these topics (at least for now) I thought I’d take the opportunity to sum up my thoughts and opinions on the things I’ve been writing about. So without further ado here are some things I found noteworthy:

The neglect of Symphony Woods

For a tract of land that’s been the subject of so much attention and professed adoration these past few years, it’s really amazing to me how little a role Symphony Woods played in the life of Columbia for most of its history. Other than people crossing the property to get to Merriweather Post Pavilion, very little happened in Symphony Woods in the first 25 years of Columbia—even things associated with Symphony Woods in people’s minds, like the petting zoo and the Maryland Renaissance Festival, were mostly if not entirely located on the adjacent Rouse Company property and not in Symphony Woods proper.

1993 marked the first year in which more than token attention was paid to Symphony Woods, with the beginning of Wine in the Woods and attempts by Cy Paumier and others at LDR International to persuade the Columbia Association to develop Symphony Woods as a park. But again, nothing significant happened for another ten years, as proposals for a new park fell on deaf ears.

By 2003 Symphony Woods was completely absent from the Columbia Association’s list of (19!) strategic priorities (the outcome of an intensive two-year planning effort), and the LDR International proposal was so forgotten that Ken Ulman and Joshua Feldmark apparently stumbled onto it later that year like archaeologists discovering a long-lost civilization.

The lasting influence of GGP

This atmosphere of general disinterest in Symphony Woods was lifted only when a few years later General Growth Properties proposed its own plans for downtown Columbia, including building a road and various civic structures on the CA-owned Symphony Woods property. The resulting reactions from CA and others, along with the concurrent controversy over the proposal for a 23-story luxury condominium building near the lakefront (now the site of Little Patuxent Square), energized activists of all stripes to weigh in on the future of downtown Columbia in general and Symphony Woods in particular.

Whatever one’s opinions on the actual details, I think it’s clear that GGP’s proposals were the first attempts at serious planning for Columbia since the earliest days of the planned community, including reviving Jim Rouse’s practice of consulting outside experts in multiple disciplines. Many of the ideas for downtown Columbia we now take for granted first originated with GGP or in the parallel (and symbiotic?) Howard County planning effort.

This includes in particular the concept of an overall neighborhood encompassing Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the idea of that neighborhood (which GGP referred to simply as “Merriweather”) as “a new kind of cultural park where the landscape becomes a setting for arts, cultural and civic uses.” To my knowledge this language first appeared in GGP’s proposed General Plan Amendment from 2008 (see page 12) before being written into law as part of the Downtown Columbia Plan in 2010 (see page 13).

Not all of GGP’s ideas were so felicitous. One bad idea that refused to die was trying to establish some sort of linear or otherwise formally geometric connection between The Mall in Columbia and Merriweather Post Pavilion. Such a scheme was previously hinted at in the north-south “Corporate Boulevard” envisioned in the county’s 2006 draft master plan for downtown Columbia (see for example page 2.2) and in the “major promenade-style walkway” from the Mall to Symphony Woods mentioned in the 2007 Downtown Columbia: A Community Vision (page 23).

However its fullest expression was in GGP’s 2008 plan, which included a linear “Merriweather Connection to Symphony Overlook,” complete with associated buildings, from Little Patuxent Parkway all the way to Merriweather Post Pavilion (see the illustration on page 53).

The idea of putting buildings and roads in Symphony Woods between The Mall in Columbia and Merriweather Post Pavilion was soundly rejected, but the allure of a north-south axis between the two lived on, most notably in the Symphony Woods Park plan created by Cy Paumier and his associates—even if it meant cutting a significant number of trees to fit in a formal pathway geometry.

The idea of a formal mall-pavilion axis didn’t receive significant pushback until the Design Advisory Panel and Planning Board reviewed the Symphony Woods Park proposal, and wasn’t killed off entirely until the creation of the Inner Arbor plan, with its philosophy of meandering pathways and tree preservation.

Why classical music left Merriweather Post Pavilion

I had originally planned for the timeline post to focus solely on Symphony Woods, the Inner Arbor plan, and the construction of the Chrysalis. However I soon decided that Merriweather Post Pavilion was integral to the overall history (just as it’s integral to the overall vision for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods), and so it was worth doing a parallel set of items discussing what was going on with the pavilion.

The conventional narrative about Merriweather Post Pavilion goes something like this: It was created as a home for the National Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra subsequently went bankrupt, and then the pavilion was permanently taken over by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, the Who, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin. This conventional narrative is not entirely wrong, but it omits some interesting wrinkles.

First, as best as I can determine the National Symphony Orchestra never went bankrupt. It did have financial difficulties and labor issues (including a musicians strike), and those problems did result in the NSO’s 1970 summer season almost being cancelled. However the NSO did survive (in fact, it still exists) and it continued to play concerts at Merriweather Post Pavilion, at least for a while.

I suspect that what really caused the National Symphony Orchestra to abandon Merriweather Post Pavilion was the opening (in 1971) of Filene Center at Wolf Trap Farm in northern Virginia (now Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts). Filene Center was a more elaborate facility closer to Washington DC, and was lavishly subsidized both by US taxpayers and by its namesake, Catherine Filene Shouse. (Compare Shouse to fellow heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, who famously never gave a dime to support Merriweather Post Pavilion after Rouse named it for her.)

However the National Symphony Orchestra’s decamping to northern Virginia did not mark either the end of classical music at Merriweather Post Pavilion or its final takeover by rock acts. Instead, by means of some hefty subsidies the Rouse Company was able to entice the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to begin playing summer concerts at the pavilion, starting in 1974. The BSO went on to play at Merriweather Post Pavilion for several years.

Like the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was also lured away from Merriweather Post Pavilion, this time by the promise of a new performance center in Oregon Ridge Park north of Baltimore (off I-83 near Hunt Valley) and the efforts of Baltimore County Executive Donald Hutchinson and BSO patron Joseph Meyerhoff. Despite at least two attempts that promise never materialized. Nevertheless the BSO left Merriweather Post Pavilion for good after the 1981 summer season.

(Howard County chauvinism compels me to add that the BSO’s performance space in Oregon Ridge Park is no great shakes; it looks like nothing more than an upgraded version of the amphitheater at Centennial Park.)

In the meantime, during the BSO years the Rouse Company also tried to keep rock acts away from Merriweather Post Pavilion, as the pavilion played host to a parade of middlebrow pop stars like Engelbert Humperdinck and Perry Como. Rock acts eventually came back, but then in 1995 northern Virginia gave birth to another Merriweather Post Pavilion competitor, Nissan Pavilion (later, and unfortunately, renamed Jiffy Lube Live).

In the end the story of Merriweather Post Pavilion is not just that of the decline of classical music and the rise of rock, though that’s certainly a factor. I think it’s also a function of Howard County’s occupying a somewhat-awkward position between Washington and Baltimore, and not being the beneficiary of patronage from the cultural and political power brokers of either.

Thus Merriweather Post Pavilion’s continued survival has relied, and I think will continue to rely, primarily on the willingness of Howard County residents to support the pavilion both directly and indirectly. This includes the pavilion renovations (partly funded by the county), the work of the nonprofit Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission (also partly county-funded), and of course the county’s contributions toward realizing the larger vision of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

Beyond Jim Rouse and the “pioneers”

With this year marking the 50th birthday of Columbia we’ll hear a lot about Jim Rouse and his role in creating Columbia, and likely also a lot about the “pioneers,” those individuals and families who were the first residents of the newly-created community. Given that, I think it’s appropriate to spare a thought for two other groups of people who won‘t be highlighted quite as much in these celebrations.

The first is the Howard County commissioners who gave Rouse the green light to proceed with the development of Columbia, along with the county government personnel who cooperated with the Rouse Company in getting it planned and built. The commissioners in particular paid a heavy price for their role in creating Columbia, as the rapid influx of new residents tilted the voter population heavily toward Democratic-voting Columbia residents and led to a takeover of the county’s political establishment that sidelined the previous generation of politicians. (For more on this process see my book Dividing Howard: A History of County Council Redistricting in Howard County, Maryland.)

The second (and for our present purposes more important) group is the new generation of politicians, civic leaders, and activists who came to prominence in the first decade of the 21st century. In particular 2006 marked the election of Ken Ulman as Howard County executive, as well as the election of a completely new set of County Council members: Calvin Ball, Greg Fox, Mary Kay Sigaty, Jen Terrasa, and Courtney Watson.

The “class of 2006” remained intact and at the helm of Howard County government for the next eight years, during which the foundations for the future of downtown Columbia were laid, including the creation of the 2010 Downtown Columbia General Plan, detailed planning for the Crescent property inherited by the Howard Hughes Corporation from the Rouse Company and GGP, the agreement for and funding of renovation of Merriweather Post Pavilion, the pavilion’s transfer to the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission, and (last but not least from our point of view) the funding of the Inner Arbor Trust’s work on the Chrysalis after the Columbia Association board’s approval of the Inner Arbor plan.

That work has continued under the new administration of Allan Kittleman, with four out of the five “class of 2006” council members continuing to serve through 2018. (Courtney Watson resigned from the council to run unsuccessfully for County Executive against Kittleman.) Recent events have included the Tax Increment Financing plan for the Crescent development (or as Howard Hughes has taken to calling it, the Merriweather District), more funding for the Chrysalis, and (beyond downtown) plans for the village centers.

Also worthy of note are people who are not elected officials (at least, not yet) but who fill key leadership roles within Howard County and help knit together the civic fabric of the county. There are too many of these people to list them all, and I don’t want to slight anyone by not mentioning them, so I’ll simply say that you can find this next generation serving on government boards and commissions, serving as executive directors and board members of nonprofit organizations, and otherwise advocating for a positive future for Columbia and Howard County. You can also find some of their activities and achievements highlighted in my previous timeline post.

I hope that when Columbia celebrates its 100th birthday this second generation of Columbia and Howard County leaders will be given due recognition for their roles in creating the new Columbia of the 21st century.

It pays to bring in the best

At the dedication of the Chrysalis Michael McCall called up to the podium three people whose input concerning technical requirements influenced the final form of the Chrysalis: Brad Canfield of I.M.A. (who provided an example “technical rider” from the EDM artist Skrillex), Toby Orenstein of the Columbia Center for Theatrical Arts (who suggested the need for a smaller secondary stage), and Coleen West of the Howard County Arts Council (who was concerned that the stage floor to be springy enough for dance performances).

I’ve previously described the innovations inherent in the Chrysalis’s form as well as the demanding nature of the technical requirements put on it as a proposed venue for popular musical acts and theater and dance performances—requirements due in large part to the suggestions of Canfield, Orenstein, and West. As many an IT shop and defense contractor has learned to its regret, combining visionary technology with stringent and often evolving requirements can be a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen with the Chrysalis. (If it had I would have written a very different series, or perhaps no series at all.) In my opinion the reason why it didn’t happen is the overall high quality of the design, engineering, fabrication, and construction team put together by the Inner Arbor Trust: when potential problems arose there were people available who knew what they were doing and were able to work with others on the team to produce a successful outcome.

Bringing in the best possible people and organizations to get something done isn’t exactly a new thing in Howard County. The Rouse Company’s 1964 presentation on Columbia lists over sixty consultants and advisors that Jim Rouse sought out for help in planning the new city—not just from Washington and Baltimore but from all over the US.

The bottom line is that it pays to go for the best, both in the quality of the final product and in the avoidance of obstacles to producing it. That’s a lesson to keep in mind as we look to the future phases of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. We’re fortunate to have a beautiful design for the next major park feature, the Butterfly guest services building, created by the upcoming Brooklyn-based firm nARCHITECTS (recently named #9 for design in the Architect Magazine 2016 Top 50 list). Hopefully the Inner Arbor Trust will be able to attract the funding necessary to get that design realized as it was originally envisioned.

Local news and the risk of losing our history

The celebration of Columbia’s 50th birthday will also feature artifacts and documents collected by the Columbia Archives. The Archives has done a great job of preserving the early history of Columbia, and some of the fruits of that effort are available online, including its own timeline.

However the period of most interest to me is not the first decade or so of Columbia but rather the last decade or so, during which the future form of downtown Columbia was debated and plans for a park in Symphony Woods finally moved forward. For that period I relied almost totally on online sources both free and paid, and came to two conclusions:

The first is a cliché by now: that there is no substitute for professional news reporting done at the local level. Time after time I found myself consulting local newspapers, most notably the Baltimore Sun, in an effort to confirm what happened when and who said what about it.

Gone forever are the days when Howard County could support a multiple-person staff of Sun reporters, along with independent reporting from the Columbia Flier and Howard County Times. Now we’re lucky to have one person assigned to the Howard County beat, and those people typically move on to other things within a year or two. But I’m still grateful for what we have.

However, when it comes to researching the past (as opposed to following current affairs) our local papers do have some major disadvantages, for example, the lack of a usable online archive for older issues of the Columbia Flier and Howard County Times. And once you get beyond newspapers to other sources of online information the picture gets even worse.

For example, in some of my previous posts I linked to various documents on the Howard County government web site. Many of those links no longer work, victims of an apparent reorganization of the county’s internal document management system. Similarly, you can no longer find online records of many past Columbia Association board meetings, since CA’s board page now includes only meetings since January 2014. Even the Inner Arbor Trust’s extensive collection of construction photos and related materials is no longer visible due to a revamp of the Trust’s web site (although old links still work).

The list goes on: Looking for the columbiatowncenter.info web site that GGP used to promote its downtown plans? Gone, and preserved elsewhere only in fragments. How about online copies of presentations and other documents used in public meetings on proposed developments (e.g., pre-submission meetings, Design Advisory Panel meetings, and Planning Board meetings). Mostly never posted online, and now either sitting on a private hard drive somewhere or sent to the recycle bin. What about video recordings of those public presentations? Are you kidding me? Nobody bothered to film them.

The above may sound like the grumblings of a frustrated amateur historian, but I think it reflects a larger truth: For people living in and (especially) growing up in the 21th century, if something isn’t online and easily findable via search engines then it might as well not exist. How are our descendants going to celebrate the second fifty years of Columbia in 2067 if large chunks of the history of those years are lost forever, tossed in the digital dustbin?

I think this is so important a topic that I hope to post more on it later.

Questions and answers

Now for some semi-random questions and answers, in which I get to interview myself:

• Q: Why did you write this series?

  A: Because I wanted to promote the work of the Inner Arbor Trust in creating Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, and because I thought it would be an interesting thing to research and write about. (And indeed it was.)

• Q: How much time did you spend writing and researching the series?

  A: I have no idea. Probably a few hundred hours all told, given that each article took at least 10-20 hours from start to finish, and a few took significantly longer.

• Q: Why didn’t you include links to the newpaper stories in your timeline post? After all, many of them can be read online at no charge.

  A: Because I ran out of time and energy. There are almost four hundred references in the timeline, and unfortunately many if not most of the newspaper stories either are not online or if online cannot be found by searching for the title of the story as it appeared in print.

• Q: Do you plan to turn this series into a book?

  A: No. I’d be very surprised if the core readership of my blog exceeds one hundred people, and based on past experience the audience for any book would be an order of magnitude less than that. Reshaping the series into a book just isn’t worth the time that would be needed to do a good job of it.

• Q: Is there anything you wish you’d included in the series but didn’t?

  A: Yes. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I heard the story (from Kevin Day of Living Design Lab) of why the Chrysalis shingles have four different colors (and not, for example, three colors or five): it’s because there were four large coils of sheet aluminum used in fabricating the shingles, with each coil assigned a different color.

• Q: What’s your opinion on the future of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods?

  A: I think the Inner Arbor Trust is in good hands, and I’m content to simply sit back and let Nina Basu and the Trust’s board decide how best to pursue funding and constructing the remaining phases of the park.

• Q: What will you write about now?

  A: I have some ideas, but I’m not ready to talk about them yet. As Jason Booms of the local blog Spartan Considerations puts it, “stay tuned, as more will follow” (but not necessarily that soon).

Thanks and acknowledgements

To conclude this post I want to thank the many people without whom creating this series would have been impossible, or at least much more difficult than it was:

• The reporters of the Baltimore Sun and the Columbia Flier, especially those who covered downtown Columbia developments (including those related to Symphony Woods) in the GGP and Howard Hughes eras, including (in chronological order) Laura Cadiz, Larry Carson, Janene Holzberg, June Arney, Lindsey McPherson, Sarah Toth, David Greisman, Luke Lavoie, Amanda Yeager, and Fatima Waseem. (Luke Lavoie’s work was especially important, accounting for over ten percent of the almost four hundred sources I cite.)

• Marc Fornes and THEVERYMANY, who graciously gave me permission to reproduce a broad collection of renderings and photographs of both the Chrysalis and other THEVERYMANY projects, along with Zahner, Arup, and Living Design Lab, who also contributed various illustrations.

• The Columbia Archives and Columbia Association staff, for providing online access to key historical documents.

• And, finally, Michael McCall, whose thorough documentation of the work of the Inner Arbor Trust made this project tractable, and whose comments and suggestions helped make the series as comprehensive and accurate as possible—and, of course, whose work in creating and implementing the Inner Arbor plan meant that there was something for me to write about in the first place.

And with that I’m signing off for now . . .

tl;dr: The “Creating the Chrysalis” series ends with a timeline of significant events in the history of the Chrysalis, Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, and the surrounding downtown Columbia area, from 1962 to the present, with references.

This article is the last in a series exploring in depth the creation of the Chrysalis amphitheater in Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods in Columbia, Maryland. For the complete list of articles please see the introduction to the series.

Previous articles in this series discussed in detail various aspects of Symphony Woods, the Inner Arbor plan, the Chrysalis, and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. This article provides a timeline of events concerning these and related topics, including in particular downtown Columbia development and the evolution of Merriweather Post Pavilion, from the creation of Columbia to the present. It includes references for all events discussed in the timeline, and a final section listing additional sources of online information concerning the topics of this article.

1962

Jim Rouse begins the process of creating Columbia.

• April: Jim Rouse begins investigating acquiring land in Howard County, Maryland.

  Gunts, Edward. “50 years ago, a city was started behind scenes.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 19 Feb. 2012, p. 1G.

• October 15: Jim Rouse proposes to Connecticut General Life Insurance a venture to “plan and develop . . . a New City of approximately 100,000 people” between Baltimore and Washington.

  Rouse, James W. Letter to Irving G. Bjork. 15 Oct. 1962, issuu.com/columbiaarchives/docs/1962-10-15-letter. Accessed 6 May 2017.

1963

Howard County learns of Rouse’s plans.

• October 29: Jim Rouse announces to Howard County officials and residents his intent to build a planned community on almost 14,000 acres of land recently acquired by Howard Research and Development, a joint venture between his company and Connecticut General Life Insurance.

  Pickett, Edward G. “14,000 acres in Howard to be developed.” Baltimore Sun, 30 Oct. 1963, p. 44.

1964

The idea of Symphony Woods first appears in print.

• November 11: Howard Research and Development publishes a marketing brochure for Columbia. Among other things, the brochure promises the establishment of a park on a 40-acre tract of wooded land in Columbia Town Center.

  Community Research and Development, Inc. Columbia: A New Town for Howard County. 11 Nov. 1964, p. 28, issuu.com/columbiaarchives/docs/columbia_a_new_town. Accessed 6 May 2017.

1966

Construction of Columbia begins.

• June: The Rouse Company retains contractors to do clearing and grading in and around the future Village of Wilde Lake, including grading the lake bed and building access roads for construction equipment.

  “Clearing to start in Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 19 June 1966, p. 7F.

1967

Columbia, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and Symphony Woods are opened to the world.

• June 21: Columbia officially opens with the dedication of Wilde Lake, followed by an opening to the general public five days later.

  Lewis, Jack. “Columbia opening slated.” Baltimore Sun, 18 June 1967, p. 2F.

  “New village—familiar name.” Hartford Courant [Hartford CT], 23 June 1967, p. 19.

• July 14: Merriweather Post Pavilion officially opens with an inaugural performance by the National Symphony Orchestra. The pavilion is located within a 10-acre area owned by the Rouse Company, entirely surrounded by a 37-acre area designated as Symphony Woods and owned by the Columbia Association (the homeowner’s association created by Rouse for Columbia).¹

  Hill, Frederic B. “Wet throng hails Columbia, Rouse, Humphrey, and music.” Baltimore Sun, 15 July 1967, p. 20B.

  Hume, Paul. “Merriweather Post Pavilion opens to critical acclaim.” Washington Post, 16 July 1967, p. D1.

  Arney, June. “Makeover for Merriweather.” Baltimore Sun, 26 May 2008, p. 1B.

1968

Merriweather Post Pavilion focuses on classical music.

• Merriweather Post Pavilion hosts performances by the National Symphony Orchestra and other artists, including Van Cliburn, Benny Goodman, and the New York City Ballet.

  “Season preview at the Post Pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, 19 May 1968, p. 14D.

1969

As the National Symphony Orchestra experiences labor difficulties and financial problems, popular music begins its takeover of Merriweather Post Pavilion.

• Spring–summer: Merriweather Post Pavilion begins to host rock acts, including Led Zeppelin, Blood Sweat and Tears, Richie Havens, Janis Joplin, and Iron Butterfly.

  Cowan, Richard. “With a little help . . .” Washington Post, 25 May 1969, p. B8.

  “Summer adventure in performing arts.” Columbia Flier, 18 June 1969, p. 1.

• October–November: The National Symphony Orchestra endures a six-week strike by musicians.

  Ross, Nancy L. “Musicians call halt to strike.” Washington Post, Nov. 24 1969, p. A1.

1970

The popularity of Merriweather Post Pavilion with rock acts leads to expansion and crowd control issues.

• Merriweather Post Pavilion expands its capacity by 2,000 by adding loge seating under canvas tents to the sides of the main pavilion and putting more seats in the aisles of the main pavilion.

  “New addition to Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 12 May 1970, p. B6.

• June 27: After uncertainty over its financial situation, the National Symphony announces that it will have a full summer season at Merriweather Post Pavilion after all.

  Kriegsman, Alan M. “Symphony saviors.” Washington Post, 27 June 1970, p. C1.

• June 28. Several hundred people enter Symphony Woods and break through fences to gate-crash a concert by Procol Harum at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Concerts the next two days by The Who and others draw up to 20,000 people with no further problems.

  Hodge, Paul. “Crowd crashes Post Pavilion.” Washington Post, 29 June 1970, p. 4A.

  Ross, Nancy L. “Rocking on.” Washington Post, 1 July 1970, p. B5.

1971

The Rouse Company outsources management of Merriweather Post Pavilion, as Wolf Trap opens and competes with the pavilion for classical music performances.

• January: The Rouse Company engages Nederlander Arts Associates to operate Merriweather Post Pavilion under a 10-year lease agreement.

  “New managers at Merriweather.” Baltimore Sun, 24 Jan. 1971, p. D15.

• June: The National Symphony Orchestra schedules four summer performances at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  “National Symphony plans Post Pavilion concerts.” Baltimore Sun, 20 June 1971, p. B4.

• July: After testing a prototype elsewhere in Columbia, Antioch College proposes to construct a 30,000 square-foot inflatable structure on Rouse Company land next to Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion to house the college’s Human Ecology Center.

  “The ‘Bubble’.” Columbia Flier, 21 July 1971, p. 40.

  Clark, Michael J. “Big air-bubble campus planned.” Baltimore Sun, 2 Dec. 1971, p. C20.

  Clark, Michael J. “Antioch lays the cornerstone to pneumatic campus in Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 7 July 1972, p. A9.

• July 1: Filene Center at Wolf Trap Farm Park in Northern Virginia opens with a concert featuring the National Symphony Orchestra.

  Sanders, Donald. “Park for the arts puts music in the Vienna (Va.) woods.” Baltimore Sun, 27 June 1971, p. D1.

1973

The Rouse Company and the Columbia Association try to attract more visitors to downtown Columbia, as the bubble bursts on another downtown scheme.

• Symphony Woods and the adjacent Rouse Company property next to the Columbia Mall host a 5-acre petting zoo during the summer.²

  Clark, Michael J. “Howard zoo’s 1st born a mule.” Baltimore Sun, 11 Sept. 1973, p. C13.

• October-December: Amid concerns about practicality, maintenance cost, and vandalism, Antioch College tries to sell its inflatable structure next to Symphony Woods, but “Mother Nature and larcenous scavengers” prove to be its downfall, as winds collapse the structure and thieves pick over the remains.

  Clark, Michael J. “College has bubble trouble.” Baltimore Sun, 26 Oct. 1973, p. A10.

  Clark, Michael J. “Scavengers plunder Antioch’s burst bubble.” Baltimore Sun, 6 Dec. 1973, p. C7.

1974

The Rouse Company attempts to steer Merriweather Post Pavilion away from rock and back to more traditional fare.

• January 29: The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra announces a series of performances at Merriweather Post Pavilion supported by funding from the Rouse Company, as Rouse executive Michael Spear notes the pavilion’s need to “change its image.”

  Galkin, Elliott W. “Symphony season adds Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Jan. 30 1974, p. B6.

  Clark, Michael J. “Merriweather drums out rock era.” Baltimore Sun, 30 Jan. 1974, p. C11.

• April: Nederlander Arts Associates suspends operations at Merriweather Post Pavilion for the 1974 summer season, citing restrictions on rock acts and the Rouse Company’s unwillingness to expand seating.

  “Columbia concerts reduced.” Baltimore Sun, 26 Apr. 1974, p. C4.

1975

The Rouse Company continues its efforts to avoid having Merriweather Post Pavilion become a rock venue.

• March 19: The Rouse Company discusses its efforts to get the state of Maryland to buy Merriweather Post Pavilion. Rouse executive Michael Spear notes that the responsibility for booking performers has left the Rouse Company “troubled by our ownership of the pavilion” ever since its creation, and that the pavilion has “lost several hundred thousand dollars since it opened.”

  Clark, Michael J. “Columbia pavilion up for sale.” Baltimore Sun, 20 Mar. 1975, p. D1.

• May: The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra schedules six summer concerts at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  “Symphony slates summer concerts.” Baltimore Sun, 11 May 1975, p. D18.

1977

Crowd control problems continue at Merriweather Post Pavilion, and a new attraction opens near Symphony Woods.

• August 14: The Columbia Association bans trespassing in Symphony Woods during performances at Merriweather Post Pavilion. The ban is lifted less than two weeks later.

  Clark, Michael J. “Columbia revokes trespassing ban at Merriweather Post Pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, 25 Aug. 1977, p. 24C.

• September–October: The first annual Renaissance Festival is held next to Symphony Woods.³

  “A Renaissance Festival: First Annual Renaissance Festival, Columbia, Maryland.” Baltimore Sun, 16 Sept. 1977, p. 5B.

1978

More potential competition for Merriweather Post Pavilion appears, then recedes.

• April 8: Consultants to Baltimore County, including Frank Gehry, recommend constructing a new performance center at Oregon Ridge Park to replace Merriweather Post Pavilion as the summer home of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Advantages cited for the proposed center’s design include “better backstage facilities and wing and storage space than [Merriweather Post Pavilion].”

  Pietila, Antero. “Build Oregon Ridge pavilion, consultants say.” Baltimore Sun, 9 Apr. 1978, p. A1.

• November 7: By a 59%–41% margin Baltimore County voters defeat a plan to borrow $4 million to build the proposed Oregon Ridge performance center.

  “Voting on Baltimore county questions.” Baltimore Sun, 9 Nov. 1978, p. A11.

1979

Jim Rouse leaves the company that bears his name, and Merriweather Post Pavilion sticks to non-rock fare as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra considers leaving the pavilion.

• March: Howard County Executive J. Hugh Nichols announces that the county will not issue concert permits for Merriweather Post Pavilion until a security plan is in place to control access to the pavilion and Symphony Woods during concerts.

  “‘Security plan’ required for pavilion at Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 13 Mar. 1979, p. 5C.

• May: Jim Rouse steps down as CEO of the Rouse Company.

  “Annual meeting marks end of an era for Rouse.” Baltimore Sun, 24 May 1979, p. 15A.

• June 1: With “people like Paul Anka, [Engelbert] Whatshisdink, Perry Como, George Benson, Chuck Mangione, [Joan] Baez, and Judy Collins,” critic Tom Basham criticizes “blandness” in Merriweather Post Pavilion’s summer schedule, with the pavilion “serving cold turkey to rock fans this year.”

  Basham, Tom. “Dog days lie ahead.” Baltimore Sun, 1 June 1979, p. B6.

• June 21: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra President Joseph Meyerhoff proposes a scaled-down pavilion for Oregon Ridge park as the new summer home for the BSO.

  Trammer, Monte L. “Pavilion plan considered in county.” Baltimore Sun, 22 June 1979, p. C22.

1980

Symphony Woods continues to function mainly as the entry way to Merriweather Post Pavilion, as the pavilion continues to compete with Oregon Ridge Park for classical performances.

• Juny 2: Critic Stephen Sera reviews Baltimore Symphony Orchestra summer concerts and praises the acoustic quality of Merriweather Post Pavilion compared to Oregon Ridge Park.

  Cera, Stephen. “BSO does justice to Tchaikovsky.” Baltimore Sun, 2 July 1980, p. C3.

• September: In the course of a dispute between the Columbia Association and the operators of Merriweather Post Pavilion, Lt. James Robey of the Howard County Police Department (and later Howard County Executive) testifies that without the closing of Symphony Woods before and during Merriweather performances “there will be no pavilion.” Members of the Columbia Association Board of Directors⁴ complain that as a result families can’t picnic in Symphony Woods most weekends during the summer.

  Garland, Jeanne. “Pavilion operators ask the council to eliminate fee for closing woods.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 Sept. 1980, p. 3.

• November 4: By a margin of only 126 votes Baltimore County voters approve a $1.25 million bond issue to construct an Oregon Ridge performance center to be used by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. However the performance center fails to attract matching state funding.

  “Oregon Ridge barely won.” Baltimore Sun, 14 Nov. 1980, p. D2.

  Sin, Richard H. P. “Hutchinson drops bid for Oregon Ridge aid.” Baltimore Sun, 26 Feb. 1981, p. C20.

1982

Jim Rouse finds life after the Rouse Company, Michael and Barbara McCall move to Columbia as Michael begins working with Rouse, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra abandons Merriweather Post Pavilion.

• January: Jim and Patty Rouse found the non-profit Enterprise Foundation (later renamed Enterprise Community Partners) and its for-profit subsidiary, the Enterprise Development Company.

  Peirce, Neal R. “For the poorest.” Baltimore Sun, 18 Jan. 1982, p. 11A.

• Spring: Michael McCall and his wife Barbara move from Minneapolis to Columbia, and McCall joins the Enterprise Development Company as its fourth employee to work on various projects, including a joint venture with Walt Disney Co.

  Lavoie, Luke. “‘An awesome responsibility’.” Columbia Flier, 14 Mar. 2013, p. 1.

  Strategic Leisure. “Who.” Strategic Leisure, strategicleisure.com/who.

• May 26: For the first time in almost a decade the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra does not play at Merriweather Post Pavilion, instead scheduling summer concerts at Oregon Ridge Park and Pier 6 at the Inner Harbor.

  Cera, Stephen. “Summer concerts set in 3 locations.” Baltimore Sun, 26 May 1982, p. C17.

1983

One of the last non-Merriweather attractions at or near Symphony Woods shuts down.

• April 5. Someone sets fire to the backstage area of Merriweather Post Pavilion, causing $250,000 damage.

  “Pavilion fire ruled arson.” Baltimore Sun, 7 Apr. 1983, p. D2.

• July: The petting zoo at Symphony Woods closes due to lack of interest.

  Wyskida, Sherry. “Declining attendance brings close of Children’s Zoo.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 July 1983, p. 11.

1985

Symphony Woods loses another non-Merriweather attraction.

• February 28: The Maryland Renaissance Festival receives approval to move its operations from next to Symphony Woods to a dedicated site in Crownsville, Maryland.

  Clark, Michael J. “Renaissance festival gets OK for site.” Baltimore Sun, 1 Mar. 1985, p. 3D.

  Sarris, Marina. “Cultural diversity lost as Renaissance festival moves.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 10 Mar. 1985, p. 2.

1992

The Rouse Company makes a first attempt at developing its property next to Symphony Woods, as Michael McCall strikes out on his own.

• March 19: The Howard County Council (acting as the Zoning Board) rejects a request from the Rouse Company to build 300 apartments in Columbia Town Center next to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods.

  Nelson, Erik. “Howard County officials trim plan for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 21 Mar. 1992, p. 2B.

• April: Michael McCall founds Strategic Leisure, Inc.

  Lavoie, Luke. “‘An awesome responsibility’.” Columbia Flier, 14 Mar. 2013, p. 1.

  Strategic Leisure. “Who.” Strategic Leisure, strategicleisure.com/who.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2016.

1993

More than 25 years after its creation, interest grows in encouraging more use of Symphony Woods.

• May 15-16: The first Wine in the Woods festival is held in Symphony Woods.

  Nelson, Erik. “Wine gala is called a success.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 17 May 1993, p. 1B.

• November: The Columbia Association contracts with Land Design Research (later renamed LDR International), a firm founded by former Columbia planner Cy Paumier and his associates, to study ways to increase the use of Symphony Woods.

  Sachs, Adam. “Citizens group aims to influence plan for Symphony Woods.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 1 Dec. 1993, p. 3B.

1994

The first park plan for Symphony Woods appears, along with another new park attraction.

• November 10: LDR International presents the results of its study on development of Symphony Woods, recommending a pathway around the park with a more formal park entrance and boardwalks over environmentally sensitive areas, a formal garden and wildflower plantings, seating for picnickers, and a “sound garden” with hidden speakers or fountains. The plan is later estimated to cost $600,000.

  Sachs, Adam. “Path, boardwalk urged for Symphony Woods.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Nov. 1994, p. 1B.

  Sachs, Adam. “Cost of upgrading Symphony Woods estimated at $600,000.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 12 Dec. 1994, p. 3B.

• December: The first Symphony of Lights display is held in and around Symphony Woods.

  “Drive through display of seasonal light scenes.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 15 Nov. 1994, p. 6B.

1995

Development in downtown Columbia and Symphony Woods is stalled, and the future of Merriweather Post Pavilion is uncertain.

• February 16: LDR International again presents its plan for Symphony Woods at a public hearing sponsored by the Columbia Association, amid concerns that the plan is “too extravagant” and recommendations to “move slowly” on the project, citing (among other things) the fact that the park is closed for Merriweather Post Pavilion concerts during the summer. Only one resident attends the hearing.

  Sachs, Adam. “Council to begin deliberations tonight on Columbia Association budget.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Feb. 1995, p. 6B.

  Sachs, Adam. “Financial committee pans plan for recreational vehicle parking.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 17 Feb. 1995, p. 3B.

• February 27: Amid resident concerns about spending increases the Columbia Association Board of Directors votes to cut the CA budget, deferring several capital projects including a $102,000 project to dredge the pond in Symphony Woods, the first phase of the park plan proposed by LDR International.

  Sachs, Adam. “Council adopts budget.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 28 Feb. 1995, p. 1B.

• May: The Rouse Company asks Howard County for permission to build 345 apartments or condominiums next to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods.

  Nelson, Erik. “345 apartments proposed for Town Center.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 May 1995, p. 1B.

• June: In his comments before the Howard County Planning Board regarding the Rouse Company’s rezoning request, Rouse executive Alton Scavo raises the possibility of Merriweather Post Pavilion being closed down, and also speculates about adding an arts, educational, and cultural center near the pavilion.

  Coram, James M., and Adam Sachs. “No overhaul of Pavilion is planned.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 19 June 1995, p. 1B.

• July: The Howard County Planning Board rejects the Rouse Company’s proposal to develop apartments next to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods, citing the risk of the pavilion being forced to close due to noise complaints and the need to preserve downtown land for commercial development.

  Nelson, Erik. “Rouse plan for apartments near Post Pavilion denied.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 30 July 1995, p. 3C.

1996

The end of an era in Columbia.

• April 9: Jim Rouse dies.

  Lally, Kathy. “Urban visionary succumbs at 81.” Baltimore Sun, 10 Apr. 1996, p. 1A.

1997

The Rouse Company attempts to address issues with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

• April: Contracts are signed for an initial set of renovations at Merriweather Post Pavilion, designed to help it compete with other venues.

  “Post Pavilion improvements will permit larger-scale acts.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 23 Apr. 1997, p. 3B.

• October: As Merriweather Post Pavilion celebrates its 30th birthday, its size and outdated facilities make it less competitive compared to alternative venues like the new Nissan Pavilion (now Jiffy Lube Live) in northern Virginia.

  Hedgpeth, Dana. “Newer venues challenge pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 20 Oct. 1997, p. 1B.

1999

Merriweather Post Pavilion sees a new operator, but plans to create a park in Symphony Woods provoke little interest.

• March: Concert promoter SFX International takes over operations at Merriweather Post Pavilion from the Nederlander organization.

  Neal, Jill Hudson. “Merriweather concert lease goes to SFX.” Baltimore Sun, 23 Mar. 1999, p. 2C.

• March 25: Cy Paumier and LDR International present to the Columbia Association a proposal to make Symphony Woods more accessible to visitors.

  Niedowski, Erika. “Columbia looks to improve access to Symphony Woods.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 Mar. 1999, p. 3B.

• July 22: Cy Paumier and LDR International again present to the Columbia Association Board of Directors a proposal for Symphony Woods, and wait for the board to decide whether to begin discussions about it.

  Niedowski, Erika. “Symphony Woods renovation eyed.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 23 July 1999, p. 1B.

  Niedowski, Erika. “Marando calls for council review.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 Aug. 1999, p. 1B.

2003

The Rouse Company makes a last attempt at developing downtown Columbia and threatens to downsize Merriweather Post Pavilion, as others revive the idea of creating a park in Symphony Woods.

• March: The Rouse Company considers applying for permission to build more residential units in Columbia Town Center, and rumors circulate about the fate of Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Reconsidering Town Center.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 23 Mar. 2003, p. 1B.

• April 21: The Rouse Company proposes adding 1,600 residential units in Columbia Town Center next to Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion, helping to create a “vibrant urban center.”

  Cadiz, Laura. “Rouse subsidiary seeks OK for 2,141 more units.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 1 May 2003, p. 1B.

• April 24: After two years of debate and discussion, the Columbia Association Board of Directors approves a strategic plan for CA, including a list of 19 priorities for 2004 and other items for future years. Developing Symphony Woods as a park is not among them.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Columbia Council lists its long-term goals.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 1 May 2003, p. 3B.

• May 29: The Howard County Planning Board approves the Rouse Company’s request to add 2,141 new residential units, including about 1,600 units in Columbia Town Center. Rouse executive Dennis Miller pledges that units will not be built on the Merriweather Post Pavilion or Symphony Woods properties: “[Merriweather Post Pavilion] will always be used for the arts.” Miller later repeats the pledge to counter rumors that Merriweather Post Pavilion will be closed, although he notes that development could affect the pavilion’s parking lots.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Planning Board OKs additional housing units.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 30 May 2003, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Merriweather Post rumors denied.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 22 July 2003, p. 1B.

• July 23: The Rouse Company proposes converting Merriweather Post Pavilion into a year-round indoor theater, noting that the pavilion has been “deteriorating through the years.” Members of the recently-formed advocacy group Save Merriweather speak out against the plan.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Board delays Rouse hearings.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 July 2003, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Theater proposed for Post Pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 24 July 2003, p. 1B.

  Alexander, Sandy. “Fans want Merriweather to stay the same.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 24 Aug. 2003, p. 1B.

  “History and accomplishments.” SaveMerriweather.com, Save Merriweather, 2004, www.savemerriweather.com/history.html. Accessed 11 May 2017.

• September–October: As the Howard County Council (in its role as the Zoning Board) conducts a series of contentious public hearings on the Rouse Company’s proposals, council member (and future County Executive) Ken Ulman and Columbia Association board member Joshua Feldmark attempt to revive the idea of developing Symphony Woods as a park, citing their rediscovery of LDR International’s 1999 proposal to CA.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Windfall seen in building proposal.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Sept. 2003, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Residents testify on Town Center proposal.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 12 Sept. 2003, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Press Rouse for details on housing, panel told.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 Sept. 2003, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “A vision of ‘Central Park’ in Howard.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 5 Oct. 2003, p. 1B.

  Carson, Larry, and Laura Cadiz. “Rouse Co. defends plan for zoning.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 21 Oct. 2003, p. 1B.

• October: The Rouse Company hires I.M.P., the owner of the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, to manage Merriweather Post Pavilion, replacing Clear Channel Entertainment (formerly SFX Entertainment).

  Cadiz, Laura. “New Merriweather management.” Baltimore Sun, 15 Oct. 2003, p. 3E.

• November 3: The Howard County Council holds its eighth and final public hearing on the Rouse Company’s proposal to add more residential units in Columbia Town Center and elsewhere.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Eighth hearing held on rezoning.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 4 Nov. 2003, p. 1B.

2004

The Rouse Company is absorbed into General Growth Properties, as the Howard County Council gets more involved in planning downtown Columbia and attendees see the first fruits of I.M.P.’s management of Merriweather Post Pavilion.

• January 21: The Howard County Council unanimously rejects the Rouse Company’s request to add 2,141 residential units to Columbia. Chair Ken Ulman cites the need for an analysis of possible revisions to Columbia’s New Town zoning scheme, as well as a desire for more details on pedestrian access, a possible Symphony Woods park, and other issues.

  Cadiz, Laura. “County board rejects Rouse’s downtown plan.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 22 January 2004, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Zoning denial spurs doubts about Rouse.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 Jan 2004, p. 1B.

  Pichaske, Pete. “Rejection could signal end of New Town zoning.” Columbia Flier, 29 Jan. 2004, p. 4.

• February–March: As the future of Merriweather Post Pavilion remains uncertain in the face of Rouse Company plans to convert it to an indoor theater, I.M.P. Productions previews its first season of events at the pavilion.

  Alexander, Sandy. “Venue posts concert dates.” Baltimore Sun, 5 Feb. 2004, p. 1E.

  Alexander, Sandy. “Merriweather Post holding on.” Baltimore Sun, 21 Mar. 2004, p. 62T.

• March 31: The Rouse Company files a court appeal of the Howard County Council’s rejection of its plans. (The appeal is ultimately unsuccessful.)

  “Rouse Co. appeals rejection of its plan to add homes in Columbia Town Center.” Baltimore Sun, 8 Apr. 2004, p. 3B.

  Wan, William. “Judge to rule on fate of land next to Merriweather Post Pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 Mar. 2005, p. 1G.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Plans for Columbia are moving forward.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 Sept. 2005, p. 1G.

• June: The Howard County Council decides to undertake its own comprehensive analysis of Columbia’s New Town zoning regulations, while Howard County plans to study the feasibility of purchasing Merriweather Post Pavilion from the Rouse Company.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Council abandons plans for citizen zoning panel.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 17 June 2004, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “County weighs buying Merriweather.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 24 June 2004, p. 1B.

• July: As I.M.P. works to make improvements to Merriweather Post Pavilion and increase revenue, Howard County Executive Jim Robey proposes financing a county purchase of the pavilion using ticket sales and concessions revenue.

  Alexander, Sandy. “Merriweather pavilion dances to a new theme.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 1 July 2004, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Tickets seen as source of funds for pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 4 July 2004, p. 1B.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Managers combat pavilion’s reputation.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 July 2004, p. 1B.

• July 28: County Executive Jim Robey creates a citizens advisory panel to advise him on whether Howard County should purchase Merriweather Post Pavilion from the Rouse Company.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Robey names panel to study pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, 29 July 2004, p. 3B.

• August 20: General Growth Properties (GGP) announces its intent to acquire the Rouse Company for $12.6 billion. Rouse executive Bob Rubenkonig announces “it’s definitely business as usual” as far as plans for Columbia and Merriweather Post Pavilion are concerned.

  Hopkins, Jamie Smith. “Rouse to sell to competitor.” Baltimore Sun, 21 Aug. 2004, p. 1A.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Rouse plans survive sale.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 24 Aug. 2004, p. 1B.

• September: As the Rouse Company renews I.M.P.’s contract to manage Merriweather Post Pavilion, I.M.P. co-owner Seth Hurwitz urges the citizens advisory panel on the pavilion to maintain it as an open-air venue, and pavilion manager Jean Parker points to the need for at least $5 million in repairs.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Firm that operates pavilion opposes plan to enclose it.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 29 Sept. 2004, p. 1B.

• September 13: The Howard County Council begins a series of public hearings on proposals to revise zoning regulations for Columbia.

  Cadiz, Laura. “County holds zoning forum.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 Sept. 2004, p. 1B.

• November 12: General Growth Properties concludes its purchase of the Rouse Company. As a consequence of the acquisition, GGP assumes responsibility for planning in Columbia Town Center.

  Hopkins, Jamie Smith. “Rouse, real estate innovator, moves into history.” Baltimore Sun, 13 Nov. 2004, p. 11C.

• December: As General Growth Properties encounters resistance to its new role in Columbia, the Columbia Association proposes holding a weeklong “charrette” in which residents, developers, and county officials could create draft proposals for downtown Columbia development.

  Wan, William. “Rouse buyer meets friction.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 19 Dec. 2004, p. 1B.

  “Columbia leaders propose a summit on land use.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 17 Dec. 2004, p. 2B.

• December 17: As Howard County’s exclusive right to purchase Merriweather Post Pavilion expires, the citizens advisory panel on the pavilion issues its preliminary recommendations, advising against converting it to an indoor venue. The panel also offers suggestions on addressing future parking needs at Merriweather Post Pavilion, including entering into parking agreements with nearby office buildings or building parking garages on the Symphony Woods property.

  Wan, William. “Howard rights to venue set to expire.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 19 Dec. 2004, p. 8B.

2005

Merriweather Post Pavilion is saved and is proposed as a center for culture and the arts for Columbia and Howard County, as GGP, Howard County, and others plot the future of Columbia’s downtown.

• January: The citizens advisory panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion prepares to make its final recommendations amid confusion and controversy about General Growth Properties’s plans for the pavilion and for downtown Columbia.

  Wan, William. “Fate of Merriweather Post Pavilion may be decided soon.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Jan. 2005, p. 1B.

• March 18: The citizens advisory panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion produces its final report, recommending that Howard County purchase the pavilion, and advising “positioning Merriweather as a center for the arts, education and culture and making it an important regional and cultural force.” The panel recommends making about $19.5 million in renovations to the pavilion, including raising its roof.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Panel recommends Howard buy pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, 19 Mar. 2005, p. 3B.

  Citizen Advisory Panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion. Final Report. Howard County, 2005, frankhecker.com/assets/texts/citizens-advisory-panel-on-merriweather-post-pavilion-final-report.pdf. Accessed 26 May 2017.

• April 11: Howard County Council members Guy Guzzone and Ken Ulman announce Howard County Executive Jim Robey’s decision to fund development of a community master plan for downtown Columbia, in parallel with efforts by General Growth Properties to develop its own plan.

  Cadiz, Laura. “2 Town Center plans coming.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 Apr. 2005, p. 1G.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Mastering a plan for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 17 Apr. 2005, p. 1G.

• April 12: General Growth Properties abandons plans to convert Merriweather Post Pavilion into an indoor venue and subsequently takes the pavilion off the market, declaring that “the [Town Center and Merriweather Post Pavilion] are linked.”

  Cadiz, Laura. “Howard pavilion to stay open air.” Baltimore Sun, 13 Apr. 2005, p. 1B.

  Carson, Larry. “Downtown plan for Columbia tied to pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, 1 May 2005. p. 1G.

• May 18: General Growth Properties holds a public meeting to unveil a draft plan for downtown Columbia, including a proposed development of three buildings in the Crescent property south and west of Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Cadiz, Laura, and Larry Carson. “Developer unveils its plan for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 19 May 2005, p. 1B.

• June: General Growth Properties holds public “town hall” meetings to present a framework for a future master plan for downtown Columbia and discuss issues of traffic and walkability.

  “You’re invited to attend the 2nd Columbia town hall meeting.” Baltimore Sun, 10 June 2005, p. 5G.

• October: Howard County sponsors a weeklong charrette, a series of public meetings (originally proposed by the Columbia Association) to solicit input on the future of downtown Columbia.

  Wheeler, Timothy B. “A ‘there’ there: Seeking a more urban Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 2 Oct. 2005, p. 6F.

  Otto, Mary. “‘Whatever happened to Tivoli?’” Washington Post, 13 Oct. 2005. p. T12.

  Blakely, Andrei. “Charrette gives public voice in planning of downtown.” Columbia Flier, 13 Oct. 2005.

  Blakely, Andrei. “Mass input guides new downtown Columbia.” Columbia Flier, 20 Oct. 2005.

2006

A vision for downtown Columbia starts to form, as the Columbia Association pulls back on its participation in planning efforts and a new generation of Howard County politicians takes power.

• February 27: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning presents a draft master plan for downtown Columbia. It treats Symphony Woods, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the Crescent property as an integrated neighborhood for planning purposes, and envisions it as “a cultural, residential, service retail, and office district.” It also suggests improving pedestrian access to Symphony Woods from the mall, and includes a rendering of a possible promenade from the mall terminating at a fountain in Symphony Woods just south of Little Patuxent Parkway.

  Cadiz, Laura. “Columbia plan is on way.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 26 Feb. 2006, p. 1G.

  Design Collective, Inc., and Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. The Columbia Downtown Master Plan (Preliminary Draft). Howard County, Maryland, 27 Feb. 2006, archive.org/details/CDMP1Intro. Accessed 11 May 2017.

• March 9: The Columbia Association Board of Directors debates a resolution to prohibit CA staff, including CA President Maggie Brown, from having private discussions with General Growth Properties and Howard County officials regarding downtown Columbia planning. The board votes to amend the resolution to instead require the staff to report on the times, places, and attendees for all such meetings, and not enter into any agreements without public review by the board.

  Even with the clarification provided by the resolution, confusion and controversy persist regarding the extent to which CA staff can or should discuss downtown Columbia planning issues with GGP, Howard County, or others.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, March 9, 2006, Approved March 23, 2006. 23 Mar. 2006, p. 3.

  Columbia Association. Resolution on Downtown Partnership Meetings [as introduced]. 9 Mar. 2006.

  Columbia Association. Amendment to: Resolution on Downtown Partnership Meetings [as approved]. 9 Mar. 2006.

  Arney, June. “Much ado about meeting.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 2 Apr. 2008, p. 2U.

  Arney, June. “CA board ‘off to a good start.’” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 28 May 2008, p. 3U.

• October 19: General Growth Properties and Howard Community College sponsor the first in a series of “Voices of Vision” presentations in which invited speakers present on topics relevant to Columbia downtime planning. Further events are held in November 2006 and January 2007.

  “Columbia: ‘Grow or die’.” Baltimore Sun, 22 Oct. 2006, p. 1G.

• November 7: Ken Ulman is elected Howard County Executive. Calvin Ball, Greg Fox, Mary Kay Sigaty, Jen Terrasa, and Courtney Watson are elected to the Howard County Council.

  Paley, Amit R. “Ulman wins as Democrats strengthen hold on council.” Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2006, p. A43.

2007

Downtown planning efforts continue, and identify Symphony Woods as a key component of the vision for downtown Columbia.

• September 28: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning releases a draft document Downtown Columbia: A Community Vision.

  Arney, June. “Howard releases ‘vision’ of town.” Baltimore Sun, 29 Sept. 2007, p. 1B.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Downtown Columbia: A Community Vision (Draft). Howard County, Maryland, 28 Sept. 2007, archive.org/details/DCCVDraft092807All. Accessed 11 May 2017.

• November: Columbia Association board member Cynthia Coyle and Alex Hekimian and Alan Klein (of the advocacy groups Alliance for a Better Columbia and the Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown respectively) protest General Growth Properties scheduling private meetings with members of Columbia village boards to discuss downtown redevelopment, citing provisions of the Maryland Homeowners Association Act.

  Arney, June. “GGP is holding private meetings on Town Center.” Baltimore Sun, 14 Nov. 2007, p. 1G.

• December 10: Greg Hamm replaces Doug Godine as Regional Vice President of General Growth Properties and general manager of Columbia.

  Arney, June. “GGP selects Hamm for post.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 12 Dec. 2007, p. 1G.

• December 28: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning releases the final version of Downtown Columbia: A Community Vision. It recommends “both woodland restoration [of Symphony Woods] to enhance its value as a natural area and additional activities to meet its full potential as the ‘Central Park’ for Downtown.” It also recommends a promenade connecting Symphony Woods to the mall.

  Arney, June. “A downtown re-vision.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 30 Dec. 2007, p. 1G.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Downtown Columbia: A Community Vision. Howard County, Maryland, 28 Dec. 2007, archive.org/details/DCCV2007. Accessed 11 May 2017.

2008

General Growth Properties promotes its new plan for downtown, including Symphony Woods, and the Columbia Association reacts.

• January: The Columbia Association adds a preliminary budget item for a new CA headquarters, possibly to be located on CA-owned land in Symphony Woods next to Toby’s Dinner Theater.

  Arney, June. “Association offers 2009, 2010 budgets.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Jan. 2008, p. 4U.

• March: General Growth Properties begins a series of four public forums to discuss the future of downtown Columbia. Alan Ward, one of the designers working on a GGP plan for downtown Columbia, comments on possible arts and cultural uses for Symphony Woods: “Merriweather Post Pavilion is important, but what else goes on in Symphony Woods? What could make it more part of the life and future of downtown?”

  Arney, June. “Trying to get Columbia on the right foot.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 9 Mar. 2008, p. 8U.

  Arney, June. “Architect shares Town Center ideas.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Apr. 2008, p. 4U.

• April 3: General Growth Properties and the Columbia Association meet for the first time to discuss issues relating to downtown Columbia.

  Arney, June. “Much ado about meeting.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 2 Apr. 2008, p. 2U.

  Arney, June. “GGP, CA upbeat on meeting.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 9 Apr. 2008, p. 3U.

• April 28: General Growth Properties presents to the public a proposed master plan for downtown Columbia. The plan proposes a “cultural spine” linking The Mall in Columbia with a renovated Merriweather Post Pavilion, including a pedestrian promenade from the mall to the pavilion, multiple civic and cultural buildings within Symphony Woods, and a new road south of and parallel to Little Patuxent Parkway.

  Arney, June. “GGP reveals downtown Columbia plan.” Baltimore Sun, 29 Apr. 2008, p. 2B.

  Gunts, Edward. “Putting a ‘there’ there.” Baltimore Sun, 5 May 2008, p. 1C.

  “Downtown Columbia Plan: Overview.” Columbia Town Center, General Growth Properties, columbiatowncenter.info/MasterPlan.aspx. Archived 9 May 2008.

• May 10: General Growth Properties begins a series of “Vision in Focus” public presentations describing the proposed master plan, as well as a separate “Community Discussions” series. Consultant Gail Dexter Lord emphasizes the need for new cultural attractions in downtown Columbia, as controversy arises over GGP’s proposal to put buildings on CA-owned land within Symphony Woods.

  Arney, June. “Future Columbia transit previewed for residents.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 May 2008, p. 3U.

  Arney, June. “Culture is keynote of Columbia forum.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 May 2008, p. 6U.

  Arney, June. “Residents give GGP proposal mixed reviews.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 May 2008, p. 7U.

  Arney, June. “Makeover for Merriweather.” Baltimore Sun, 26 May 2008, p. 1B.

• May 22: The newly-elected Columbia Association Board of Directors meets and receives updates on the CA staff’s recent initial meeting with General Growth Properties. The CA board also authorizes making a formal request to Howard County officials to delay any zoning changes to give the board time to talk with officials. Board member Tom O’Connor notes that “we haven’t talked to them at all because we’ve had this embargo on [CA] staff talking to the county.”

  Arney, June. “CA board ‘off to a good start’.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 28 May 2008, p. 3U.

• June 26: The Columbia Association Board of Directors adopts a seventeen point position statement crafted by the Planning and Strategy Committee that articulates CA’s position on desired outcomes for downtown development, including that “Symphony Woods will be protected and will serve as Columbia’s Community Park.” The board also approves sending a letter to Howard County and GGP outlining its position.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, June 26, 2008, Approved August 28, 2008. 28 Aug. 2008, p. 5.

• July 11: General Growth Properties previews its planned rezoning submission to Howard County in a public meeting. Among other things, the plan proposes developing “culturally themed buildings and green spaces” in the northern portion of Symphony Woods. In response to a concern expressed about “the incredible shrinking Symphony Woods,” GGP Vice President Greg Hamm remarks that “Symphony Woods is a seriously degraded environment” and points to reforestation plans for woods along US 29.

  Carson, Larry. “Views of the future.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 July 2008, p. 4U.

• July 24: The Columbia Association Board of Directors approves a set of “Guiding Principles for Future Plans for Development of Symphony Woods,” to be used by CA staff in discussions with General Growth Properties:

  1. Restoration and maintenance of a vibrant and natural ecosystem.
  2. Provisions for a gathering place for individuals and community events.
  3. Merriweather Post Pavilion will be an exciting and active destination.
  4. Limited new roadways or buildings of a park-related scale.
  5. Connectivity and accessibility to the rest of the downtown.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, July 24, 2008, Approved September 25, 2008. 25 Sept. 2008, p. 4.

• July 28: The newly formed advocacy group Columbia 2.0 announces its support for redevelopment of downtown Columbia.

  Carson, Larry. “Role by youth urged in Columbia’s plans.” Baltimore Sun, 29 July 2008, p. 2B.

• September 9: The newly-formed advocacy group Columbia Tomorrow meets in Symphony Woods to express support for the General Growth Properties proposal and for the restoration of what it calls an ”environmentally sensitive area that has been unintentionally neglected.”

  Carson, Larry. “New group backing Columbia proposal.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Sept. 2008, p. 1G.

• September 24: General Growth Properties Vice President Greg Hamm issues reassurances that GGP’s financial problems will not affect its plans for downtown Columbia redevelopment.

  Carson, Larry. “Developer about to redo Columbia faces cash crunch.” Baltimore Sun, 28 Sept. 2008, p. 8A.

• September 25: The Columbia Association Board of Directors approves having CA staff work with Cy Paumier and associates “to collaborate and work toward developing a best approach and budget estimate for CA to move forward with a plan/programming/design for CA property in the Downtown.”

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, September 25, 2008, Approved October 23, 2008. 23 Oct 2008, p. 4.

• October 1: General Growth Properties formally submits its General Plan Amendment, Zoning Regulations Amendment, and supplemental materials to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. That evening Greg Hamm presents GGP’s proposals for downtown Columbia to the Columbia Association Board of Directors.

  Carson, Larry. “Makeover under way.” Baltimore Sun, 5 Oct. 2008, p. 1A.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Special Meeting, Held: Wednesday, October 1, 2008, Approved December 23, 2008. 23 Dec. 2008, p. 1.

  Carson, Larry. “Makeover underway.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 5 Oct. 2008, p. 1G.

• October 29: At a meeting sponsored by the advocacy group Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown, Alan Klein criticizes GGP plans to remove 40 percent of the trees in Symphony Woods, and Cy Paumier shows artist’s conceptions of an alternative proposal for Symphony Woods.

  Pitts, Jonathan. “Coalition critiques Columbia plan.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 2 Nov. 2008, p. 2G.

• November 8: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning issues its Technical Staff Report in response to General Growth Properties’s submission. Among other things, DPZ recommends either finding alternative locations for buildings proposed in Symphony Woods or finding other replacement parkland.

  Pitts, Jonathan. “Howard planners give conditional OK to GGP proposal for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, 11 Nov. 2008, p. 9A.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Technical Staff Report, ZRA 113. Howard County, Maryland, 13 Nov. 2008, frankhecker.com/assets/texts/ZRA113StaffReport.pdf. Accessed 11 May 2017.

  Carson, Larry. “Session examines GGP zoning proposals for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 4 Dec. 2008, p. 1G.

• December 11: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning holds its first hearing to discuss the General Growth Properties submission to the Howard County Planning Board, as GGP seeks to address its financial problems.

  Pitts, Jonathan. “Specifics sought from GGP.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 14 Dec. 2008, p. 1G.

  Walker, Andrea K., and Larry Carson. “Columbia developer trying to refinance.” Baltimore Sun, 13 Dec. 2008, p. 10A.

• December 23: The Columbia Association Board of Directors unanimously approves beginning work on a concept plan for Symphony Woods development.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Tuesday, December 23, 2008, Approved January 22, 2009. 22 Jan. 2009, p. 4.

2009

Howard County evaluates and reworks the General Growth Properties plan, while the Columbia Association moves forward with its own plans for a park in Symphony Woods.

• January 8: Greg Hamm of General Growth Properties presents GGP’s response to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning’s Technical Staff Report to the Howard County Planning Board. Among other things, GGP agrees “to provide 1 acre of new parkland for every acre of Symphony Woods where new buildings are planned.”

  Meanwhile architectural critic Roger Lewis revisits Columbia’s progress after 20 years and recommends “making [Columbia] denser . . . with a greater variety of uses in order to create destinations where you want to be 24/7 and 365.”

  Carson, Larry. “Dispute on downtown Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Jan. 2009, p. 3G.

  Holzberg, Janene. “Rethinking Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Jan. 2009, p. 1G.

• January 22: Former Columbia Association board member Jud Malone (a founder of the advocacy group Columbia Tomorrow) recommends that CA turn Symphony Woods over to Howard County for conversion into a public park.

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia developer agrees to lower-cost housing.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 Jan. 2009, p. 2G.

• February: Cy Paumier and associates announce they are working on a new plan for Symphony Woods for consideration by the Columbia Association.

  Simmonsen, Derek. “CA devising alternative plan for Symphony Woods.” Columbia Flier, 5 Feb. 2009.

• March 26: The Columbia Association Board of Directors unanimously approves a Symphony Woods concept plan created by Cy Paumier, John Slater, and associates, and directs that it be presented to the general public.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, March 26, 2009, Approved June 25, 2009. 25 June 2009, p. 3.

• April 16: General Growth Properties files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as concerns are raised about GGP’s ability to pursue the redevelopment of downtown Columbia.

  Walker, Andrea K. “General Growth Properties seeks bankruptcy protection.” Baltimore Sun, 17 Apr. 2009, p. 1A.

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia plan in danger?” Baltimore Sun, 17 Apr. 2009, p. 1A.

• May 1: Phil Nelson becomes the new President of the Columbia Association.

  Carson, Larry. “Residents meet CA’s new head.” Baltimore Sun, 28 June 2009, p. 2G.

• June 1: Merriweather Post Pavilion managers unveil $1 million worth of updates to the pavilion, including expanded bathrooms and a new concession stand.

  “Merriweather has a lot to crow about.” Baltimore Sun, 2 June 2009, p. 12A.

• August 27: The Columbia Association Board of Directors unanimously approves sending a letter to the Howard County Planning Board notifying it of CA’s intention to present a concept plan for Symphony Woods.

  Columbia Association. Minutes, Board of Directors Meeting, Held: Thursday, August 27, 2009, Approved September 24, 2009. 24 Sept. 2009, p. 4.

  Columbia Association. Letter to Howard County Planning Board. Aug. 2009.

• September 3: The Howard County Planning Board approves the conceptual portion of the General Growth Properties plan for downtown Columbia.

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia remake moves forward.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 6 Sept. 2009, p. 3G.

• September 16: The Columbia Association presents to the public the concept plan developed by Cy Paumier, John Slater, and associates for development of Symphony Woods, including a formal pathway system, a fountain, a café, “Woodland Garden,” and a 120-space parking lot.

  Coyle, Cynthia. “CA’s proposed design plan for Symphony Woods PARK.” Howard County Blog, 17 Sept. 2009, howardcountyblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/cas-proposed-design-plan-for-symphony.html. Accessed 24 July 2011.

  “CA officials plan to turn Symphony Woods into a park.” Columbia Flier, 18 Sept. 2009.

  Markus, Don. “Revitalization sought for Symphony Woods.” Baltimore Sun, 18 Oct. 2009, p. 1.

• November 2: Howard County Council Chair Mary Kay Sigaty formally introduces Council Bills 58 and 59 (CB-58-2009 and CB-59-2009), legislation for the Downtown Columbia Plan and the associated zoning regulations.

  Howard County Council. Bill No. 58-2009, AN ACT adopting the Downtown Columbia Plan, a General Plan Amendment for the purpose of revitalizing and redeveloping Downtown Columbia; and generally relating to the Downtown Columbia Plan, a General Plan Amendment. Howard County, Maryland, 3 Feb. 2010, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/GetFile.aspx?id=6249. Accessed 6 May 2017.

  Howard County Council. Bill No. 59-2009, AN ACT amending the Howard County Zoning Regulations to create a new Downtown Columbia revitalization process in the New Town District; defining new terms; establishing a new residential density for Downtown Columbia; establishing new land use percentages for open space in Downtown Columbia; establishing an affordable housing provision for Downtown Columbia revitalization; establishing new off-street parking requirements for Downtown Columbia revitalization; and generally relating to the New Town zoning district. Howard County, Maryland, 3 Feb. 2010, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/GetFile.aspx?id=6326. Accessed 6 May 2017.

• November 23: Lawyers assure the Howard County Council that the proposed plan for downtown Columbia will remain enforceable even in the event of General Growth Properties selling all or part of its holdings.

  Carson, Larry. “Plan for Columbia safe, council told.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 29 Nov. 2009, p. 4G.

• December 2. At a Howard County Council meeting to discuss plans for downtown Columbia redevelopment, Philip Kirsch, Chair of the Columbia Association Board of Directors, and General Growth Properties Vice President Greg Hamm exchange accusations about lack of communications and GGP’s alleged desire to take CA land to expand Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Carson, Larry. “Tension surfaces over pavilion.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 6 Dec. 2009, p. 1G.

• December 8: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson and General Growth Properties Vice President Greg Hamm assure the Howard County Council that CA and GGP will cooperate on negotiating any necessary easements as part of renovating Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Carson, Larry. “Clearing the air on redevelopment.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 Dec. 2009, p. 4G.

2010

Howard County officially adopts a new plan for downtown Columbia, including integrating Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods, and the Columbia Association continues its own park project.

• January: The Columbia Association budgets an initial $2.3 million for development of Symphony Woods Park, as the Howard County delegation to the Maryland General Assembly approves a local bond bill for $250,000 in funding for the park.

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia cuts gym towels from budget.” Baltimore Sun, 16 Jan. 2010, p. 2A.

  Carson, Larry. “Money matters, but it might not be enough this year.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 24 Jan. 2010, p. 3G.

• February 1: The Howard County Council unanimously approves the new Downtown Columbia Plan as an amendment to the Howard County General Plan. The plan describes the Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood as “a new kind of cultural park where the landscape becomes a setting for arts, cultural and civic uses.” In addition to Merriweather Post Pavilion and the park, the plan calls for “compatible commercial uses such as a café in the park or museum shop.” The language in the original plan calling for streets through Symphony Woods is replaced by language specifying that “access through Merriweather-Symphony Woods that connects the civic and cultural uses will be compatible with the topography.”

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia to undergo urban transformation.” Baltimore Sun, 2 Feb. 2010, p. 1A.

  Downtown Columbia Plan: A General Plan Amendment. Howard County, Maryland, 1 Feb. 2010, archive.org/details/downtown_columbia_plan. Accessed 6 May 2017.

• April: The Maryland General Assembly approves $250,000 in funding for the Columbia Association’s development of Symphony Woods.

  Carson, Larry. “Battle on liquor license limits moves to new front.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 18 Apr. 2010, p. 3G.

• May 15–16: The Wine in the Woods festival features a new layout, chosen in anticipation of the Columbia Association beginning work on Symphony Woods development.

  Holzberg, Janene. “Celebration in Symphony Woods boasts a new layout.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 9 May 2010, p. 1G.

• May 18: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson announces that an anonymous nonprofit from outside Howard County will donate $250,000 to support development of Symphony Woods as a park.

  Carson, Larry. “Donor gives money for Symphony Woods project.” Baltimore Sun, 23 May 2010, p. 7G.

• May 20: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson informs the Board of Directors of a potential county roadblock to CA’s development of Symphony Woods, based on the need to follow after or coordinate with the plans of General Growth Properties.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, May 20, 2010, Approved: June 10, 2010. 10 June 2010, p. 1.

• July: General Growth Properties prepares to split itself into two entities, with GGP retaining ownership of The Mall in Columbia, and ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion and undeveloped land in downtown Columbia being transferred to a new entity.

  Gunts, Edward, and Larry Carson. “General Growth prepares to split.” Baltimore Sun, 14 July 2010, p. 14A.

• September 2: Faced with the need to dredge Lake Kittamaqundi, the Columbia Association contemplates taking money from the budget for the delayed Symphony Woods Park project.

  Carson, Larry. “More funds to dredge proposed.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 5 Sept. 2010, p. 2G.

• November 2: Ken Ulman is re-elected as Howard County Executive. Incumbents Calvin Ball, Greg Fox, Mary Kay Sigaty, Jen Terrasa, and Courtney Watson are all re-elected to the Howard County Council.

  Carson, Larry. “‘Satisfied’ Howard voters stay with the incumbents.” Baltimore Sun, 7 Nov. 2010, p. 2.

• November 9: The Howard Hughes Corporation is spun out of General Growth Properties, and assumes GGP’s responsibilities for planning in Columbia Town Center.

  General Growth Properties. “General Growth Properties Completes Spinoff of The Howard Hughes Corporation.” 9 Nov. 2010, investor.howardhughes.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=241177&p=irol-newsArticle_print&ID=1494391. Accessed 6 May 2017.

• November 26: As the Howard Hughes Corporation moves forward with its plans for downtown Columbia redevelopment, the Columbia Association schedules work on the Symphony Woods Park project to begin in December 2011.

  Carson, Larry. “Columbia plan for downtown picks up.” Baltimore Sun, 27 Nov. 2010, p. 3A.

• December: Merriweather Post Pavilion is named one of the top three amphitheaters in the country by Billboard magazine.

  McPherson, Lindsey. “Billboard: Merriweather Post rocks.” Columbia Flier, 2 Dec. 2010, p. 1.

2011

The Columbia Association unveils its plan for a park in Symphony Woods, but encounters problems in taking the plan through Howard County’s new and more rigorous planning process.

• March 7: The Howard County Council approves a new set of design guidelines for downtown Columbia, removing one potential roadblock to redevelopment of downtown Columbia, including Symphony Woods.

  Carson, Larry. “Council OKs Columbia sign rules.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 13 Mar. 2011, p. 4G.

  Howard County Council. CR138-2010, A RESOLUTION adopting Downtown-wide Design Guidelines for Downtown Columbia. Howard County, Maryland, 7 Mar. 2011, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/LegislationDetail.aspx?LegislationID=1101. Accessed 7 May 2017.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Downtown Columbia Design Guidelines: Downtown-Wide. Howard County, Maryland, Nov. 2010, www.howardcountymd.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=fcdab7B57Cs%3d&portalid=0. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• April: John DeWolf replaces Greg Hamm as the Regional Vice President of the Howard Hughes Corporation responsible for development of downtown Columbia.

  Carson, Larry. “He’s set to move quickly on Columbia changes.” Baltimore Sun, 6 May 2011, p. 8A.

  McPherson, Lindsey. “DeWolf eager to dive into downtown redevelopment.” Columbia Flier, 12 May 2011, p. 4.

• June 9: The Columbia Association Board of Directors unanimously approves the so-called “Plan B” layout for development of Symphony Woods.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, June 9, 2011, Approved: June 23, 2011. 23 June 2011, p. 3.

• June 16: In accordance with the new development review process for downtown Columbia, the Columbia Association hosts a pre-submission community meeting to present its plans for Symphony Woods. CA notes that $1.2 million in funding for the first phase of the project is included in the 2011 capital budget, and another $1.4 million in the 2012 budget, in addition to a $250,000 Maryland state grant and a matching $250,000 donation promised by an anonymous donor.

  Toth, Sara. “CA presents plans for Symphony Woods.” Columbia Flier, 23 June 2011, p. 16.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Land development review process for downtown Columbia revitalization. Howard County, Maryland, Nov. 2010, www.howardcountymd.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=_oT1cawSChY%3d&portalid=0. Accessed 27 May 2017.

• July 13: The Howard County Design Advisory Panel reviews the Columbia Association proposal for Symphony Woods (based on the Cy Paumier design). Various panel members criticize the design as lacking a suitable vision, and the panel’s decision recommends (among other things) defining a “specific vision for this site” and providing “more clarity to a theme for the neighborhood.” In his own comments, DAP chair Rob Hollis notes that “As one of the first projects in a ‘new’ Town Center, this park should set the example for other projects to follow. It is imperative that Symphony Woods Park be of the highest design standards.”

  Subsequently Barbara McCall brings to the attention of her husband Michael a Columbia Flier article on the Design Advisory Panel review. He agrees with what he reads as the DAP’s concerns, but assumes that CA will make appropriate adjustments to the proposed park design.

  Toth, Sara. “Design panel advises stronger vision for Symphony Woods.” Columbia Flier, 21 July 2011, p. 6.

  Columbia Association. Symphony Woods Park in Columbia Town Center: Design Advisory Panel Meeting for Final Development Plan. 13 July 2011, inartrust.org/s/DAP-meeting-7-13-11-copy-2.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

  Hollis, Rob. Design Advisory Panel 07-13-2011, Symphony Woods Park - Phase 1. 13 July 2011, inartrust.org/s/DAP-review-of-CA-plan-copy-2.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• August 11: The Columbia Association Board of Directors considers updated plans for Symphony Woods and a revised vision statement for the park, and discusses architectural details of park facilities and potential uses. CA President Phil Nelson urges board members to focus on the plans for the first phase.

  Toth, Sara. “Carousel for Symphony Woods? CA to study.” Columbia Flier, 18 Aug. 2011, p. 13.

• September 22: The Columbia Association Board of Directors votes 7-2 to approve the Final Development Plan for Symphony Woods as presented. During the “resident speak out” portion of the same meeting Michael McCall, in his first public comments on Columbia, advocates for CA creating an overall strategy for all of Symphony Woods before deciding on the tactics by which to implement such a strategy.

  Greisman, David. “CA says yes to first phase of Symphony Woods Park.” Columbia Flier, 29 Sept. 2011, p. 1.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, September 22, 2011, Approved: October 27, 2011. 27 Oct. 2011, pp. 2-5.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• October 13: Having approved the Symphony Woods Park plan and already specified the park’s benches and furniture, the Columbia Association Board of Directors votes 8–2 to adopt a formal vision statement for Symphony Woods.

  In the audience is Michael McCall, who sees CA’s actions as contrary to the strategic planning principles he learned while working with Jim Rouse and the Walt Disney Company, especially given his view of the importance of the Symphony Woods property to the future of downtown Columbia.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, October 13, 2011, Approved: October 27, 2011. 27 Oct. 2011, pp. 2-5.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• October-November: In the wake of the October 13 meeting of the Columbia Association Board of Directors, Michael McCall meets with George Barker, his mentor and former manager at the Enterprise Development Company, former General Counsel of Howard Research and Development, and (along with Emily Lincoln) a leader of the advocacy group Bring Back the Vision.

  After hearing McCall’s concerns about CA’s plans Barker volunteers to introduce McCall to Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, and with Lincoln reviews McCall’s presentation for that meeting.

  McCall, Michael. Tribute delivered by McCall to George Penniman Barker’s family, colleagues & lifelong friends. 3 June 2016, static1.squarespace.com/static/51e1bf57e4b0e2abc3e95f77/t/579e8dd81b631bd12f0cbc79/1470008793102/George+Barker+Tribute+statement.pdf. Accessed 27 May 2016.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• November 18: Michael McCall, George Barker, and Emily Lincoln meet with Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, Jessica Feldmark and Ian Kennedy of the Howard County Executive staff, and Marsha McLaughlin and Bill Mackey, Director and Division Chief respectively of the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. McCall presents his criticisms of the Columbia Association’s plan for Symphony Woods.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• December: The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning provides the Columbia Association comments and questions on CA’s submission for the Final Development Plan for Symphony Woods Park. As with CA’s previous FDP submission, most of the DPZ comments and questions concern the park’s relationship to and integration with Merriweather Post Pavilion, including access points from the park to the pavilion.

  Greisman, David. “County: Plan for Symphony Woods Park needs fine-tuning.” Columbia Flier, 22 Dec. 2011, p. 14.

2012

Howard County mandates changes to the Symphony Wood Park project, the Columbia Association board and staff discuss how to proceed, and an alternative appears.

• January 3: Michael McCall meets for the first time with John DeWolf, Regional Vice President of the Howard Hughes Corporation, to discuss plans for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• January 26: The Columbia Association Board of Directors reviews plans for a proposed fountain in Symphony Woods and offers critiques of the design.

  Greisman, David. “Reviews mixed for planned fountain.” Columbia Flier, 2 Feb. 2012, p. 1.

• February 6: The Columbia Association Board of Directors considers setting aside $1.4 million toward construction of a new CA headquarters, location to be determined.

  Greisman, David. “CA could begin saving for new headquarters.” Columbia Flier, 9 Feb. 2012, p. 6.

• February 22: The Columbia Association Board of Directors includes a total of $1.6 million for Symphony Woods park development in CA’s 2013 and 2014 budgets.

  Greisman, David. “CA adopts budget with spending cut.” Columbia Flier, 1 Mar. 2012, p. 8.

• March: The Columbia Association submits a revised Final Development Plan for Symphony Woods Park to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning, as part of Howard County’s new 16-step process for reviewing proposed developments in downtown Columbia.

  The revised plan includes mention of proposed park facilities usable by visitors to both Symphony Woods and Merriweather Post Pavilion, including an amphitheater, a pavilion, and a café, reflecting CA staff discussions with the Howard Hughes Corporation, owner of the Merriweather Post Pavilion property.

  Greisman, David. “Symphony Woods plan awaits OK.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 11 Mar. 2012, p. 3G.

  Rector, Kevin. “Downtown disconnect.” Columbia Flier, 1 Mar. 2012, p. 1.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Land development review process for downtown Columbia revitalization. Howard County, Maryland, Nov. 2010, www.howardcountymd.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=_oT1cawSChY%3d&portalid=0. Accessed 27 May 2017.

• May 8: Michael McCall meets for the first time with Columbia Association President Phil Nelson to discuss plans for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• July 12: The Columbia Association presents its Final Development Plan for Symphony Woods (FDP-DC-MSW-1) to the Howard County Planning Board. The presentation focuses on plans for a fountain and a formal pathway system, requiring the removal of up to 64 trees. Future possibilities noted in the plan include a woodland garden, amphitheater, children’s activity area, and picnic area, as well as a café and other facilities that could be shared with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  McPherson, Lindsey. “Planning Board weighs Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 19 July 2012, p. 12.

  Columbia Association. FDP-DC-MSW-1, Downtown Columbia, Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood, Final Development Plan, Town Center, Section 1, Area 1, Lot 23. 3 May 2012, archive.org/detail/FDP-DC-MSW-1. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• July 19: The Howard County Planning Board considers the Final Development Plan for the Columbia Association proposal for Symphony Woods (FDP-DC-MSW-1) and approves it conditional on various changes being made, including rerouting paths to avoid tree removal and developing a plan for integration of Symphony Woods with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  McPherson, Lindsey. “Phase one of Symphony Woods redesign approved.” Columbia Flier, 26 July 2012, p. 12.

  McPherson, Lindsey. “Planning Board has suggestions for Symphony Woods changes.” Columbia Flier, 26 July 2012, p. 13.

• August 23: The Columbia Association Board of Directors hears a staff recommendation to put development plans for Symphony Woods on hold pending more information on Howard Hughes Corporation plans for redeveloping Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  CA Landscape Services Manager Jan Clark notes that Howard Hughes discarded its original conceptual plan for Merriweather Post Pavilion in favor of a new and significantly different concept plan more consistent with the overall downtown Columbia redevelopment plan. CA President Phil Nelson adds that “It’s not just Symphony Woods, it’s not just Merriweather Post [Pavilion]. The county expects us to be planning for a [Merriweather-Symphony Woods] neighborhood design.”

  Lavoie, Luke. “CA weighs putting Symphony Woods projects on hold.” Columbia Flier, 30 Aug. 2012, p. 4.

• September 6: The Howard County Planning Board issues its final decision and order relating to the Final Development Plan for the Columbia Association proposal for Symphony Woods (FDP-DC-MSW-1). The decision and order requires the Columbia Association to revise the FDP to state that “tree removal shall be minimized by aligning paths around healthy trees and minimizing grading,” and to work with the Howard Hughes Corporation to develop a “coordinated plan for the [Merriweather-Symphony Woods] neighborhood” based on a “shared vision and design for Merriweather-Symphony Woods as a unique cultural and community amenity.”

  Howard County Planning Board. The Columbia Association, Petitioner before the Planning Board of Howard County, MD, Planning Board Case No. 394, Decision and Order. Howard County, Maryland, 6 Sept. 2012, inartrust.org/s/Planning-Board-Decision-and-Order-9612.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• September 25: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson sends a letter to the CA Board of Directors recommending that they devote time in October and November to discussing how to proceed with development of Symphony Woods, including whether and how CA might participate in some sort of Trust partnership with Howard Hughes Corporation and Howard County for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood, and whether CA should try to develop a new plan for Symphony Woods taking into account plans for Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Nelson, Phil. “Placing the Board Committee Process Temporarily on Hold.” Columbia Association, 25 Sept. 2012, inartrust.org/s/10112-BOC-Staff-Item-re-Policy-Sessions.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• October 5: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson sends a letter to the CA Board of Directors containing several questions for the board to discuss in the wake of the Planning Board’s “decision and caveats” and other factors affecting the future of the Merriweather-Symphony Woods neighborhood, including whether to continue with the previous plan or do something different.

  Nelson, Phil. “Discussion cover memo regarding CA’s future involvement in the Symphony Woods/Merriweather Post Neighborhood.” Columbia Association, 5 Oct. 2012.

• October 11: The Columbia Association Board of Directors discusses whether to work with Howard Hughes Corporation and Howard County to create a separate organization (“trust”) to develop Symphony Woods. In an informal “straw vote,” the board members present unanimously agree to explore the proposal.

  Lavoie, Luke. “CA explores agreement to coordinate Symphony Woods redevelopment.” Columbia Flier, 18 Oct. 2012, p. 13.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, October 11, 2012, Approved: October 25, 2012. 25 Oct. 2012, p. 3.

  Stack, Andy. “Background on CA and Inner Arbor Trust.” Blog of Dr. Chao Wu, 15 Sept. 2015, chaowu.org/2015/10/07/background-on-ca-board-inner-arbor. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• October: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson asks Michael McCall for advice regarding development of Symphony Woods, and McCall volunteers to create an alternative plan.

  McCall, Michael. Letter to Jessamine Duvall. 27 May 2014, p. 3, inartrust.org/s/Letter-on-the-Progress-and-History-of-the-Inner-Arbor-Trust-140527.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

2013

The Columbia Association charges the Inner Arbor Trust with responsibility for creating a park in Symphony Woods, and the Trust goes to work amid controversy about CA’s decision.

• January 18: The Columbia Association releases the first image of the Inner Arbor concept plan in preparation for the January 24 Board of Directors meeting. Howard County Executive Ken Ulman expresses his support for the plan: “I have long viewed the property that is now Symphony Woods as a centerpiece and linchpin for downtown Columbia. . . . New York City has its Central Park. Chicago has its Millennium Park. And Columbia deserves and must have the same landmark status.”

  Lavoie, Luke. “Columbia is planning an arts district.” Baltimore Sun, 19 Jan. 2013, p. 2A.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Hearing set on new Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 24 Jan. 2013, p. 4.

• January 24: Michael McCall presents the Inner Arbor concept plan to the Columbia Association Board of Directors and CA President Phil Nelson presents his recommendations relating to the plan. Council member Jen Terrasa attends the meeting and afterward expresses support for the project: “The design is pretty exciting. It’s something we would be proud to see.”

  Lavoie, Luke. “Excitement, caution for Symphony Woods proposal.” Columbia Flier, 31 Jan. 2013, p. 6.

• January 31: Michael McCall again presents the Inner Arbor concept plan in a public meeting sponsored by the Columbia Association.

  Hirsch, Arthur. “New proposal for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 3 Feb. 2013, p. 1G.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Columbia Association hosts public unveiling of Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 7 Feb. 2013, p. 8.

• February 7: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson sends a letter to the CA Board of Directors recommending that CA establish a separate organization to develop Symphony Woods according to the conceptual plan proposed by Michael McCall.

  Nelson, Phil. “Formation of a Trust for Symphony Woods Development.” Columbia Association, 13 Feb. 2013, inartrust.org/s/3-Formation_of_a_Trust_for_Symphony_Woods_Development.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• February 13: Columbia Association President Phil Nelson publishes an updated version of his letter of February 7, with additional details on and clarifications regarding his recommendations for Symphony Woods.

  Nelson, Phil. “Formation of a Trust for Symphony Woods Development.” Columbia Association, 13 Feb. 2013, inartrust.org/s/3-Formation_of_a_Trust_for_Symphony_Woods_Development.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• February 14: The Columbia Association Board of Directors votes 8–2 to establish the Inner Arbor Trust, grant it a perpetual easement to develop Symphony Woods, and provide $1.6 million in initial funding.

  Lavoie, Luke. “CA board nearing vote on Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 14 Feb. 2013, p. 4.

  Lavoie, Luke. “‘Done deal’ vote advances Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 21 Feb. 2013, p. 4.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, February 14, 2013, Approved: February 28, 2013. 28 Feb. 2013, inartrust.org/s/Approved-BOD-Minutes-2013_02_14.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• March: Cy Paumier and associates plan to present a revised version of their park design, touting it as compatible with the Inner Arbor concept plan. In response Michael McCall cites the Howard County Planning Board mandate to preserve trees by routing pathways around them.

  Lavoie, Luke. “New pitch for Symphony Woods fountain, cafe.” Columbia Flier, 28 Mar. 2013, p. 4.

• 28 March: The Columbia Association Board of Directors elects Ed Coleman and Gregg Schwind as its representatives on the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors. They join Phil Nelson, who holds an ex officio seat on the board as CA President.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Schwind and Coleman elected to Inner Arbor Trust.” Columbia Flier, 4 Apr. 2013, p. 16.

• April: The Inner Arbor plan becomes an issue in Columbia Association elections, with both supporters and opponents claiming victories.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor plan heats up CA election.” Columbia Flier, 11 Apr. 2013. p. 1.

  Lavoie, Luke. “CA board members debate meaning of elections.” Columbia Flier, 2 May 2013, p. 16.

• April 25: Howard County Executive Ken Ulman reiterates his support for the Inner Arbor plan, and proposes $5 million in county funding for downtown Columbia arts and cultural programs and facilities.

  Ames, Blair. “Ulman’s budget increases spending for schools, police.” Columbia Flier, 25 Apr. 2013, p. 6

• May 10: The Inner Arbor Trust officially begins life as an organization with the election of a seven-member Board of Directors, the appointment of Michael McCall as President and CEO, and adoption of bylaws. Besides Ed Coleman, Gregg Schwind, and Phil Nelson of the Columbia Association, other board members include Deborah Ellinghaus, Kent Humphries, Gill Wylie, and Beverly White-Seals.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Board of Inner Arbor Trust expands to seven members.” Columbia Flier, 30 May 2013, p. 13.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “Inner Arbor Trust Inc., the not-for-profit developer of Symphony Woods, was formed in Columbia, Maryland.” 28 May 2013, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Press-Release-Bios-52813-0ydu.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• May 23: As part of the FY2014 capital and expense budget (CB25-2013) the Howard County Council approves up to $3.5 million in funding for construction of the Chrysalis amphitheater.

  Howard County Council. Council Bill 25-2013, AN ACT adopting the current expense budget and the capital budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013, and ending June 30, 2014, to be known as the Budget and Appropriation Ordinance of Howard County, Fiscal Year 2014. Howard County, Maryland, May 2013, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/LegislationDetail.aspx?LegislationID=202. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• June: Merriweather Post Pavilion is named the fourth-best amphitheater in the US by Rolling Stone magazine.

  Case, Wesley. “Columbia pavilion named top venue.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 30 June 2013, p. 1G.

• September 20: Michael McCall presents the Inner Arbor concept plan to Leadership Howard County and discusses the selection of the design team, including initial members Martha Schwartz Partners and Mahan Rykiel Associates.

  McCall, Michael. “Introduction of Inner Arbor Trust to Leadership Howard County 9/20/13.” Vimeo, 20 Sept. 2013, vimeo.com/78288327. Accessed 7 May 2013.

• October: Martin Knott replaces Kent Humphries on the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor Trust Inc. replaces board member.” Columbia Flier, 31 Oct. 2013, p. 13.

• October 30: Columbia celebrates the 50th anniversary of Jim Rouse’s announcement of his plan for Columbia, with development efforts underway or proposed at or near The Mall in Columbia and Lake Kittamaqundi, in Symphony Woods, and in the Crescent property south of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods.

  Hirsch, Arthur. “At 50, Columbia still a vision in progress.” Baltimore Sun, 30 Oct. 2013, p. 1A.

• November: The Inner Arbor Trust announces the selection of landscape designer Martha Schwartz as the lead designer for phase 1 of the Inner Arbor project.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor hires designer for Symphony Woods.” Columbia Flier, 7 November 2013, p. 6.

• November 18: At a public meeting the Inner Arbor Trust introduces the selected design team (“designers of delight”) at a public meeting. The team includes Martha Schwartz Partners, Marc Fornes of THEVERYMANY, Mimi Hoang and Eric Bunge of nArchitects, Arup, and Mahan Rykiel Associates.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor Trust introduces design team.” Columbia Flier, 21 Nov. 2013, p. 8.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “Unabashed Designers of Delight.” Vimeo, 18 Nov. 2013, vimeo.com/191568080. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• December 2: The Inner Arbor Trust presents the new Inner Arbor plan to the public at a pre-submission meeting prior to presenting the plan to the Howard County Design Advisory Panel and submitting a Site Development Plan (SDP) to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Features include the Chrysalis amphitheater, the Butterfly guest services building, the “art of bounds” Caterpillar berm, the Picnic Table, the Play Maze, Word Art, and Letter Garden.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Praise, questions for Inner Arbor plans.” Columbia Flier, 5 Dec. 2013, p. 1.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Trust envisions Symphony Woods as Merriweather Park.” Columbia Flier, 5 Dec. 2013, p. 18.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “Development of Symphony Woods: Site Development Plan (SDP) Public Meeting.” 2 Dec. 2013, inartrust.org/s/A-Inner-Arbor-Trust-Community-Meeting-Minutespdf-copy.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• December 11: The Columbia Association executes a perpetual easement agreement with the Inner Arbor Trust, granting the Trust the right to develop Symphony Woods. (The agreement is later amended on March 14, 2014, to make minor corrections.)

  Columbia Association and Inner Arbor Trust. Amended and Restated Declaration of Restrictive Covenants and Easement Agreement. 14 Mar. 2014, inartrust.org/s/IAT-001.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• December 18: The Inner Arbor Trust executes a $3.5 million grant agreement with Howard County.

  McCall, Michael. Letter to Jessamine Duvall. 27 May 2014, p. 3, inartrust.org/s/Letter-on-the-Progress-and-History-of-the-Inner-Arbor-Trust-140527.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• December 28: The Inner Arbor Trust submits its IRS Form 1023 application for tax exempt status.

  McCall, Michael. Letter to Jessamine Duvall. 27 May 2014, p. 3, inartrust.org/s/Letter-on-the-Progress-and-History-of-the-Inner-Arbor-Trust-140527.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

2014

The Inner Arbor Trust finalizes the design for the first seven phases of the new park and successfully shepherds its plan through the Howard County planning process, as renovations for Merriweather Post Pavilion are planned and funded and Howard Hughes Corporation unveils its plans for developing the area around Symphony Woods.

• January 31: The Inner Arbor Trust receives official 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status from the IRS.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “A brief history of the Inner Arbor Trust (through October, 2015).” Oct. 2015, inartrust.org/s/A-Brief-History-of-the-Trust-October-2015-v3.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• February: Howard County Executive Ken Ulman presses the Howard Hughes Corporation on its plans for renovating Merriweather Post Pavilion, as required by the Downtown Columbia Plan and recommended by a report from consultants Ziger/Snead.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Ulman presses developer on future of Merriweather.” Columbia Flier, 13 Feb 2014, p. 6.

  Ziger/Snead. Merriweather Post Pavilion Physical Review Update (Draft). Feb. 2014, frankhecker.com/assets/texts/140214-draft-merriweather-physical-update-report.pdf. Accessed 26 May 2017.

• February 4: The Inner Arbor Trust submits the Site Development Plan for the northern portion of Symphony Woods to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor unveils plan.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Feb. 2014, p. 1G.

• February 19: The Inner Arbor Trust publishes the final form of the Inner Arbor plan for the northern portion of Symphony Woods, adding the Merriground play area and the Merriweather Horns sound sculptures, and dropping the Play Maze, Word Art, and Letter Garden.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Playscape, audio added to Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 20 Feb. 2014, p. 14.

  Holzberg, Janene. “A sound vision for Columbia.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 2 Mar. 2014, p. 1G.

• February 26: The Howard County Design Advisory Panel reviews the final Inner Arbor plan and unanimously supports it as submitted, with panel members praising the design.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor plans ‘wow’ panel.” Columbia Flier, 6 Mar. 2014. p. 13.

  Howard County Design Advisory Panel. “Meeting Summary, February 26, 2014.” Howard County, Maryland, 26 Feb. 2014, inartrust.org/s/DAPsum-2014-2-26.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• March: After noting the Inner Arbor Trust’s use of the name “Merriweather Park” in its submissions to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning, the Columbia Association asks the Trust to retain the name Symphony Woods when referring to the property. Subsequently the Inner Arbor Trust adopts the name “Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.”

  Lavoie, Luke. “CA vows to keep Symphony Woods name.” Columbia Flier, 27 Mar. 2014, p. 6.

• March 13: Howard County Executive Ken Ulman proposes to move up the date when ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion will be transferred to the nonprofit Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission. Soon afterwards the county and Howard Hughes Corporation begin discussions about pavilion renovations.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Bill would impact Merriweather ownership.” Columbia Flier, 20 Mar. 2014, p. 4.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Ulman shows optimism about Merriweather.” Columbia Flier, 27 Mar. 2014, p. 28.

• March 26. The Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors appoints board member and local businessperson Martin Knott as Chair of the Trust.

  McCall, Michael. Letter to Jessamine Duvall. 27 May 2014, p. 3, inartrust.org/s/Letter-on-the-Progress-and-History-of-the-Inner-Arbor-Trust-140527.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• March 31: At a pre-submission community meeting the Howard Hughes Corporation presents plans for developing the Crescent property to the south and west of Symphony Woods.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Urban streetscape planned for crescent property.” Columbia Flier, 20 Mar. 2014, p. 6.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Downtown plans draw concerns about traffic and tall buildings.” Columbia Flier, 3 Apr. 2014, p. 16.

• April: The Inner Arbor Trust releases a report on its efforts to improve the environmental health of Symphony Woods, including planting 200 new trees (to replace 31 trees to be removed) and restoring stream beds in the eastern part of Symphony Woods.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor plans include adding trees.” Columbia Flier, 17 Apr. 2014, p. 4.

• April 10: The Columbia Association selects Nancy McCord to be one of its two representatives on the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors, replacing Ed Coleman.

  Lavoie, Luke. “McCord elected to Inner Arbor Trust.” Columbia Flier, 1 May 2014, p. 12.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, Held: April 10, 2014, Approved: April 24, 2014. 24 Apr. 2014, pp. 4-5.

• April 14: Howard County, Howard Hughes Corporation, and the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission sign a memorandum of understanding regarding a five-year, $19 million renovation plan for Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Agreement heralds Merriweather renovation.” Columbia Flier, 22 May 2014, p. 4.

• April 26: The Inner Arbor plan again becomes an issue in Columbia Association elections marked by low turnout.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Ketley, Lein, Schwind win Columbia elections.” Columbia Flier, 1 May 2014, p. 13.

• April 28: The Inner Arbor Trust formally submits its Site Development Plan (SDP) to the Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning.

  McCall, Michael. Letter to Jessamine Duvall. 27 May 2014, p. 3, inartrust.org/s/Letter-on-the-Progress-and-History-of-the-Inner-Arbor-Trust-140527.pdf. Accessed 7 May 2017.

• May 21: The Howard County Council approves County Executive Ken Ulman’s recommendation of an additional $1.5 million of funding for the Inner Arbor Trust in the form of a challenge grant. The Council also approves $10 million in funding for Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations and the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Agreement heralds Merriweather renovation.” Columbia Flier, 22 May 2014, p. 4.

  Yeager, Amanda. “County Council passes 2015 budget.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 25 May 2014, p. 1G.

  Howard County Council. Council Bill 24-2014, AN ACT adopting the current expense budget and the capital budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2014 and ending June 30, 2015, to be known as the Annual Budget and Appropriation Ordinance of Howard County, Fiscal Year 2015. Howard County, Maryland, May 2014, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/LegislationDetail.aspx?LegislationID=800. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• May 28: The Boards of Directors of the Columbia Association and the Inner Arbor Trust hold a joint meeting to discuss the progress of the Inner Arbor plan.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Columbia Association, Inner Arbor meet.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 1 June 2014, p. 4G.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Symphony Woods plan subject of gathering.” Columbia Flier, 5 June 2014, p. 15.

• June: Howard County Executive Ken Ulman joins with musician Jack Johnson to preview plans for renovations at Merriweather Post Pavilion, as newly-arrived Howard Hughes Corporation Vice President Greg Fitchitt gets credit for helping to negotiate the plans with the county, and Howard Hughes signs a development agreement with the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission, the future owners of the pavilion.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Merriweather renovation plans rolled out.” Columbia Flier, 12 June 2014. p. 4.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Fitchitt new face of Howard Hughes.” Columbia Flier, 12 June 2014, p. 8.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Howard Hughes, arts commission sign Merriweather deal.” Columbia Flier, 26 June 2014, p. 8.

• June 2: Milton Matthews becomes the new President of the Columbia Association, replacing Phil Nelson.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Partnerships key for new CA president.” Columbia Flier, 10 July 2014, p. 4.

• June 12: The Columbia Association Board of Directors discusses whether the current form of the Inner Arbor plan is a “material change” from that described in the easement granted the Inner Arbor Trust. By a 7–3 vote the board decides that it is not.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, Held: June 12, 2014, Approved: June 26, 2014. 26 June 2014, pp. 2, 4-5.

• July 10: After a presentation by Michael McCall of the Inner Arbor Trust, the Columbia Association Board of Directors votes 6–4 to endorse the Inner Arbor Plan as currently conceived.

  Yeager, Amanda. “CA endorses Symphony Woods plan.” Columbia Flier, 17 July 2014, p. 6.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, Held: July 10, 2014, Approved: July 24, 2014. 24 July 2014, p. 3.

• August 7: Karen Newell is elected to the Inner Arbor Board of Directors.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 9 Jan. 2016.

• October: The Boards of Directors of the Columbia Association and the Inner Arbor Trust hold another joint meeting to discuss the progress of the Inner Arbor plan, including phasing of park development, fundraising, and negotiation of an agreement with I.M.P., the operators of Merriweather Post Pavilion, for use of the Chrysalis amphitheater.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Symphony Woods development nears start.” Columbia Flier, 23 Oct. 2014, p. 8.

• November 4: Allan Kittleman is elected as Howard County Executive. Incumbents Calvin Ball, Greg Fox, Mary Kay Sigaty, and Jen Terrasa are re-elected to the Howard County Council, and are joined by newly elected council member Jon Weinstein.

  Wood, Pamela. “Republican Kittleman beats Watson in executive race.” Baltimore Sun, 5 Nov. 2014, p. 1A.

• November 20: After delaying its decision a week to allow more time for public testimony, the Howard County Planning Board unanimously approves the Inner Arbor Trust’s Site Development Plan for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods (SDP-14-073). The Planning Board approves the design concepts, uses, and locations of park features for all seven proposed phases, and fully approves phases 1 and 2 (including the Chrysalis amphitheater) for construction.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Planning Board tables Inner Arbor decision.” Columbia Flier, 13 Nov. 2014, p. 4.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Initial Inner Arbor phases approved.” Baltimore Sun, 23 Nov. 2014, p. 1G.

  Lavoie, Luke. “Inner Arbor wins Planning Board approval.” Columbia Flier, 27 Nov. 2014, p. 6.

  Inner Arbor Trust. SDP-14-073, Downtown Columbia, Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood, Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods Phase 1 & Future Phases 2-7. inartrust.org/s/Part-1-of-5-SDP-14-073-R1.pdf, inartrust.org/s/Part-2-of-5-SDP-14-073-R1-copy-2.pdf, inartrust.org/s/Part-3-of-5-SDP-14-073-R1.pdf, inartrust.org/s/Part-4-of-5-SDP-14-073-R1.pdf, inartrust.org/s/Part-5-of-5-SDP-14-073-R1.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

2015

The Inner Arbor Trust lays the groundwork for the start of Chrysalis construction and continues working with others to integrate Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

• January 22: The Howard County Planning Board approves changes to the site development plan for renovations to Merriweather Post Pavilion. Inner Arbor Trust President Michael McCall testifies in support of the plan: “The park and the amphitheater will knit together well.”

  Lavoie, Luke. “Merriweather renovations poised to start.” Columbia Flier, 29 Jan. 2015, p. 10.

• March 6: The Inner Arbor Trust enters into a long-term operating agreement with It’s My Amphitheater, Inc., relating to joint use of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. Under the agreement I.M.A. agrees to compensate the Trust for future use of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods for Merriweather Post Pavilion events. The agreement also makes public areas of Merriweather Post Pavilion accessible to visitors outside of pavilion events.

  Inner Arbor Trust and I.M.A. License, Easement and Operating Agreement. 6 March, 2015, inartrust.org/s/IAT-IMA-Operating-Agreement-Executed-31615.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• March 19: The Howard County Planning Board approves the Final Development Plan for the Howard Hughes Corporation’s project to develop the Crescent property south and west of Symphony Woods.

  Yeager, Amanda. “Crescent plan given nod by Planning Board.” Columbia Flier, 26 Mar. 2015, p. 4.

• April: The first phase of renovations at Merriweather Post Pavilion is well underway.

  Ames, Blair. “Let the music begin.” Columbia Flier, 23 Apr. 2015, p. 28.

• April 15: Dave Sciamarelli is elected to the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 9 Jan. 2016.

• April 25: Columbia Association board elections again see low turnout. Any controversies over Symphony Woods go unmentioned in newspaper accounts.

  Yeager, Amanda. “Boulton, Evans win contested CA races.” Columbia Flier, 30 Apr. 2015, p. 4.

• May 22: At the request of Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman, the Howard County Council approves $1.4M for the Inner Arbor Trust in support of construction of the Chrysalis amphitheater and related purposes, as part of the FY16 Expense and Capital Budget (CB23-2015).

  Yeager, Amanda. “Kittleman proposes $1B operating budget.” Columbia Flier, 23 Apr. 2015, p. 6.

  Howard County Council. Council Bill 23-2015, AN ACT adopting the current expense budget and the capital budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2015 and ending June 30, 2016, to be known as the Annual Budget and Appropriation Ordinance of Howard County, Fiscal Year 2016. Howard County, Maryland, 22 May 2015, apps.howardcountymd.gov/olis/LegislationDetail.aspx?LegislationID=1390. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• May 27: The Inner Arbor Trust enters into a reciprocal easement agreement with Howard Hughes Corporation subsidiaries Merriweather Post Business Trust and Howard Research and Development relating to joint use of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

  Inner Arbor Trust, Merriweather Post Business Trust, and Howard Research and Development Corporation. Reciprocal Easement Agreement. 27 May 2015, inartrust.org/s/IAT-MPBT-HRD-REA-HoCo-Recorded-60315-copy.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• May 28: The Inner Arbor Trust appoints Nina Basu as General Counsel and Kirsten Coombs as treasurer.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 9 Jan. 2016.

• August: After years of discussion about where to locate a new headquarters for the Columbia Association (including the possibility of building one on CA-owned land in Symphony Woods), CA moves to leased space in an office building off Broken Land Parkway.

  Yeager, Amanda. “Columbia Association to move its headquarters.” Columbia Flier, 20 Aug. 2015, p. 12.

• September: After a competitive bidding process the Inner Arbor Trust selects Whiting-Turner as general contractor for all Chrysalis construction except for the Chrysalis shell itself (to be fabricated and installed by A. Zahner Company).

  Inner Arbor Trust. “September, 2015 Chrysalis Development Report.” 1 Oct. 2015, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-October-2015.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• September 1: The Inner Arbor Trust enters into a licensing agreement with Howard Hughes Corporation subsidiary Merriweather Post Business Trust for use of the word mark “Merriweather” in connection with Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

  Inner Arbor Trust and Merriweather Post Business Trust. Trademark License Agreement. 1 Sept. 2015, inartrust.org/s/Trademark-License-Agreement-Merriweatehr-Hughes-Executed.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• September 3: The Howard County Planning Board approves FDP-DC-MSW-1A, a comprehensive Final Development Plan for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood submitted jointly by the Inner Arbor Trust and subsidiaries of the Howard Hughes Corporation. The plan modifies the previous FDP-DC-MSW-1 for Symphony Woods to be consistent with the previously-approved Site Development Plan SDP-14-073 for Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, and improve integration of the park with Merriweather Post Pavilion.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Technical Staff Report, Merriweather Symphony Woods Neighborhood, Planning Board Hearing of September 3, 2015, Case No. PB 416. Howard County, Maryland, www.howardcountymd.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=LK3Z4voZgec%3d&portalid=0. Accessed 11 May 2017.

  Howard County Planning Board. “Planning Board Past Meetings.” Howard County, Maryland, 3 Sept. 2015, www.howardcountymd.gov/Departments/Planning-and-Zoning/Boards-and-Commissions/Planning-Board. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• September 9: The Howard County Design Advisory Panel considers plans for further renovations to Merriweather Post Pavilion, including a raised roof and a larger stage house, and offers some minor suggestions.

  Howard County Design Advisory Panel. Meeting Summary, September 9, 2015. Howard County, Maryland, 9 Sept. 2015, http://www.howardcountymd.gov/DesktopModules/DnnSharp/SearchBoost/FileDownload.ashx?file=11432&sb-inst=9164. Accessed 11 May 2017.

• September 12: The Inner Arbor Trust holds a groundbreaking ceremony for the Chrysalis amphitheater.

  Michaels, Andrew. “Amphitheater underway in Symphony Woods.” Columbia Flier, 17 Sept. 2015, p. 4.

• September 18: The Inner Arbor Trust executes a new amendment to its grant agreement with Howard County to reflect the additional funding of $1.4 million from the county.

  Howard County, Maryland, and Inner Arbor Trust. Amendment Three to Grant Agreement. 18 Sept. 2015, inartrust.org/s/Amendment-3-to-Grant-Agreement-9-18-2015.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• October: Howard County issues permits to the Inner Arbor Trust for grading of the Chrysalis site and construction of the foundation.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “October, 2015 Chrysalis Development Report.” 1 November 2015, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-November-2015.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• November 3: The Inner Arbor Trust sponsors the “Math of Architecture and Architecture of Math” public event with Joni Newkirk of Integrated Insight, Inc., and Bill Zahner of A. Zahner Co.

  Michaels, Andrew. “Pair join Merriweather Park design team.” Columbia Flier, 29 Oct. 2015, p. 17.

  Holzberg Janene. “Chrysalis is seen as a huge draw.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 8 Nov. 2015, p. 1G.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “Math of Architecture, Architecture of Math, November 3, 2015.” Vimeo, 3 Nov. 2015, vimeo.com/155286541. Accessed 8 May 2015.

• November–December: Whiting-Turner continues construction work on the Chrysalis foundation, including constructing a cistern to control storm water runoff, pouring “mud mats” for the foundation, and laying underground electrical conduits.

  Inner Arbor Trust. November & December, 2015 Chrysalis Development Report. 20 Dec. 2015, http://inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-November-2015-3oxn.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• December 17: The Howard County Planning Board approves SDP-16-018, a joint site development plan for improvements to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, including shared restrooms, accessible paths, and handicap parking spaces.

  Inner Arbor Trust. November & December, 2015 Chrysalis Development Report. 20 Dec. 2015, http://inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-November-2015-3oxn.pdf. Accessed 8 May 2017.

  Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning. Technical Staff Report, Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, Downtown Columbia - Merriweather Symphony Woods Neighborhood, Planning Board Meeting of December 17, 2015, Case No.: SDP-16-018. Howard County, Maryland, 3 Dec. 2015, www.howardcountymd.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=Hylr2WVK7HA%3d&portalid=0. Accessed 8 May 2017.

  Inner Arbor Trust and Merriweather Post Business Trust. SDP-16-018, Site Development Plan, Merriweather Post Pavilion & Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, Town Center, Section 1, Lots 13 & 23, Redevelopment Phase 2 & 3. Jan. 2016, inartrust.org/s/MPBT-IAT-Joint-SDP-16-018.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

2016

Chrysalis construction proceeds apace in concert with Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations.

• January: The Inner Arbor Trust sponsors an event “Let there be light” featuring the work of Arup lighting designer Star Davis. Unfortunately, it is cancelled due to a major snowstorm.

  Holzberg, Janene. “At Symphony Woods, lighting design comes alive.” Columbia Flier, 28 Jan. 2016, p. 4.

• February: Construction of the Chrysalis is well underway, with completion estimated for the spring of 2017. Whiting-Turner is placing rebar and pouring concrete for the piers and walls of the subfloor, while Arup and Zahner are preparing “shop drawings” (in digital form) for the steel framework and aluminum skin.

  Michaels, Andrew. “Chrysalis construction making headway.” Columbia Flier, 25 Feb. 2016, p. 4.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Report on the Chrysalis Development. 15 Feb. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-February-2016.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• March: The steel tubes making up the steel framework of the Chrysalis are fabricated by the Walters Group, as Whiting-Turner continues work on the walls and piers of the concrete subfloor. Meanwhile renovations at Merriweather Post Pavilion continue as the stage house is replaced.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Report on the Chrysalis Development. 15 Mar. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-March-2016.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

  Michaels, Andrew. “Merriweather revamping sound monitoring.” Columbia Flier, 10 Mar. 2016, p. 4.

• April: Zahner fabricates the ZEPPS panels and aluminum shingles of the Chrysalis skin, while Whiting-Turner nears completion of the concrete subfloor.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Report on the Chrysalis Development. 15 Apr. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Update-as-of-April-2016.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• May 3: The Inner Arbor Trust signs an agreement with Howard County for use of the Chrysalis during Wine in the Woods and other events.

  Inner Arbor Trust and Howard County, Maryland. Chrysalis Use Agreement. 3 May 2016, inartrust.org/s/Chrysalis-Use-Agreement-Fully-Executed-51116.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• May 12: The Columbia Association Board of Directors selects Lin Eagan and Gregg Schwind to be its representatives on the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors.

  Columbia Association. Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting, Held: May 12, 2016, Approved: May 26, 2016. 26 May 2016, p. 2.

• June: Metropolitan Walters, part of the Walters Group, erects the steel framework of the Chrysalis while skin fabrication continues at Zahner.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Chrysalis Construction. 15 July 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Chrysalis-June-update-copy.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• July: Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman proposes to provide $90 million via a “tax increment financing” plan to fund development of infrastructure for downtown Columbia, including a parking garage to support visitors to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

  Waseem, Fatimah. “Project finance plan offered.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 3 July 2016, p. 1G.

• August: Metropolitan Walters completes erection of the steel framework of the Chrysalis. ZEPPS panels from Zahner arrive on the construction site and are beginning to be installed. Meanwhile Howard Hughes Corporation’s first building in the Crescent development nears its opening date as the second building is under construction.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Chrysalis Construction. 15 Aug. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Chrysalis-August-update.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

  Waseem, Fatimah. “$41M Columbia office building to open in ’17.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 21 Aug. 2016, p. 1G.

• September: Zahner continues installing ZEPPS panels, including fabricating some panels on site.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Chrysalis Construction. 15 Sept. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Chrysalis-September-Update-copy.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• October: Zahner installs the last of the ZEPPS panels on the steel framework of the Chrysalis, and begins installing the green aluminum shingles forming the outer surface of the Chrysalis skin. The Howard County Council considers a public financing plan to help fund infrastructure improvements for downtown Columbia, including a new 2,545-space parking garage to serve Merriweather Post Pavilion and Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Chrysalis Construction. 15 Oct. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Chrysalis-September-Update-draggedjpg-4dbe.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

  Wood, Pamela. “Howard weighs financing option for Columbia plan.” Baltimore Sun, 11 Oct. 2016, p. 1A.

  Waseem, Fatima. “TIF for core under scrutiny.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Oct. 2016, p. 1G.

• November: More than half of the surface of the Chrysalis has been covered with green aluminum shingles, with Zahner projected to finish the work in December.

  Inner Arbor Trust. Chrysalis Construction. 15 Nov. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-Chrysalis-October-Update-sm.pdf. Accessed 11 May 2017.

• November 2: Mary Ann Scully, CEO of Howard Bank, is elected to the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors, as Howard Bank pledges to contribute $50,000 to the Trust.

  Inner Arbor Trust. “The Inner Arbor Trust unanimously elects Howard Bank’s CEO Mary Ann Scully to its Board of Directors.” 17 Nov. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Mary-Ann-Sculley-Press-Release-November-17-2016.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

  Inner Arbor Trust. November 2, 2016 Board Minutes. 2 Nov. 2016, inartrust.org/s/Inner-Arbor-Trust-November-2-2016-Minutes.pdf. Accessed 9 May 2017.

• November 30: Howard Hughes Corporation transfers ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion to the nonprofit Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission.

  Waseem, Fatimah. “Merriweather Post eyes its new future.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 4 Dec. 2016, p. 1G.

2017

The Chrysalis comes to life and a new era begins for the Inner Arbor Trust.

• March 18: At the recommendation of Michael McCall, the Inner Arbor Trust Board of Directors elects Trust General Counsel Nina Basu to succeed McCall as President and CEO of the Trust, effective May 1. The board also elects Eric Metzman as a new board member, replacing retiring original board member Gill Wylie.

  McCall, Michael. Personal communication. 27 May 2017.

• April: The Maryland General Assembly approves a $150,000 grant to the Inner Arbor Trust in support of the Chrysalis.

  Yeager, Amanda. “Session makes a local impact.” Baltimore Sun, Howard ed., 16 Apr. 2017, p. 1G.

• April 22: The Chrysalis is dedicated with a public ceremony and concert.

  Holzberg, Janene. “Park by day, public sculpture by night.” Baltimore Sun, 16 Apr. 2017, p. 1 (A&E).

  Janney, Elizabeth. “Chrysalis dedicated to people of Columbia.” Columbia Patch, 24 Apr. 2017, patch.com/maryland/columbia/chrysalis-dedicated-people-columbia. Accessed 8 May 2017.

• May 1: Michael McCall steps down as President and CEO of the Inner Arbor Trust, after successfully leading the Trust through its formation as a nonprofit organization and achievement of 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, the selection of a design team and creation of a detailed plan for the northern portion of Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods, the approval of a seven-phase Site Development Plan by Howard County (including concepts and locations for all park features), the execution of legal agreements with the Columbia Association, Howard County, the Howard Hughes Corporation, and It’s My Amphitheater, Inc., and the completion of phase 1 of the Site Development Plan, including the construction of the Chrysalis. He is succeeded by former Trust General Counsel Nina Basu.

  Basu, Nina. “Started working at Inner Arbor Trust.” Facebook, 1 May 2017, www.facebook.com/ninabasu/timeline/story?ut=32&wstart=-2051193600&wend=2147483647&hash=10155301230471913&pagefilter=3&ustart=1&pnref=story. Accessed 26 May 2017.

For further exploration

In writing the “Creating the Chrysalis” series and this timeline, I consulted multiple sources both online and offline. Unfortunately almost all of the online sources available have one or more flaws, including being incomplete, overly expensive, lacking adequate search facilities, or being prone to broken links as the underlying sites are revamped. At times my only option was to manually scroll through microfilm at the Central Branch of the Howard County Library System.

Here are the main information sources of interest:

• Baltimore Sun. The Sun has multiple ways to retrieve its articles:

  • The standard Baltimore Sun search page linked to from the main newspaper web site includes results for the Columbia Flier and Howard County Times, but will only return results within the last couple of years. It also lacks critical features like being able to search within a date range; even the function to sort results by date is broken.
  • A Google search against the Baltimore Sun site will typically return many more useful results than searching on the Baltimore Sun site itself.
  • The official Baltimore Sun archives (maintained by Newspapers.com) has excellent historical coverage (back to 1837) and can be used to obtain full images of the printed papers, including photographs and illustrations. Searches can be restricted to a date range and results sorted by date. Snippets of the results are viewable at no charge; full pages may be viewed for $8 per month for an unlimited number of searches. Indexing of articles is generally excellent; however, in some cases articles cannot be found using the most straightforward query but will show up using a slightly different query.

• Columbia Flier and Howard County Times. The archives for the Columbia Flier and Howard County Times are combined with Baltimore Sun archives for recent years. For articles before that time there is no option at present except to look for articles on microfilm.

  There used to be a site archives.explorehoward.com that provided access to earlier articles. However it no longer exists, and its contents are not archived anywhere else as far as I know. I am also not aware of any separate online index to the contents of the Columbia Flier and Howard County Times.

• Washington Post. As with the Sun, there are multiple approaches to finding Post articles:

  • The Washington Post search function retrieves articles back to 2005. Its advanced search option allows sorting results by date (in descending order only).
  • The official Washington Post archive site provides two options, searching articles from 1877 to 1995, or from 1987 to the present; both options have an “advanced search” function that allows searching a date range and sorting results by date. The site provides article previews at no charge; prices for the full articles range from $4 per article to just over $1 depending on how many you purchase.

• Columbia Association records of Board of Directors meetings, including minutes, agendas, and board packets (i.e., material provided to the board in advance of meetings). At present only records back to January 2014 are available online. Earlier records have been removed from the main CA site and links to them no longer work.

• The Inner Arbor Trust web site contains many documents of interest scattered around the site. The two main document areas are as follows:

  • “The Making of the Trust” contains links to several documents of interest for the period leading up to the formation of the Inner Arbor Trust.
  • “Corporate Documents” contains links to several documents of interest for the period after the formation of the Inner Arbor Trust.

• Various web sites maintained by General Growth Properties and Howard Hughes Corporation, including the columbiatowncenter.info and downtowncolumbia.com sites. Unfortunately, the former site is no longer online, and many of its pages were not archived. However the following pages at the Internet Archive may be of interest:

  • “A history of the Downtown Columbia Project” (formerly “A history of the Columbia Town Center project”) contains a timeline of activities related to GGP and Howard Hughes planning for downtown Columbia from May 2005 to December 2010.
  • Various sections of GGP’s proposed 2008 General Plan Amendment, including the following:
    • “Making a special place” (archived 19 Feb. 2009)
    • “Moving and connecting people (archived 19 Feb. 2009)
    • “Sustaining the environment” (archived 19 Feb. 2009)
    • “Balancing and phasing growth” (archived 19 Feb. 2009)
    • “Involving everyone” (archived 19 Feb. 2009)
    • “Exhibits” (archived 7 Oct. 2009)

• Columbia and Howard County blogs. The following blogs include material from people active in the controversies around development of downtown Columbia and/or Symphony Woods.

  • Coale, Tom. HoCo Rising. 2006–present, www.hocorising.com. Tom Coale is a former CA board member.
  • Coren, Evan, and others. Howard County Blog. 2006–2009, howardcountyblog.blogspot.com. Evan Coren is a former CA board member.
  • Dunn, Brian. Columbia 2.0. 2008–present, columbia2.wordpress.com. Brian Dunn is a former CA board member. This blog also served as the website for the advocacy group Columbia 2.0.
  • Hecker, Frank. Frank Hecker blog. 2004–present, frankhecker.com. Frank Hecker is the author of this series.
  • Lane, Dennis. Tales of Two Cities. 2006–2013, writing-the-wrongs.blogspot.com. Dennis Lane was a commercial real estate developer and prominent local blogger.
  • McCready, Julia. Village Green/Town² . 2011–present, villagegreentownsquared.blogspot.com. Julia McCready is a former member of the Oakland Mills Village board.
  • Santos, Bill. Columbia Compass. 2006–2012, columbiacompass.blogspot.com, and 2012–2014, columbiacompass.weebly.com/blog. Bill Santos is a former member of the Howard County Planning Board.
  • Woodcock, Bill. The 53. 2008–present, 53beersontap.typepad.com/53beers. Bill Woodcock is a former member of the Oakland Mills Village board.

• Web sites of Columbia and Howard County advocacy groups. Most of these are out of date and many are no longer available on the web, except for fragmentary snapshots preserved by the Internet Archive. Note that I have included only organizations significantly involved in advocacy activities relating to Symphony Woods, Merriweather Post Pavilion, or downtown Columbia development in general.

  • Alliance for a Better Columbia. abettercolumbia.org (archived 18 Dec. 2014). Founded by Paul Amico and Alex Hekimian in October 1987.
  • Bring Back the Vision. bringbackthevision.org (archived 6 Aug. 2008). Founded by Emily Lincoln in 2007.
  • Coalition for Columbia’s Downtown. www.coalitionforcolumbiasdowntown.org/AboutUs.html. Founded by Alan Klein in October 2006.
  • Columbia 2.0. columbia2.wordpress.com. Founded by David Yungmann, Katie Dunn, and Mac Cassity in July 2008.
  • Columbia Tomorrow. columbiatomorrow.org (archived 10 Dec. 2012). Founded by Jud Malone in September 2008.
  • Howard County Citizens Association. howardcountyhcca.org. Founded in 1961.
  • New City Alliance. www.facebook.com/NewCityAlliance. Founded by David Yungmann in October 2009. The group also maintained a web site newcityalliance.org before moving to Facebook.
  • Save Merriweather. savemerriweather.org. Founded by Justin Carlson and Ian Kennedy in June 2003.

tl;dr: Merriweather Post Pavilion gets ready for the 21st century, and the Howard County Design Advisory Panel offers its advice.

I’ve previously written about the planned renovations of Merriweather Post Pavilion in downtown Columbia. Last week that renovation took two more steps forward, with a pre-submission community meeting (held at Merriweather itself) to present the plans to the general public and a meeting of the Howard County Design Advisory Panel to review the current design for the renovated pavilion.

To make a long story short, the Design Advisory Panel gave its overall blessing to the design, though with some advice given along the way. (This seems to be a standard practice of the Panel, at least based on the meetings I’ve attended.) I found the discussion of some aspects of the design to be fascinating. In order to understand why it’s best to take a trip back in time.

Most people familiar with Columbia know that the Merriweather Post Pavilion was designed by Frank Gehry (only a half-truth, as I’ll discuss below). Some of those people also know that Merriweather Post Pavilion was originally intended to be a venue for classical music, not the popular music mecca it later became. However what I didn’t know (until I did some research for this article) is that the present form of Merriweather Post Pavilion is an accident of history.

What became Merriweather Post Pavilion was originally supposed to be designed by an architect from California, Jim Lief.¹ However his design, a 3000-seat “free form tent structure . . . made of nylon material,” was ultimately deemed to be unbuildable, a conclusion that was reached only six months before the pavilion was supposed to be inaugurated with a gala concert to be attended by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and other dignitaries. The Columbia project managers then had to scramble to put together an alternative, and project architects Frank Gehry and N. David O’Malley created a new design that was then constructed on a fast-track schedule.

Due to the time constraints and the relatively small budget of $500,000 (about $3.5 million today), the design of Merriweather Post Pavilion turned out to be relatively straightforward and spartan: a flat pavilion roof (trapezoidal in shape when viewed from above), with the narrow end of the trapezoid also serving as the roof of the stage house, i.e., the portion of the pavilion enclosing the the stage. This latter feature meant that there was not a lot of room above the stage. This was made worse by the fact that the stage house walls were not vertical but rather sloped inward (continuing the trapezoid theme), so that the stage house was narrower near its top than at stage level.

This design was adequate for Merriweather Post Pavilion’s original intended use by a symphony orchestra, which did not have a need for elaborate sets and associated rigging above the performers. However the use of the pavilion for symphony performances lasted only briefly (its intended tenant, the National Symphony Orchestra, having gone bankrupt), and other “high culture” performances such as ballet lasted only slightly longer.

In the 1970s Merriweather Post Pavilion became a venue primarily for popular music acts, and remains so to this day. The focus of the Merriweather renovation is thus on better serving such acts, with their elaborate sets and larger audiences. This includes making the stage house higher, improving sight lines for audiences on the lawn, and providing permanent roofs (instead of seasonal tents) for audiences in the loge areas to the left and right of the main pavilion seating.

The proposed renovations (designed by JP2 Architects) improve sight lines from the lawn by raising the entire pavilion roof about 20 feet higher, as shown in the rendering above. (The lower edge of the current roof is only about 23 feet above the ground at the point where the lawn begins, as seen in the above photo.) The design raises the roof of the stage house even higher, so that it is no longer flush with the main pavilion roof but extends above it. (The permitted height of the stage house is 85 feet, but the current plan has it at just over 74 feet.) However the stage house roof is still low enough relative to the new roof so that it wil not be visible by audiences on the lawn (as shown in the rendering above and the comparison below). Finally, the design makes the stage house walls vertical, and adds two lightweight roofs to the loge areas.

The raising of the roof will also apparently present an opportunity to address some of the perceived issues surrounding sound levels at Merriweather Post Pavilion For example, having a higher roof will enable speakers to be configured so that sound is directed more down toward the audience than out toward the lawn and beyond.

So far, so good. The remaining issue is that although the higher stage house cannot be seen from the lawn, it can be seen to some degree from the sides, and will present a considerably higher façade than it does at present. How should this increased height be addressed from a visual point of view?

In the design presented at the Design Advisory Panel meeting, the “architectural concept for the stage house breaks down its scale by introducing a serrated edging in the top tier of the building where cedar paneling transitions into a cementitious paneling.” The serrated edging was described as echoing the treeline of the surrounding park. The cementitious or cement-like material on the upper part of the stage house exterior walls would then have a lighter color that would blend in with the sky.

This particular feature of the proposed design occasioned the most contentious discussion of the Design Advisory Panel meeting, partly I think because the architectural rendering of the stage house displayed at the meeting made the “cementitious material” look almost blindingly white, in sharp contrast to the cedar paneling below it (which would be the same color as the existing roof). Panel member Mohammad Saleem expressed his concern about the design as presented, and eventually made a motion that the “serrated edge of the stage house be simplified to reduce the height [of the edge] and that the top . . . be some type of gray metal,” and that “instead of [being] serrated, [the edge] be more horizontal and [plain] and simple to fit in the current, natural environment.”

Most of the other members of the panel disagreed with Saleem, apparently because they liked the serrated boundary between the lower and upper halves of the stage house walls and also believed that the wall colors as constructed would be more subtle than on the renderings. In the end Saleem’s motion was voted down by a 4-2 margin.

Though the motion failed, the discussion about the stage house design did highlight an underlying question some might have about the renovation, namely to what extent should the renovated pavilion retain the spare and spartan appearance of the pavilion as originally constructed. For example, in addition to the serrated design proposed for the stage house walls, the design also includes “light hole punch outs . . . introduced throughout the building façade for additional interest”. In other words, instead of being a plain cedar plank surface, the lower parts of the stage house walls would be periodically punctuated by lights of various colors, lending a more festive appearance to the stage house façade.²

Should Merriweather Post Pavilion continue to be as plain and unadorned as it was in the past? There are certainly no plans to do anything with the main pavilion roof, the wooden sides of which would be unchanged from their present appearance. That’s fitting since that roof is iconic, even to the point of being incorporated into the Merriweather Post Pavilion logo.

What about the stage house? Should it be instead clad totally in wood panelling in a natural color, similar to the main roof and echoing other venues in wooded settings, like Filene Center at Wolf Trap? At the Design Advisory Panel meeting Jamie Pett of JP2 Architects noted the desire to break up the stage house mass and not have it appear so monolithic. Some of the Panel members noted that this was in fact an entertainment venue, so some playfullness in the architecture was appropriate. Brad Canfield of I.M.A. echoed this, noting that they had originally considered doing an all-wood façade but had concluded that it reminded them of Wolf Trap, and that they didn’t want it to look like Wolf Trap.

It’s not a slamdunk case, but ultimately I’m going to go with Pett, Canfield, and the majority of Design Advisory Panel members on this one. As much as some people might like Merriweather to be “Wolf Trap in Columbia,” it’s not and never will be. Wolf Trap is a national park, the Filene Center is a much more self-consciously elegant and expensive³ structure than Merriweather Post Pavilion, and the (subsidized) Wolf Trap programming has much more of a high culture flavor than the unbashedly populist offerings at Merriweather. One Panel member said of Merriweather, “it is an entertainment venue, and we’re in the next century,” and Brad Canfield noted the “quirky” sculptures and other art that I.M.A. had placed throughout the grounds in effort to give the venue a more lively feel.

At the time of its creation Merriweather Post Pavilion was not intended as an architectural masterwork for the ages but rather as a quick and cheap solution to a pressing problem. In the current renovation I believe the goal should be to enhance what Merriweather has evolved into, by making the venue more fun, funky, and functional—and to add a fourth “f,” to do so in a relatively frugal manner. I think the proposed design for the new Merriweather could be further refined, but its heart is in the right place.

For further exploration

The chapter “Early Buildings: People and Projects” in the book Creating a New City: Columbia, Maryland contains an in-depth and entertaining discussion of the construction of Merriweather Post Pavilion, by project manager James Wannemacher. My two-part series on the planned Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations (part 1 and part 2) explains why the renovations are necessary and what is planned to be done; a followup post covers the schedule for the renovations. All three posts contain links to Howard County documents relevant to the renovation effort. The Design Advisory Panel meeting summary contains the recommendations by the members at the meeting on September 9, 2015, as well as the text of Mohammad Saleem’s failed motion. The Department of Planning and Zoning Technical Staff Report on FDP-DC-MSW-1A provides additional context on planning regulations affecting the renovation, including the 85-foot height limit for Merriweather Post Pavilion.

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].

Exhibit A of Amendment 2 to Amendment 12 divides the overall set of renovations into five phases (numbered I through V). Exhibit B assigns dates and durations to the activities associated with each phase (here numbered 1 through 5).¹ Because of the way the Howard County planning and zoning process works, Phase 1 will be handled differently than Phases 2 through 5, as discussed below. The various renovation projects are divided between the phases as follows:

Phase 1. This phase contains various projects that are less disruptive and do not affect the main pavilion structure, including utility infrastructure work, the first subproject of concessions/restrooms renovation, and replacement of windows in the administration building. (Note that it’s not clear from Exhibit A exactly which concession facilities and restrooms will be affected by this phase.) Design work for Phase 1 begins this summer, with actual construction scheduled to begin February of 2015 and be completed by the end of June 2015.

Phase 2. This phase contains all of the work on the main pavilion structure, including replacing the seating, raising the main pavilion roof, adding two new roofs to cover the loge areas, and replacing the stagehouse (including widening the proscenium opening). This phase also sees the completion of subproject 1 of box office renovation. (Again it’s not clear from Exhibit A which box office will be renovated or replaced in this phase; however since the South/East box office is apparently in more need of work, it may be done first.) Finally, this phase also includes phase 1 of the site improvements, presumable on the west side of the property (since the second phase is for the east side). Design work for this and subsequent phases is slated to begin spring and summer of 2015 and be complete by the end of 2015. Construction for Phase 2 is scheduled for November 2016 through March 2017, during the off-season at Merriweather.

Phase 3. This phase completes the work on the site improvements, restrooms, concession facilities and box offices. Construction for Phase 3 is scheduled for November 2017 through March 2018.

Phase 4. This phase includes construction of the new dressing rooms and catering areas for performers, as well as a new stage. Since this latter project was not included in the draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report it’s not clear exactly what it entails. This phase also includes some parking-related work, although again it was not included in the draft 2014 report. Construction for Phase 4 is scheduled for November 2018 through March 2019.

Phase 5. This phase includes only two small projects, putting a sprinkler system in the 9:32 Club and creating a new area for trash and recycling. It’s worth noting that even though these are small projects they are both called out specifically in Amendment 2 to Amendment 12, along with raising the main roof and bringing all facilities up to code. It’s possible that this was done in order to ensure that the called-out projects received particular priority and would not be put on the chopping block in the event of funding shortfalls or construction delays. Construction for phase 5 is scheduled for November 2019 through March 2020, with the latter date marking the “substantial completion” of all projects.

Starting construction is dependent on completion of Howard County’s review process for downtown Columbia revitalization [PDF]. This 16-step process requires the creation of a Final Development Plan (FDP) and a Site Development Plan (SDP), along with an Environmental Concept Plan (ECP). Despite its name, the FDP actually comes before the SDP, with the SDP containing much more detail than the FDP.² Both the FDP and the SDP must be approved by the Howard County Planning Board before a building permit can be issued.

In the case of Merriweather renovations, per Exhibit B the planning process for the FDP is scheduled to run roughly from August 2014 through April 2015. Since the first step in the process is to hold a pre-submission community meeting prior to submitting the FDP to the Planning Board for review, the public should get a closer look at the overall renovation plans later this summer. Submission of the subsequent SDP should be about a year later, with the review process scheduled to run from August through December of 2015. Assuming the SDP is approved and the necessary building permit(s) issued, Phase 2 construction (including raising the main pavilion roof) could then begin in November 2016, after completion of the 2016 Merriweather season.

But that raises an interesting question: Phase 1 construction is supposed to start February 2015, before the SDP is even submitted, much less approved. How can that be? The answer, based on Exhibit B, is that there is apparently an existing SDP that can be put through a special “redline” review process, “used when minor modifications or revisions are required for active or inactive commercial site development plans”.3 As Exhibit B notes, beginning Phase 1 construction is dependent on the suggested modifications to the pre-existing SDP being approved; otherwise Phase 1 construction would have to be delayed until the Phase 2 date.

This concludes my review of the proposed Merriweather Post Pavilion renovations. Hopefully I’ll be posting again on this topic later this year when the first pre-submission community meeting is held.

Urban Bushwoman - 2014-05-30 12:22

Thanks for sharing this!

hecker - 2014-05-30 15:44

And thank you for stopping by to comment! I’m glad you found the post useful.

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].

The remaining renovations in Exhibit A fall into the following general categories, in decreasing order by total cost; the budget figures listed do not include soft costs. Note that the exact scope and budget of the individual categories and projects may change based on further design work, and are all subject to Planning Board approval. I have tried to match the items in Exhibit A with the items A through P in the draft 2014 report; however in some cases the correspondence is not exact or or is unclear.

Construct permanent roofs for the loge areas. This category comprises a single Exhibit A line item (“New Loge Roofs”) budgeted at $1.9 million. The two loge areas (on the two sides of the main pavilion seating area) currently have temporary canvas tent roofs that are supported by steel masts and guy cables; according to the draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report, in addition to being costly and time-consuming to set up the tents and take them down, the cables impede circulation and the masts obstruct views (pages 13-14 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended replacing these temporary tents with permanent roofs that would be visually compatible with the existing main pavilion roof, at an estimated cost of $1.7 million (item E, pages 19, 66, and 71 of the PDF). This estimate also includes putting in a sprinkler system and adding lighting and ceiling fans. Since the budgeted amount of $1.9 million is slightly more than this it’s possible that the plans may include seating on top of these roofs, as proposed by IMP and mentioned above.

General site improvements. This category includes two equal-size Exhibit A budget line items (“Site Improvements—Phase 1” and “Site Improvements—East Side”) totalling $1.2 million. The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report referenced a number of problems with the overall Merriweather site, many related to site grades and resulting ADA compliance problems. For example, the report noted that the footpath from the south parking areas is “not handicapped accessible, and likely somewhat difficult to negotiate for even certain able bodied individuals” and that “[a]ccess to East Restrooms remains steep and non-ADA compliant” (page 11 and 53 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended re-grading of various portions of the site to reduce slopes and improve access, at an estimate cost of $0.7 million (item D, pages 19, 66, and 71 of the PDF). This amount is significantly less than the budgeted amount. It’s possible that the estimated cost in the draft 2014 report was too low (it was unchanged from the 2004 report) or that some additional work has been added.

Widening the proscenium and replacing the stagehouse. This comprises a single Exhibit A budget line item (“Widen Proscenium and New Stage House”) of almost $0.9 million. According to the draft Ziger/Snead 2014 report the relatively short width (67 feet) of the proscenium opening for the stage causes obstructed sight lines and degraded sound for some seats in the loge area (pages 8 and 13-14 of the PDF). The stagehouse itself (i.e., the structure enclosing the stage) is also relatively small and lacks a grid for attaching stage equipment (page 8 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended both widening the proscenium opening by 15 feet, at an estimated cost of almost $0.4 million (item H, pages 19, 67, and 71 of the PDF), and raising the stagehouse roof 20 feet, adding a grid, and making other improvements, at an estimated cost of almost $1.3 million (item K, page 20, 67-68, and 71 of the PDF). At almost $1.7 million the estimated cost of these two projects is almost twice that budgeted. I therefore presume that the recommendations of the draft 2014 report have been scaled back somewhat.

Upgrade utilities. This comprises one Exhibit A budget line item (“Utility infrastructure Work”) at less than $0.9 million. The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report noted that “Most of the original underground utilities serving Merriweather are believed to be either reaching an end to their practical life or are in need of modernizing for the sake of efficiency” (page 12 of the PDF). The draft 2014 report recommended replacing the electrical, water, and utilities serving the site, as well as installing new storm water management facilities and site lighting, at a total cost of $2.5 million (item H, pages 18, 65-66, and 71 in the PDF). That figure is significantly higher than the budget line item, so presumably either the plans are scaled back from what was recommended or the work is included under other budget items.

Parking. This project is a single Exhibit A budget line item at almost $0.4 million. It is not clear exactly what this project entails. The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report did not contain recommendations or estimated costs relating to parking, possibly because the Merriweather property itself contains almost no parking: only performer parking (e.g., for tour buses) is on pavilion property, while ADA parking and administration parking is on Columbia Association property (Symphony Woods), and general event parking is on Howard Hughes property (where the Crescent development will go) (pages 6 and 11 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended doubling the size of the ADA parking lot in order to meet ADA requirements (page 18 of the PDF). This may be what this Exhibit A budget line item is for, or it may be for something else entirely.

Carry out other smaller renovation projects. This set of projects comprises three Exhibit A budget line items (“Admin Windows,” “Sprinklers in 932 Club,” and “New Trash/Recycling Area”) totalling less than $0.2 million. The historic farmhouse containing the Merriweather administrative offices has single-glazed windows that need to be replaced (draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report, page 15 of the PDF). The 932 Club is a small wood-framed lounge and performance space lacking a sprinkler system (page 16 of the PDF). The property does not currently have a single dedicated trash and recycling area.

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report included recommendations for projects to address these three areas, all with estimated costs less than $0.1 million (items J, N, and O respectively, pages 19-20, 67-68, and 71 of the PDF). The amounts for the corresponding budget line items are each slightly higher than the corresponding estimated costs in the draft 2014 report.

The Exhibit A budget also includes $125,000 for two other line items, preparation of the master plan and FDP processing. This expense, which is for the first year, presumably includes any expenses related to getting Howard County Planning Board approval of the Final Development Plan and Site Development Plan for all of the renovations to be carried out.

Finally, there are two recommended projects in the draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report for which it’s unclear whether they are included or not in the Exhibit A budget. These are item L, “Replace Stage Electrical Panels And Distribution” (pages 20, 68, and 71 of the PDF) and item P, “Replace Fire Alarm System For Main Facility And Extend To New Addition” (pages 20, 69, and 71 of the PDF), each with an estimated cost of $0.3 million.

In my next post I’ll discuss the schedule for the renovations.

In his own blog post last week Tom Coale gave a good summary of how the renovations will be funded, but noted that he didn’t have access to the source documents. As it turns out, 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 legislation by which the Howard County Council approved the fiscal year 2015 operating budget. (Howard County’s fiscal year 2015 begins July 1 of this year.) The proposed renovations are based on (but not identical to) the set of renovations described in the recent Merriweather Post Pavilion Physical Review Update (of which I have only a draft copy [PDF]) from Ziger/Snead (the Baltimore architectural firm hired to advise the citizens advisory panel). That document is in turn an update of the Ziger/Snead report included in the 2005 final report [PDF] of the citizens advisory panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion.

The original 2005 Ziger/Snead report recommended $19.5 million of Merriweather renovations, spread across 16 budget line items and five years.¹ The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead update to the report has a new figure of $24.6 million for renovations, including some new items not in the 2005 report (see “Ballpark Pricing Cost Estimate,” page 71 of the PDF). Both estimates include 30% extra for “soft costs,” presumably including project overhead and other costs not accounted for in the base estimates. Exhibit A to Amendment 2 to Amendment 12 to CB24-2014 includes 19 budget line items for a total of $19.0 million, with only 20% allocated to soft costs.

The most costly renovations in Exhibit A fall into the following general categories, in decreasing order by total cost; the budget figures listed do not include soft costs. Note that the exact scope and budget of the individual categories and projects may change based on further design work, and are all subject to Planning Board approval. I have tried to match the items in Exhibit A with the items A through P in the draft 2014 report; however in some cases the correspondence is not exact or or is unclear.

Replace or renovate existing restrooms, concession stands, and box offices. The restroom and concession stand projects comprise three equal-size Exhibit A budget line items across three years (“Restroom/Concession A,” “B,” and “C”), for a total of $3.7 million, while the box office project comprises two equal-size budget line items across two years (“Box Office 1” and “2”), for a total of $0.9 million; the total budget for this category of improvements is $4.6 million.

There are currently five restroom facilities and five permanent (as opposed to seasonal) concession stands at Merriweather; in some cases a restroom and concession stand are co-located in a single building, while others are standalone. According to the draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report only one building (“Stand Two”) contains up-to-date and fully code-compliant restrooms and concession stand (pages 15-16 of the PDF). Merriweather has two box offices (“East”/“South” and “West”); per the report the East/South box office suffers from water infiltration, and neither box office is easily accessible by car (page 15 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended totally replacing three of the restrooms and renovating two others that are located in historic buildings, at an estimated cost of $2.0 million (item B, pages 17, 65, and 71 of the PDF). The same report also proposed replacing and (in some cases) relocating the concession stands and box offices, at an estimated cost of $2.6 million (item H, pages 18, 67, and 71 of the PDF). The total for items B and H was $4.6 million, the same as the total of the corresponding budget line items in Exhibit A. I therefore presume that these renovations will be done pretty much as described in the draft 2014 report.

Upgrade seating and raise/renovate the main pavilion roof. This category is budgeted in Exhibit A at either $3.0 million (“Seating & Raise Main Roof”) or $3.2 million, depending on whether the budget line item “Add: new roof” refers to the main roof or not. It combines two related projects: The first project will replace the concrete seating base in the main pavilion area and the two loge areas to each side, and replace all of the 4,650 seats in the three areas. Among other things, this will bring these areas into full ADA compliance (including expanding the number of handicapped accessible seats), improve circulation between the main seating area and the loge areas (by removing low concrete walls currently separating them), and provide permanent seating for the loge areas (replacing the current folding chairs). The cost for this project was estimated as $2.7 million in the draft 2014 report (item F, pages 19, 66, and 71 of the PDF).²

The second project, to raise the main pavilion roof, was not included in the 2005 and 2014 Ziger/Snead reports, but was apparently part of a set of renovations proposed by IMP Productions, the operator for Merriweather Post Pavilion. The 2005 and 2014 reports recommended restoring the main roof, including replacing the roof surface and the vertical boards on the sides of the roof, at an estimated cost of approximately $440,000 (item M, pages 20, 68, and 71 of the PDF of the 2014 draft report). The idea of raising the main roof was suggested by IMP as a way to “improve sightlines from the Lawn and accommodate installation of V.I.P box seating and green roof lawn seating at the level of permanent roofs over the side Loges” (page 5 of the PDF).³ Whether it’s raised or not, the main roof still requires renovation, so this would presumably part of the project in any case.

Replace the existing performer dressing rooms and catering areas. This category comprises one Exhibit A budget line item (“Dressing Room / Catering and New Stage”) budgeted at $2.7 million. Currently performer dressing rooms are housed in various temporary trailers scattered behind the pavilion. Per the draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report these are difficult to maintain (pages 14-15 of the PDF). There are also two catering decks, “essentially screened-in porches” that need to be brought into full compliance with relevant codes (page 15 of the PDF).

The draft 2014 Ziger/Snead report recommended constructing a new two-story 15,000-sf building to house performer dressing rooms, catering areas, and various other backstage functions, at an estimated cost of $4.0 million (item G, pages 19, 66-67, and 71 of the PDF). Since the budgeted amount of $2.7 million is significantly less than this I presume that the plans for this category of renovations have been scaled back from what is described in the draft 2014 report. In this regard note that the line item in Exhibit A also references a “New Stage,” something not included in the corresponding item G in the draft 2014 report, which would further reduce the amount to be spent on backstage improvements.

In the next post I’ll discuss the remaining categories of renovation projects and their costs.

Previously I rendered my own verdict on Cy Paumier’s plan for Symphony Woods, and relayed the verdicts of the Howard County Design Advisory Panel [PDF] and then the Planning Board [PDF]. Note that the Planning Board actually approved the overall Final Development Plan for the Merriweather-Symphony Woods Neighborhood presented by the Columbia Association, including having the area host a system of walkways and various other proposed features like a café, an outdoor amphitheater, a children’s play area, and (last but not least) a fountain. However they recommended moving to a system of meandering paths rather than formal walkways, and urged closer integration of the park with the Merriweather Post Pavilion property.

After the Planning Board decision CA went into somewhat of a holding pattern with respect to Symphony Woods, with the CA staff suggesting plans be put temporarily on hold, and the CA board considering more formal coordination with Howard Hughes Corporation and Howard County. This period of relative inactivity was broken with the announcement that CA had decided to adopt a new concept plan for Symphony Woods proposed by Michael McCall, like Cy Paumier a Columbia resident and former Rouse associate.

This “Inner Arbor” plan as originally presented was not an exact replacement for the Paumier plan, but was instead a high-level plan for the entire northeast and eastern portion of Symphony Woods; thus it included elements (like a replacement for Toby’s Dinner Theater and a new CA headquarters) that were never part of the Paumier plan. However since then the Inner Arbor plan has evolved into a plan specifically for the northern portion of Symphony Woods, the same area covered by the Paumier plan, and in an important sense it can be thought of simply as a continuation of and improvement on the Paumier plan, addressing that plan’s deficiencies as identified by the Planning Board and Design Advisory Panel.

The best place to start to appreciate that point is not with the Inner Arbor structures but rather with the walkway system proposed as part of the current Inner Arbor plan as recently presented to the Howard County Design Advisory Panel.¹ Note that the plan fully implements the Planning Board recommendation to use meandering paths. This allows paths to be routed to avoid trees and thereby minimize the number of trees needing removal.

Using meandering paths also means that the paths can follow the “lay of the land” and thus avoid steep slopes and the need for stairs as much as possible. As shown in the image above, most of the walkways (shown in green) are from 1% to 5% grade and are thus fully accessible to people using wheelchairs or who otherwise have difficulty walking. Most of the remaining paths (shown in blue), though having somewhat steeper grades in some places, still fall within the relevant ADA guidelines as applied to park trails. Only a few paths (shown in red) have steeper slopes that might require stairs. (One of the places requiring stairs is the entrance across from the mall access road, as in the Paumier plan, although unlike the Paumier plan this entrance is not the primary focal point of the design.)

The Inner Arbor plan also replaces the relatively awkward north-south alignment of the Paumier paths with a more natural east-west alignment that better conforms to the shape and orientation of the northern part of Symphony Woods. This change in alignment allows for longer paths that provide more opportunities to walk within the park, including the more scenic forest in the eastern and northeastern area of the park, which was to a large degree a “no go” area in the Paumier plan. This is made possible in part by an elevated boardwalk that allows visitors to enter at the northeastern corner of the park, at the intersection of Little Patuxent Parkway and South Entrance Road, near the Central Branch library and on the multi-use pathway to Lake Kittamaqundi. The boardwalk carries them through the northeastern portion of the park above the forest floor, and allows them to reach the Chrysalis amphitheater over a fully-accessible route.

Speaking of the Chrysalis, as noted previously the Final Development Plan based on the Paumier design envisioned various park features in addition to the walkways, including a pavilion and café (combined or separate), a fountain (interactive or otherwise), a children’s play area, public art, and an outdoor “shared use” amphitheater that could be used for both Merriweather events (e.g., as a second stage) or for events in Symphony Woods proper (e.g., Wine in the Woods). The current Inner Arbor plan makes provision one way or the other for all those elements, and (unlike the Paumier plan) includes detailed designs for almost all of them.² Put another way, almost every element in the current Inner Arbor plan is referenced in the Final Development Plan previously approved by the Planning Board.

The major difference from the Paumier plan is thus not the proposed park features themselves, but rather that the park features were moved to different locations within Symphony Woods, in order to improve integration with Merriweather Post Pavilion and/or to address other issues.

In particular, the Paumier plan proposed a pavilion and café located halfway between the two Merriweather entrances, next to the Merriweather Post Pavilion restrooms. In the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding structure, the Butterfly, is moved next to the Merriweather VIP parking lot, near the east entrance of Merriweather Post Pavilion, so that its shared use with Merriweather does not require opening up a new entrance (as the Paumier plan would have).

In the Paumier plan the children’s play area was proposed to be located in the Butterfly’s location; in the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding feature, the Merriground, is moved into the park proper, in a more natural setting. Finally, in the Paumier plan the proposed shared-use amphitheater was to be located next to the children’s play area, relatively close to Merriweather. In the Inner Arbor plan the corresponding structure, the Chrysalis, is moved to the east. This takes it down a hill somewhat, providing more space for the audience and decreasing possible bleed-over of sights and sounds from the Merriweather Post Pavilion to the Chrysalis and vice versa (e.g., when the Chrysalis is used as a shared stage).

The Paumier plan referenced possible public art in the park. That function is fulfilled in the Inner Arbor plan by the Merriweather Horns sound sculptures. The fountain envisioned in the Paumier plan is not in the Inner Arbor plan proper, because the proposal is to put the fountain not in Symphony Woods itself but rather within the Merriweather Post Pavilion property as part of a strategy to integrate the two areas (as recommended by the Planning Board).

Another part of that integration is a proposal to tear down the current Merriweather fence (at least on the north side) and provide a substitute for it in the form of the Caterpillar, a tubular berm intended to separate the area of Symphony Woods close to Merriweather from the main area of the park. The Caterpillar thus provides access control for Merriweather Post Pavilion itself during Merriweather events, and also bounds a shared space for a possible fountain and other amenities in the area straddling the Merriweather/Symphony Woods boundary, making the fountain and its associated plaza accessible to visitors to Symphony Woods on days when there are no events at Merriweather Post Pavilion.

In conclusion: The Inner Arbor plan is more respectful of the alignment and topography of Symphony Woods than the Paumier plan, provides a better walking experience for visitors, sites the various park amenities more intelligently, integrates Symphony Woods much better with Merriweather Post Pavilion, and (last but certainly not least) requires significantly fewer trees to be removed (particularly when the park amenities are accounted for).

Finally, thanks to the comprehensive and detailed work that has been done by the Inner Arbor team (work that for whatever reason was never done for the Paumier plan), the current Inner Arbor plan is an example of the design excellence that can be produced by talented local firms working in concert with leading designers and architects from around the world, and meets the challenge that Del. Elizabeth Bobo set for those designing the future of Columbia Town Center:

There is great anticipation in the community of bold, creative public spaces …. Where are the grand designs that excite the spirit and capture the soul, becoming material for textbooks to train future architects and planners? Columbia, Mr. Rouse’s “next America” and arguably the most successful new town in the world, is a perfect home for them.

This concludes my series on the Paumier plan and the Inner Arbor plan as compared to it. In future posts I’ll briefly revisit the Inner Arbor plan as presented to the Design Advisory Panel, and comment on some of the changes since my original series of Inner Arbor posts.

Jessie Newburn - 2014-04-27 21:07

Thank you, Frank, as ever and always for your thoughtful, diligent analysis and observations. Your thinking helps my thinking.

Since I finished up with tree removal in my last post, I’ll start with it here. As I noted previously, the number of trees requiring removal is dependent on the exact version of the Paumier plan being discussed, and was inflated by the choice of formal rather than meandering walkways in the design. In his rally announcement to “save Symphony Woods” Paumier quoted a figure of 30 trees requiring removal, which is ostensibly one lower than the Inner Arbor estimate (but see below) and substantially lower than the figures of 50 to 60 or more trees presented to the Howard County Planning Board and documented in Paumier’s own 2012 letter to the Baltimore Sun. The key point here is that Paumier has abandoned the 2011 and 2012 versions of the plan that the Columbia Association submitted to the Howard County planning process, and is referencing an older version of the plan from 2009, a version the CA board decided later to revise.

If that plan is the one pictured on the Slater Associates web site then it did not have the north-south or east-west walkways present in later versions of the plan, and the fountain was proposed to be located next to the pavilion rather than midway between the pavilion and Little Patuxent Parkway. Reducing the number of walkways obviously would require fewer trees to be removed. Also, Paumier’s wording in the announcement implies that the estimate for tree removal includes only walkways and not proposed park features like the pavilion and fountain (much less the children’s play area and amphitheater); adding all those features back in would require more trees to be removed. By comparison the Inner Arbor estimate of 31 trees is for all walkways and all proposed features.¹

Now, back to the other disadvantages of the Paumier plan, disadvantages that exist to one degree or another in all versions of the plan that have been proposed:

First, in its attempt to avoid disturbing the forest area of Symphony Woods the Paumier plan would have limited the ability of people to enjoy walking through that area, which as I previously mentioned is the most scenic part of the northern portion of Symphony Woods. From the viewpoint of a visitor the apparent intent of the Paumier plan would have been to keep you on the main walkways in the lawn area, and to discourage you from venturing into the forest area at all. Some people probably wouldn’t have been able to go into the forest area even if they wanted to, since from the extant plan documents it’s not clear that any paths in the forest would have been accessible to people using wheelchairs or who otherwise had difficulty walking.

Second, the formal geometry of the walkways and the north-south axial alignment of the main walkway (present in the plans from 2011 on) were arbitrary, inconsistent with the character of Symphony Woods, and forced design choices in other areas that made the plan less than optimal. Although it’s certainly true that the Mall in Columbia is north of Symphony Woods, and that Merriweather Post Pavilion is south of this portion of it, there is no real north-south alignment of properties and features. In particular Merriweather Post Pavilion is not just off-access but actually rotated with respect to the mall access road and north-south walkway.

This desire to force a formal walkway geometry onto an irregularly shaped Symphony Woods property had various negative consequences. Since there is a drop going from Little Patuxent Parkway into Symphony Woods across from the mall access road, the main north-south walkway would have had to go down a set of stairs at its northern point, again potentially causing accessibility problems.²

Since Merriweather Post Pavilion itself (i.e., the amphitheater structure) is not located at (or even visible from) the southern end of the proposed north-south walkway, the plan put a small pavilion building there to provide a visual endpoint to the walkway and a destination for visitors. This pavilion would have been at probably the worst possible location in terms of integration with Merriweather, since it would have butted up against the Merriweather fence next to the restrooms and at some distance from the eastern and western entrances to Merriweather. The secondary east-west walkways had a similar problem: They would also have terminated on the south end at the pavilion, well away from the Merriweather entrances, and due to the attempted symmetry with the west walkway the northeast end of the east walkway at Little Patuxent Parkway would have been located in the middle of the block, some distance away from any crosswalks.

Given the formal and circumscribed walkway geometry the Paumier plan would have offered limited opportunities to take a lengthy walk in Symphony Woods. When I walked in the woods myself it took about 20-30 minutes not counting stops. However in the Paumier plan the walk along the main north-south walkway would take no more than two and a half minutes even walking slowly (based on a timing I did on my own walk); a complete walk into the park on the main walkway and out again on one of the secondary walkways (or in on one secondary walkway and out on the other) would likely have taken well less than ten minutes.

Third, although the Paumier plan put almost all its proposed structures as close as possible to Merriweather Post Pavilion, those structures, and the design in general, were not well integrated into Merriweather. As noted above, the main north-south walkway of the Paumier plan would have terminated at a pavilion structure across the fence from the back of the Merriweather restrooms and some distance away from the main Merriweather entrances, as would have the east and west curved walkways. Although there is some mention in the plan documents of trying to get a gate in the fence at that point, and of needing to cooperate with the Merriweather operators and Howard Hughes (which had taken over from GGP), there was no overall strategy presented for how to integrate the pavilion and other plan features with the Merriweather property. As another example, the children’s play area was proposed to be right next to the Merriweather VIP parking lot—not exactly an ideal choice I would think.

Finally, leaving aside the actual design choices, the Paumier plan seems rather underspecified for a plan that was over three years in the making. For example, the Design Advisory Panel presentation does not show detailed draft designs for the pavilion, the fountain, the children’s play area, or the outdoor amphitheater. (It contains only a “for discussion purposes only” concept drawing of the main walkway, fountain, and pavilion, and a couple of pictures of representative restroom structures from other parks.) Such detailed designs were not part of the submitted final development plan either. Granted, in the context of Howard County planning a “final development plan” is not really final in the sense most people would normally think of, since it must be followed by a more detailed “site development plan.” However I still find it rather surprising that a plan initially conceived in late 2008 was so sketchy and incomplete as late as the middle of 2012, especially given the support provided by CA from 2010 on.³

As I’ve mentioned previously the Paumier plan was revised multiple times over the years to tweak it in various ways. However I don’t think simple tweaks would have been sufficient to solve the problems I mentioned above, since they stem from aspects of the plan that remained consistent, including trying to overlay a north-south alignment on a park that runs east-west, using a formal geometry for walkways, and putting structures in close proximity to the Merriweather Post Pavilion property line without truly integrating them with Merriweather itself. The Paumier plan in its various incarnations would not and could not “save Symphony Woods” except in the very narrow sense of being a better alternative to the GGP plan of 2008. The GGP plan has been consigned to the dustbin of history, and today we can do better than the Paumier plan.

This is not just my opinion as an amateur architecture critic. The Howard County Design Advisory Panel echoed these criticisms in its comments on the 2011 design, for example, questioning the need for a north-south alignment: “Aside from the mall axis extension and a loose connection to Merriweather Post Pavilion (MPP) there seems to be no rationale for the path organization.” As reported in a Baltimore Sun article, members of the panel also thought the plan lacked an overall vision and narrative, and emphasized the need for a park that could set standards of design excellence for the rest of downtown Columbia.

In its decision on the Final Development Plan [PDF] presented in July 2012 by CA, the Howard County Planning Board, while approving the overall concept of a park with walkways and various features, including a shared-use amphitheater and café, focused its attention on the formal walkway geometry and the poor integration with Merriweather Post Pavilion. It recommended that removal of trees be minimized by “aligning paths around healthy trees and minimizing grading.” It also called for “continuing coordination between Columbia Association and Howard Hughes Corporation regarding a shared vision and design for Merriweather-Symphony Woods as a unique cultural and community amenity,” and “development of a coordinated plan for the neighborhood.”

Just as Cy Paumier had come forward in 2008 to offer an alternative to GGP’s plan for Symphony Woods, another local Columbian and former Jim Rouse associate, Michael McCall, subsequently came forward with his own alternative plan, which like the Paumier plan in its time was then adopted by the CA board as its preferred plan moving forward. In my next post I’ll discuss that “Inner Arbor” plan as both a continuation of and improvement on the Paumier plan.

I previously gave my understanding of how Cy Paumier’s plan for Symphony Woods won the support of the CA board and others whose opinions mattered, in large part because at the time it represented the only real alternative to a proposal from General Growth Properties that was seen as too destructive to the character of the woods. But was it actually a good plan? In this post and the next I leave the politics behind and look at the Paumier plan itself.

A 2009 Baltimore Sun article spoke of Cy Paumier as having “long dreamed of turning Symphony Woods into a sort of American suburban Tivoli Gardens,” the venerable Copenhagen amusement park that (among other things) inspired Walt Disney when creating Disneyland. The real-life Tivoli Gardens is a very intensively developed urban park that crams five roller coasters and over three dozen other rides and attractions into 21 acres, only a slightly larger area than the 16 acres covered by the northern portion of Symphony Woods. Whatever might have been Paumier’s ultimate vision for Symphony Woods (or, for that matter, what it might yet be), his plan as proposed was not nearly so ambitious.

The plan evolved somewhat over the years, including a “concept diagram” in 2008 or 2009, a more complete plan presented to CA in 2009, a plan presented to the Howard County Design Advisory Panel in 2011 [PDF], and the final development plan submitted to the Planning Board in 2012 [PDF].¹ However pretty much all incarnations of the plan reflected a consistent set of design choices:

The northern portion of Symphony Woods would be divided into two distinct areas, one with formal pathways and one without. These correspond roughly to the “lawn” and “forest” areas respectively. (See my previous post for representative pictures.) The 2009 concept diagram (which can be found on slide 3 of the Design Advisory Panel presentation) shows this most clearly, with a large circle drawn in the lawn area, outlined by formal curved pathways around a central “sunlit lawn,” and a somewhat smaller circle drawn in the forest area, with irregular pathways passing through a “woodland garden.” The formal pathways in the lawn were to be paved for general use by everyone (or almost everyone—see below), while the irregular pathways in the forest area were apparently intended to be gravel only.

The formal pathway area would have a north-south axial alignment with the mall access road leading into the Mall in Columbia. In plans from at least 2011 on the main proposed pathway (in one section 40 feet wide, including a central grassy median) would head directly south from Little Patuxent Parkway, aligned with the relatively short mall access road to the north of Little Patuxent Parkway. The pathway then would go straight across the lawn area and end just north of the Merriweather Post Pavilion property line. Two other major pathways would run from that southern terminus to points on Little Patuxent Parkway to the east and west of where the north end of the main path would terminate. These other pathways were to be roughly (but not exactly) symmetrical to each other.

With one exception all park features other than pathways were to be located as close as possible to the Merriweather property line. At various times the proposed features included a pavilion at the southern end of the main north-south path, a café (sometimes envisioned as being part of the pavilion, and sometimes seen as a separate building to its west), a children’s play area right next to the Merriweather VIP parking lot, and a small outdoor amphitheater just east of the children’s play area. A fountain was the only feature not to be located next to Merriweather; it was proposed as being on the main north-south pathway, either just north of the pavilion (in the concept diagram and apparently in the 2009 plan) or in the middle of the lawn area (in later plans).

What about tree removal? After all, minimizing the number of trees removed from Symphony Woods was long touted as an important factor in preferring the Paumier plan to the GGP proposal, and apparently in some people’s minds it was and remains the only factor worth considering. Although the Paumier plan was certainly less disruptive to the woods than the GGP plan (which proposed constructing multiple buildings in the northern part of Symphony Woods), the formal pathway geometry in the Paumier plan unfortunately meant that more trees would need to be removed than with pathways explicitly routed around trees as needed.

The estimates of the number of trees to be removed have varied among different incarnations of the Paumier plan. In the recent announcement of his April 19 rally Cy Paumier claimed that “Only 30 existing trees were to be removed to implement the walkway plan that was approved by the Columbia Association Board in 2009.” Note that the 2009 plan referred to is not the plan that was actually submitted into the Howard County planning process, but an earlier plan that was later revised. Also, based on the wording of Paumier’s statement this figure of 30 trees removed was apparently for walkways only and not for park features.²

In a July 2012 letter to the Baltimore Sun Cy Paumier wrote that “Between 50 and 60 trees will need to be removed to construct the Symphony Woods Park walkways.” This figure is for the design submitted to the Planning Board. At the actual Planning Board hearing three weeks before, Charlie Bailey of Mahan Rykiel Associates (the landscape architects for the plan) testified that “the current design predicts a worst-case scenario of 64 trees to be removed within the 16.1 acre project area.” Note that again these figures do not include any trees removed for construction of the proposed park structures.³

I’ll take a breather now and return tomorrow with my verdict on the Paumier plan.

After reading past new articles and planning documents about the Paumier plan and downtown Columbia redevelopment in general, I’ve concluded that it’s impossible to discuss the plan without considering the context in which it was originally proposed.¹ As I noted in a previous post, Jim Rouse inadvertently planted the seeds of future controversies when the Rouse Company deeded the Symphony Woods property to the Columbia Association while retaining ownership of the Merriweather Post Pavilion property inside Symphony Woods and the Crescent property outside of it. This didn’t cause any problems as long as CA and the Rouse Company were in sync and the Crescent property remained undeveloped. However after Jim Rouse died, the Rouse Company was acquired by General Growth Properties, and GGP subsequently attempted to more intensively develop its downtown Columbia properties, the stage was set for conflict between a more independent CA and a GGP perceived as an outsider to Columbia.

In the spring of 2008 GGP proposed a vision for Columbia Town Center that included as a main feature a “pedestrian-friendly ‘cultural spine’ between The Mall in Columbia and the Merriweather Post Pavilion.” As presented by GGP officials the ‘spine’ would terminate in a renovated Merriweather and a newly-developed Symphony Woods:

Developers would raise the venue’s roof, build a new stage, provide new backstage facilities for artists, extend the covered seating area and upgrade the concession and restroom areas.

The pavilion also would serve as the center of an arts and cultural hub that could eventually include a museum, an enhanced central public library, an international center dedicated to the study of small cities, and a Symphony Woods park redesigned to make it more accessible and useful to residents.

Also mentioned as possibilities were a “a skating rink, … a new home for Toby’s Dinner Theatre, a hotel [on Little Patuxent Parkway] and possible new quarters for the Columbia Association and Columbia Archives.”

This was all well and good, but as it happened the land on which much of this new development was proposed to be constructed was actually owned by CA, not by GGP. Given that relations between the CA board and GGP were already somewhat strained, the reaction from CA board members to GGP’s proposal was pretty much as one would expect: For example, CA board chair Barbara Russell complained that

My fear that GGP would want to put amenities on our land—that’s exactly what they were showing. … I do not think that developing Symphony Woods by gobbling up the land with buildings, parking areas and roads is a good idea.

GGP’s plans also sparked a backlash among some Columbia activists, with Alan Klein sponsoring a meeting to discuss alternative proposals. Klein complained that the GGP plan would “destroy, not restore” Symphony Woods by removing 40 percent of its trees, and noted that children’s parks and a fountain were more appropriate uses for the property. This meeting apparently marked the first public discussion of a new proposal by Cy Paumier and others for Symphony Woods, emphasizing its development as “user-friendly parkland.” As GGP continued to promote building new buildings in the north of Symphony Woods, the Pauimer proposal (originally developed on a pro bono basis) gained favor with the CA board and eventually became the basis of a CA proposal.

As presented by CA, under the new plan

[Symphony Woods] would become a park with a fountain-type water display and a small café surrounded by paved pathways. The woods’ dense canopy would be thinned in certain areas to provide for “pockets” of sunlight, according to planners.

In addition, the park would have a more visible entry plaza off Little Patuxent Parkway, a woodland garden with crushed stone pathways, a children’s play area with sculptures, rest rooms and a 150-space parking lot, …

Once adopted by CA the Paumier plan gained other supporters as well. The Columbia Flier advocated it as a better match for Sympony Woods: “A middle ground between completely passive parkland and a cultural campus makes the most sense for all concerned. Of the two visions offered, the CA plan comes closer to that ideal.” Howard County’s legislative delegation secured a $250,000 Maryland state grant to CA to help implement the plan, with further support promised from an unnamed nonprofit organization.

By this time GGP had conceded defeat and abandoned its own plan for Symphony Woods. However relations remained strained between CA and GGP, and apparently a potent narrative had lodged in some people’s minds: That outsiders were bent on destroying Symphony Woods in the course of pursuing their own designs on it, and only “true” Columbians like Cy Paumier and his associates, Alan Klein and other activists, and others in and out of CA could be relied upon to thwart them. Part of the narrative was an intense focus on the question of exactly how many trees were to be removed from Symphony Woods, so intense that when it was necessary to remove 18 damaged trees CA felt compelled to reassure residents that it was not part of a Symphony Woods redevelopment initiative.²

Thus the Paumier plan became the consensus plan for Symphony Woods, its status as the only proposed alternative to GGP’s widely-disliked plan making its success to a large degree independent of the merits of the design itself. But was it (and is it) actually a good design? I’ll give my thoughts on that question in the next post.

Last Saturday morning I took a walk through Symphony Woods. Besides having a nice walk I gained a new appreciation for the Inner Arbor plan, as well as a better understanding of both the apparent goals and the shortcomings of other plans that have been proposed for the woods.

Leaving aside stops to take pictures and some doubling back, the walk took me about 20 to 30 minutes, starting at the east side of Symphony Woods near the Central Branch of the Howard County Library System, going across the northeast portion of the woods near the intersection of South Entrance Road with Little Patuxent Parkway, through the northern portion of the woods bordering Little Patuxent Parkway, over to Merriweather Post Pavilion and back, and then returning. This was the first time I had walked through the woods when I wasn’t attending some event, and I had a chance to reflect on the nature of the area.

My first thought was that Symphony Woods is really two woods in one. As noted above, I entered the woods near the library. It’s not a particularly convenient way to enter the woods (among other things it requires jumping across a small stream) but it has the advantage of being quite scenic—more like a forest than the parts of the woods most visitors see. The topography is relatively rough, with a small stream valley, and the ground more like what you expect in a forest, including leaves and downed limbs and even (in one case) an entire fallen tree. However at the same time it’s obvious that Symphony Woods is not an isolated woodland: You can easily look up and see office buildings across Little Patuxent Parkway, and there’s a low but consistent hum of traffic.

As I moved across the park the landscape became less forest-like and more lawn-like. In the northern portion of the woods, between Little Patuxent Parkway and Merriweather Post Pavilion, the woods loses its forest character entirely and resembles nothing so much as a big suburban lawn with a number of trees on it. The area is relatively flat and devoid of pretty much anything other than tree trunks and grass; it looks a bit beaten down, which I guess is to be expected given the number of people who walk across it.

I stopped at the northwest corner of Symphony Woods, at the entrance drive to Merriweather Post Pavilion. Although there is more wooded land to the west bordering Little Patuxent Parkway and extending to the corner of Broken Land Parkway, it is not part of Symphony Woods itself, i.e., the Columbia Association property. Instead it is Howard Hughes property that is proposed to be developed as general office space as part of the Crescent project. Crescent Area 4 begins just west of the Merriweather entrance drive; Area 1 is beyond that, bordering Broken Land Parkway.

I then doubled back toward Merriweather Post Pavilion, walking all the way up to the fence that marks the boundary line between Symphony Woods proper and the Merriweather Post Pavilion property (currently owned by the Howard Hughes Corporation). What I found interesting about this portion of the walk is that the portion of Symphony Woods immediately bordering the fence doesn’t actually feel like Symphony Woods itself, but rather like an extension of the Merriweather Post Pavilion property. The fence is quite off-putting, and I felt somewhat nervous as I approached it, as if armed guards were about to come out and shoo me away. (A posted sign stating “This area under video surveillance” didn’t help my mood.)

However no one made an appearance, and not just at the Merriweather fence. The park was utterly empty throughout my entire walk, with not a soul to be seen. Symphony Woods in a sense has a split personality: occasionally overrun with people attending events, and completely devoid of visitors during the rest of the year. This seems a great shame given the natural beauty of the woods, especially in the forested area of the park. How could Symphony Woods be an area that everyone can (and does) enjoy on an ongoing basis? I’ll write more about that in my next post.

Chris Tsien (christsien@verizon.net) - 2014-04-16 13:26

Now you are the second person (after me) who has wandered through the mid-week Symphony Woods. I walk through a couple times a month (my office is in the Symphony Woods office building) and am completely alone unless my officemate is with me. Sorry, but SW is not a “forest”; not enough diversity for that moniker. It is, at best, some trees punctuated by scrub, i.e., a glorified suburban, McMansion lawn.

hecker - 2014-04-16 22:39

Chris, thanks for reading the blog and stopping by to comment! I agree with your point about lack of diversity in the woods; I’m actually curious now and will have to go look through the Inner Arbor DAP presentation again to check on proposed forest revitalization efforts.

Sacred lands and the facts don’t always get along. Recently the Inner Arbor Trust released a document (“Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods: By the Numbers” [PDF]) that attempts to correct misconceptions about the Inner Arbor plan. It’s a good document (though at almost 180MB it takes a while to download), and if and when I have time I’ll blog more about it in detail. However I suspect it’s also probably a wasted effort as far as many people are concerned: When people come to think of land as sacred they often stop thinking about the reality of the land as opposed to its sanctity, and the facts are then often ignored, overlooked, or distorted.

For example, in my last post I wrote about a controversy in New York City relating to 9/11; you have probably heard it referred to as “the mosque at Ground Zero,” but in fact it was neither: not an actual mosque but an Islamic community center with a prayer space (albeit a fairly large one), and not at Ground Zero but rather two blocks away. But the emotion around the 9/11 attacks was (and is) so intense that the juxtaposition of “mosque” and “Ground Zero” was much more memorable than the actual reality, and once that juxtaposition lodged in people’s minds it was difficult to impossible to get it out.¹

Those who preach a land’s sanctity aren’t always saints. Going back to the example above, did people just happen to innocently get the facts wrong and decide a mosque was going to be built right where the twin towers stood? Well, no, not exactly. There were plenty of people who worked to actively spread this idea because they themselves stood to benefit if others believed it were true: news channels trying to increase their ratings, politicians trying to attract votes, advocacy groups trying to raise money, and so on.

There’s no reason why Columbia should be exempt from this phenomenon, and based on reports from others some reasons to think that Columbia and CA have their own versions of it. (For example, consider the case of the elderly CA voter who was convinced Julia McCready was running for the CA board in order to run old people out of Columbia.) I would not be surprised to hear that some Columbians are now firmly of the opinion that the Inner Arbor plan will result in wholesale cutting of trees in Symphony Woods, because someone else saw fit to put that idea in their heads. (In actual fact the Inner Arbor plan as proposed will result in many fewer trees being removed than in the previous Columbia Association plan, also known as the Cy Paumier plan after its lead designer.²)

This is all Jim Rouse’s fault, really. Recently Robert Tennenbaum, the former chief architect and planner for Columbia, quoted Jim Rouse’s words about Symphony Woods from the 1964 presentation “Columbia: A New Town for Howard County”: “Today a magnificent stand of trees, this 40 acre woods will be permanently preserved and cultivated as a quiet, convenient and strikingly beautiful asset of the town.” All well and good; however I think it’s also useful to consider what Jim Rouse did and not just what he said.

First, as I’ve previously mentioned, Jim Rouse saw fit to put a large outdoor amphitheater smack in the middle of the “magnificent stand of trees” in question. Second, Jim Rouse also saw fit for the Rouse Co. to retain ownership of the Crescent property surrounding Symphony Woods, as opposed to deeding it to CA or to the county. Did he do this because he planned for that property to be “permanently preserved and cultivated as a quiet, convenient and strikingly beautiful asset of the town”? Given that Rouse was a canny and successful businessman, I presume instead that he did it because the Crescent was a potentially-valuable piece of centrally-located property that the Rouse Co. or its successors could at some point profitably develop for high-density office, retail, or residential use.

So if you’re concerned that “Symphony Woods” (i.e., including the wooded area next to US 29 and Broken Land Parkway) will soon start looking much smaller, and that Symphony Woods itself (i.e., the CA property) is going to be across the street from 20-story condo towers, be aware that this is not because evil outsiders invaded Columbia and betrayed Jim Rouse’s vision, it’s because Rouse himself took the actions that made these developments possible, and perhaps inevitable. (However, in Rouse’s defense there are in fact areas in the Crescent that will remain undeveloped, for example between Area 1 and Area 2 and between Area 2 and Area 3. So more woods will remain than one might think, and it’s possible that given appropriate easements and paths that they could be used as an extension of Symphony Woods itself.)

There is no “let’s not build stuff” plan for Symphony Woods. Many people think of the choice for Symphony Woods as between a new plan involving radical changes and a prior plan preserving Symphony Woods pretty much as is. This is in fact not the case: The previous CA plan by Cy Paumier envisioned as many new park features in Symphony Woods as the Inner Arbor plan, just in different places. To be specific, as presented to the Howard County Planning Board [PDF] the plan “proposed future parkland improvements, including a network of pathways, a fountain, a shared use pavilion, a shared use amphitheater, a shared use cafe, play activity area, woodland garden area, [and] parking within a 16.1 acre project area ….”

Almost all of these features have direct counterparts in the Inner Arbor plan: The shared use amphitheater became the Chrysalis, the shared use café and pavilion were combined to become the Butterfly, and the play activity area became the Merriground. The Inner Arbor plan has no fountain in Symphony Woods proper, but the Inner Arbor Trust has proposed locating one in a plaza next to Merriweather Post Pavilion. The Paumier plan had no equivalent to the Caterpillar, presumably because unlike the Inner Arbor plan the Paumier plan assumed that Symphony Woods would be closed to the general public during most Merriweather events. (A primary purpose of the Caterpillar is to control Merriweather access closer to the pavilion itself, rather than at the park boundaries.) There also was no direct equivalent to the Merriweather Horns in the Paumier plan, although the plan did state that “[The] entire park is a potential site for future public art.”

Being “Disneyesque” is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the persistent charges against the Inner Arbor plan is that it is “Disneyesque” and turns Symphony Woods into an “amusement park” with “attractions” (in scare quotes) unsuitable for the wooded setting. This seems an odd accusation for several reasons. First, as noted above the Paumier plan had pretty much the same set of “attractions” as the Inner Arbor plan. Second, given that Jim Rouse was apparently quite the admirer of Walt Disney—he said in 1963 that “the greatest piece of urban design in the United States today is Disneyland”—I suspect he would have thought the term “Disneyesque” to be more a compliment than an insult.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that preserving Symphony Woods for future generations to enjoy will require more than a bit of the same sort of design thinking that went into Walt Disney’s theme parks. In particular, once the Crescent property is developed the remaining area of Symphony Woods is going to seem relatively small: the Inner Arbor plan preserves almost 80% of Symphony Woods as a natural wooded area, but that’s still only 14 acres or so—about the size of a small subdivision in western Howard County (land of 3-acre lots). A prime task is then to make Symphony Woods seem bigger to visitors than it actually is—the same problem faced by theme parks like Disneyland, and one that their creators did a good job of addressing through artful design.

The Paumier plan with its straight paths does a poor job of this in my opinion; in particular the main path through the park makes it glaringly obvious how short the distance is from Little Patuxent Parkway to Merriweather Post Pavilion. The Inner Arbor plan instead has lots of “meandering paths” (as called for by the Howard County Planning Board after the Design Advisory Panel found fault with the Paumier plan), together with access roadways forming about two miles of walking surfaces within the confines of the park, and featuring over two thousand places to sit along the way. But I suspect people will probably prefer to walk than to sit, since as with the best theme parks walking will continually bring new sights to visitors’ attentions, between the natural beauty of the woods and the various attractive park features.

That concludes my thoughts on Symphony Woods, at least for now. I hope to come back later with more thoughts on the Crescent development.

Karen Lynn - 2014-04-11 22:11

Frank, thank you for your outstanding posts on the Crescent, Symphony Woods, and downtown development in general. They have been very helpful to me in understanding the various parts of the plan and how they fit together. Terrific work!

hecker - 2014-04-11 23:03

Thanks much for reading and commenting. I’m glad you find these posts useful.

Edwin Baker (catslidefarm@gmail.com) - 2014-04-17 22:07

Frank, I’m retired, but I don’t have as much time as you for this stuff, thank you for what you do. More of my thoughts on your five, from a “true” Columbian (I was a Columbia planner for Rouse from 1965 through 1975). My concern, however is not “what would Jim Rouse think,” but what will work in Columbia. Symphony Woods is a relatively small park in an area which is urbanizing. It surrounds the Merriweather Post Pavilion, which visually and topographically is a part of the Park (more on that later). What do people want in relatively small urban parks? Trees, shade, bird habitat and a beautiful vista; Lawn, someplace to lie in the sun on a beautiful Summer day and get a few rays; Benches/chairs, some of us are better off sitting on furniture than the lawn; a Water feature, shallow pools and fountains are people magnets, and many are being designed for active use, not just visual; and finally, a Place to get an espresso, a glass of wine (I wish) and a snack sandwich or a sweet (is gelato too much to ask for). While I’m not advocating for “Cy’s Plan,” it seems to fill those requirements. It appears to me that the Inner Arbor Plan misses the boat on almost all counts. Its elements are active not passive, they are overly clever (I believe that I have used Disneyesque), more amusement park than urban park. In order for the Inner Arbor elements to succeed, people will need to drive there, they are not designed for the surrounding (or soon to be surrounding) population. And finally (for the Inner Arbor) they are outrageously expensive ($30 mil. or so?) design gimmicks that will be extremely expensive to maintain. But for me the clincher is that they are a distraction from the Frank Gehry designed Pavilion which in another few years will be eligible for landmark status. The Pavilion is an early Gehry building and represents his attraction to and appreciation of the minimalist art of its time. Unfortunately, the Pavilion has been badly maintained and it need a thorough restoration. The outbuildings on the site are abominable and should be removed and replaced with well designed facilities. If I were a wealthy donor, I would be happier donating money to restore a historic landmark than to the development of a “picnic table” or “caterpillar.” The interface between the Pavilon and the Park needs to be redesigned, your fear of guards at the chain link fence should not be the feeling a Park visitor is given. The land just outside the fence does relate to the Pavilion and the land inside the fence relates to the Woods. I believe that keeping Symphony Woods as an urban park which is enhanced by the Pavilion and is the appropriate setting for the Pavilion is the appropriate solution. For that to happen, the designers need to work together, not separately. And finally, the design of the Crescent and the Tobey’s property along the South Entrance should be considered at the same time. I’m afraid that that, however, would take the vision of a Jim Rouse.

hecker - 2014-04-18 02:11

Thanks again for commenting! (Although if you keep leaving such long comments I’ll have to set you up with your own blog :-) I’ll likely address most of these points in a future post, but to comment quickly on a couple: First, as I understand the Inner Arbor plan, it has all the elements you mention, including a cafe, a fountain (proposed as part of a plaza on the Merriweather property as opposed to in Symphony Woods itself), and lots of standard-type benches along the pathways (per the “by the numbers” document) in addition to the Picnic Table feature. Second, I’ll respectfully disagree about the Inner Arbor structures detracting from Gehry’s pavilion. I think the much greater distraction is the motley collection of structures that you mention, the ones surrounding the pavilion on the Merriweather property itself. Based on my walk I suspect the topography is such that the Inner Arbor structures would not be that visible from the pavilion proper, or vice versa. In any case, I’m on vacation this week, hence the many posts; expect two or three more before I’m done.

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.

Musu Bangura - 2014-04-14 19:03

Wow, this is crazy. I haven’t been in Columbia for a couple of years now and it’s amazing how much has changed already. Great info!

First is Jiffy Lube Live (formerly Nissan Pavilion) in Prince William County, Virginia. Jiffy Lube Live is notable as Merriweather Post Pavilion’s most serious local competitor for outdoor summer concerts. With a total capacity of 25,000 (10,000 in the pavilion proper, and 15,000 on the lawn) it is significantly larger than Merriweather, and thus tends to attract the very largest shows. As can be seen from the aerial view of Jiffy Lube Live, the venue is located in a primarily rural area, with plenty of space for open-air parking.¹

Despite that, Jiffy Lube Live has persistent and at times horrendous problems with parking and traffic, as evidenced by the large number of complaints on Yelp and elsewhere. To quote from the very first reviewer: “The parking lot … is a total and utter nightmare! Every freaking show it takes HOURS to get out.” He went on to note: “Merriweather parking is so much easier!” Part of the problem is that although Jiffy Lube Live is close to I-66 it can be reached only via a two-lane road, and there is apparently only one main entrance and exit to the parking lots. However traffic management seems to play a role as well; one Yelp reviewer vented at length to the venue operators:

I have to say that without a doubt, the exit out of the parking lot was the worst I’ve ever seen at a concert. I’ve been to Merriweather Post and Wolf Trap several times—and your venue wins the prize for the most amateurish traffic and parking lot management in the [DC/Maryland/Virginia area]. It took us 1.5 hours to get out—that was longer than [the] actual set. …

Your “senior” staff abdicated responsibility to a bunch of pimply faced teenagers with no training, who had no idea what they were doing. Worse yet, what few of them there were—all stayed bunched together at the very end of each parking zone. They did NOTHING to help manage traffic flow out of the parking lots. They just stood around, checking their phones and talking to each other.

Ouch. I may be cherry-picking bad reviews to some extent, but overall people apparently have pretty negative feelings about parking, traffic, and other aspects of the Jiffy Lube Live experience; the average Yelp rating for the venue is only two-and-a-half stars (out of five), compared to three-and-a-half stars for Merriweather.²

Let’s now turn from a rural setting to a very urban setting, and look at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago. The Pritzker Pavilion has two Merriweather connections: First, like Merriweather it was designed by Frank Gehry, although unlike Columbia Chicago got the benefit of the mature Gehry style.³ Second, the Pritzker Pavilion and the surrounding Millennium Park occupy roughly the same land area as Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods, and the Inner Arbor Trust has used Millennium Park as an example of the sort of structures and activities that could be fitted in the combined “Merriweather Park” footprint.

As can be seen from the aerial view of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, there is essentially no open-air parking available anywhere near the pavilion and the surrounding park. However there is a complex of underground parking garages providing over 9,000 spaces in total, most of them within a quarter mile of the pavilion, and there are also nearby rail and bus transit stops. The Pritzker Pavilion is wildly popular (rated at four and a half stars on Yelp), and in reading nearly a hundred reviews I found only one complaint about parking—and that seemed to be as much about the cost as about the availability. (Note also that I found many reviewers commenting on how clean the bathrooms were.)

Unfortunately (or not, depending on your perspective) Columbia is not a major city like Chicago and thus doesn’t have the transit infrastructure to supplement on-site or nearby venue parking. Probably a better comparison is thus to the Cythnia Woods Mitchell Pavilion (also known as the Woodlands Pavilion) in The Woodlands outside of Houston. Like Columbia, The Woodlands is a planned community and is of roughly similar size (just over a hundred thousand residents). (The pavilion itself is named after the wife of George Mitchell, who as the original developer of The Woodlands played a role similar to that of Jim Rouse in Columbia.) As you can see from the aerial view of Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, like Merriweather the pavilion is located in an exurban location that is heavily car-dependent, with the pavilion itself surrounded by office, residential, and retail developments, including a nearby regional mall. Both pavilions have roughly similar maximum capacities as well, at around 19,000 people (including both pavilion and lawn).⁴

In fact, the parallels between Merriweather Post Pavilion and the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion are so close that in 2005 the Citizens Advisory Panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion specifically referenced the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion as one of the case studies in their final report [PDF]. Of particular interest in this context are comments by Jerry MacDonald, president and CEO of The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Center for the Performing Arts, regarding parking:

MacDonald believes that parking is generally not a problem for the pavilion during most concerts, but there are a few major concerts a year, attracting up to 12,000 people, where parking needs are at a premium. MacDonald has agreements with surrounding office buildings to use 5,000 parking spaces and the pavilion has a 932-space garage adjacent to its facility. MacDonald said parking generally fills up in the mall corner nearest the pavilion, but there are many unused spaces on the north side of the facility. He suggested shuttles could be used to distribute parking more evenly.

This sounds like a good guide to the future of parking at Merriweather: leverage parking at nearby office buildings, make use of mall parking when needed, and employ shuttles to more remote parking lots (e.g., on the north side of the Mall in Columbia or at Howard Community College in the case of Merriweather) for the very largest events. The one element not currently present at Merriweather is an on-site parking garage; however the Columbia Association’s original Inner Arbor conceptual plan included exactly such a garage with a capacity of 1,750 cars, almost twice that of the on-site garage at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion.

The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion has been a very successful venue. In addition to hosting popular music concerts it’s the summer home of the Houston Symphony (similar to how Merriweather was to be the summer home of the NSO), and with total annual attendance of over 300,000 in 2010 was second only to the Filene Center at Wolk Trap among outdoor amphitheaters that year. (I couldn’t find recent figures for attendance at Merriweather, but according to the Citizens Advisory Panel report total attendance was about 180,000 in 2004.) Its Yelp ratings (reviewed both as the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion and the Woodlands Pavilion) are three and a half stars and three stars respectively, similar to that of Merriweather, and like Merriweather most people thought traffic and parking were not problems.

Will Merriweather Post Pavilion continue its own tradition of ease of access and convenient parking once construction in the Crescent area begins in earnest? If I can I’ll be attending the Crescent development presubmission community meeting on March 31, and that’s one of the things I hope to be able to ask about.

I have no inside knowledge of this whole affair, but I presume that private discussions between the county and Howard Hughes didn’t bear fruit, so that negotiations are now being conducted via press release and lawsuit. I also have no firm opinion as to which side has the better case, so I’ll refrain from commenting on the merits of their respective positions, leaving that to Bill Woodcock and others.

My concern in this post is much more mundane, namely the future of parking at Merriweather Post Pavilion. If you check out people’s opinions about Merriweather Post Pavilion on Yelp there are three things that stand out. First, they like the wooded setting. Not surprising, that’s why all the future plans proposed for the Merriweather area have envisioned preserving the natural character of Symphony Woods. Second, a lot of people don’t like the bathrooms. Again, not surprising; I guess that’s one reason why both the county and Howard Hughes agree on the need for renovating Merriweather (even as they disagree on the estimated cost).

Finally, people like the ease of access to Merriweather Post Pavilion and the ease of parking. As one person noted, “[Merriweather] is easy to get to off Rt. 29, and the parking is simple, free and relatively good in terms of easy in, easy out.” Another person expanded on this:

There is also parking right on site in a big lot out back, and though we waited to leave until after the performance was fully over, we still got out of there in a completely reasonable amount of time. To be honest, we were impressed with how efficiently the parking lot exodus was that night.

You can see that “big lot out back” in the above aerial view of Merriweather Post Pavilion and the surrounding area; it’s the open area immediately to the south of Symphony Woods Road, to the south of the pavilion and the southern portion of Symphony Woods. Note that it’s less than a quarter-mile from that lot to the stage of the pavilion, say a five-minute walk or so.

But let’s suppose that Merriweather gets renovated and secures a renewed lease on life. Let’s also suppose that development of the Crescent area surrounding Merriweather on the west and south proceeds along the lines proposed by the Howard Hughes Corporation. The “big lot out back” currently used for Merriweather parking is not part of Symphony Woods itself, nor is it part of the Merriweather property that is proposed to be turned over to the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission. Rather it’s part of the so-called Crescent Area 3 proposed to be developed by Howard Hughes, and per the downtown Columbia plan could eventually be the site of buildings up to 15 to 20 stories tall. At the point when construction starts in earnest in Area 3 (which could be as early as 2015 or 2016) Merriweather is going to experience a severe parking crunch assuming nothing else is done.

What to do about parking at Merriweather? This is by no means a new concern. Almost ten years ago (during the Jim Robey administration) the Citizens Advisory Panel on Merriweather Post Pavilion (established to look at a possible county purchase of Merriweather) had this to say in the executive summary of their final report [PDF]:¹

A major concern of the Panel is the expected loss of approximately 4,600 on-site parking spaces when [General Growth Properties, the predecessor to Howard Hughes] develops the adjacent “Crescent” property on which most of that parking is located. The panel recommends that the County replace those spaces by formalizing the use of existing spaces at the GGP office buildings along the north side of Little Patuxent Parkway and the southern portion of the Mall parking near Merriweather; by constructing a parking garage on nearby property owned by the Columbia Association; or by constructing a parking garage jointly with GGP at the Columbia Mall. Another possible solution could be presented if the Crescent parcel is developed as a mixed-use project such that up to 2,000 vehicles could be accommodated for evening events as part of the eventual build-out of the property.

The panel went on to say:

Failure to formalize the available parking agreement with GGP would jeopardize the County’s ability to lease out Merriweather to an operator and would severely limit the long-term viability. Without solving the parking capacity issue, the County should not proceed with the purchase of Merriweather.

How much parking is needed? The panel report estimated that at least 3,700 parking spaces would be needed for a typical 10,000 person show at Merriweather (assuming 2.7 people per space), while the largest Merriweather events at 19,000 people would require at least 7,000 spaces.

Where will this parking come from? It’s worth noting that the panel report was somewhat pessimistic about gaining access to parking spaces at The Mall in Columbia (and in any case, note that most of those spaces are more than a quarter mile from Merriweather). They believed that approximately 3,700 spaces could be cobbled together using parking easements at various existing GGP office properties around Symphony Woods and at the Columbia lakefront (e.g., at the American City Building). They also recommended construction of an up-to-2,500-car parking garage on CA property in Symphony Woods. Finally they looked to the Crescent development to provide even more parking, as noted in the quote above.

How does this match up with current plans for the Crescent area and Symphony Woods? According to the recent Baltimore Sun article on the Crescent Area plans, the entire Crescent development (including Areas 1, 2, and 3) might contain up to 4,360 spaces. On the face of it this seems like enough spaces to replace those lost to development.

However there are a couple of potential problems: First, using the per-area breakdown listed in the Baltimore Sun article (500 spaces for Area 1, 600 spaces for Area 2, and 1,200-1,900 spaces for Area 3) the total parking provided in the first phase of development will be only 2,300-3,000 spaces, well short of the 4,360 figure claimed for the full development and not nearly enough to replace the current spaces that will be lost as soon as construction in the Cresecent area begins. Finally, it’s not clear how many of these spaces, whether in the first phase or later, might be made available for use by Merriweather patrons, or under what terms.

What about other sources of parking? Recall that the original Merriweather advisory panel suggested constructing a parking garage in Symphony Woods on Columbia Association property. That idea reappeared in the original CA Inner Arbor concept presentation, though scaled down somewhat to a 1,750-car facility (in conjunction with a transit center). If constructed this garage would likely be sufficient to handle visitors to Inner Arbor facilities such as the Chrysalis amphitheatre, as well as to any future cultural facilities proposed for Symphony Woods itself, such as a replacement for the current Toby’s Dinner Theatre. However it comes nowhere close to satisfying all of Merriweather’s parking requirements. The associated transit center could help reduce the parking requirements, for example via a shuttle bus system that could allow people to park at more remote locations. However that would require further agreements with other organizations like Howard Community College, and it’s not clear at this time how popular and effective such a service might actually be.

It’s also possible that future parking easements could be secured for the various office buildings around the mall and along Little Patuxent Parkway (as also recommended by the Merriweather advisory panel). However note that the task of gaining easements is more complicated than previously because ownership of those buildings is now split between Howard Hughes (which owns 70 Corporate Center and the American City Building, among others) and GGP (which retained ownership of 10 Corporate Center through 60 Corporate Center).

Where does that leave us? The short answer is that regardless of whether and when ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion itself is transferred to the Downtown Arts and Culture Commission, the pavilion has no future unless the parking problem is addressed. In turn the Merriweather parking problem can be completely addressed only with the cooperation of Howard Hughes Corporation, regardless of whether or not Howard Hughes actually ends up developing the Crescent property. Parking thus serves as a potential bargaining chip for Howard Hughes in its dispute with Howard County, just as issuance of building permits is a bargaining chip for the county.

In the end realizing people’s dreams for a vital and vibrant downtown Columbia depends on the cooperation of many different players, including not only Howard County and Howard Hughes, but also the Columbia Association, the Inner Arbor Trust, GGP and other property owners, and those private organizations and individuals who can help provide the financing to turn paper plans into attractive built and natural environments. As I wrote above, I have no idea who is “right” in the dispute between Howard County and the Howard Hughes Corporation, and in some sense the idea of either side being “right” or not is beside the point. I simply hope the county and Howard Hughes can find a mutually acceptable resolution to their differences, and that as downtown Columbia evolves both residents and visitors alike can enjoy visits to Merriweather Post Pavilion and Symphony Woods without having major problems just trying to park.