Mr. Taylor,

Your comment paints a fairly damning picture of the situation but sadly not unlike others I have seen in my travels.

I've read from others comments that Mr. Marks has accepted developer money and does not even reside in the area - is this true?

I am a recent transplant to the area but was referred to it by nearly everyone I spoke. After years of travel I hope to lay down roots. Is the area poorly represented?

Peter, as far as I can tell, Mr. Marks didn't spearhead this developer plan or the pending relocation. I'm not even sure if the county exec informed him or anyone else on the council (or the public) about this grocery store plan until just now.

Mr. Marks is a long time Baltimore county resident... http://councilmandavidmarks.com/about-david/

I agree with you Roger - on all points. I think the fire station is in a perfection location. But I think the idea behind selling the site of the current fire station was to raise money for air conditioning for schools, ect. I wonder if anyone attempted to work out a plan to work around the construction of the new fire station on the old site. Maybe the county highways garage and dome could be relocated ?

Roger has a point...

I find it interesting that they have the plans for the store laid out already. The parking numbers, the entrance and egress set, and even the pretty version of the design is readily available today (as of the posting of this story, or earlier).

... in contrast, they weren't even sure *where* they want us to move the fire station to (Carver, or a park, or maybe... an old gas station) - it's almost like there was a plan to sell the land to the developer, and they just had to figure out how to get that pesky fire station out of the way.... just saying.

The park and the air-conditioning stories are just a distraction from the core of the issue - developers want that land, and the county is giving it to them (cheap), and in Baltimore County, that's just how things work. In the meantime, we are on the hook for a new fire station (complete with new location, new plans, starting from scratch), and we divest of a valuable land asset in the most depressed commercial real estate market in 50 years.

Smart plan? Beneficial? Only if you are the developer or maybe the County Executive of Baltimore County.

County officials say they discussed the new firehouse location with neighboring communities and they were OK with it........did you hear discussion in you community if you are effected? I didn't. Hhmm......

John H, that station is similar in the amount of equipment to stations in Dundalk, Essex and Catonsville. Dundalk has two engines, two medic units and a brush truck, Catonsville and Essex the same minus one of the medic units. Towson has two engines, two medic units, a brush truck and a ladder truck, just one more unit than Dundalk and less than probably half of the volunteer stations in the county. And years ago, when the training academy was co-located there, the station also had a foam unit, and air truck, a fuel truck and a battalion chief. Those units have since been moved to other locations. Finding locations for two smaller stations would be much more difficult from both a capital and operating budget point of view.

wow Ed you seem to know alot about fireman stuff

Lew, interestingly enough, I became interested in following the fire service because of seeing all of the equipment coming out of that station as I was growing up. I guess you could say I'm a fire buff, listening to calls on the scanner all the time. I also have wound up working with quite a few retired fire and police types in my current job.

He lives in Perry Hall. Towson is too crowded and noisy for his family, they deserve better.

This is what happens when you elect someone from out of town. Don't live there - don't care.

Why do you even suggest that Councilman Marks has anything to do with this proposal? The Baltimore County Administration solicited proposals for buyers of the Towson fire station, and someone responded. Simple as that. I personally don't think the site lends itself to a grocery store (wait until you see the size of the retaining walls needed to fit it on the site), but it is zoned properly and the prospective buyer is taking the risk of success, not you.

Um, I think "LW" is right - is that an enormous brick wall on the plan (corner or York/Bosley) - Yikes.

I'm not sure where you shopped at a Teeter in North Carolina, but when I lived in Raleigh it was my day-to-day store. It was certainly not overpriced and the quality was better than the Kroger or Winn-Dixie. I went to the Fresh market when I wanted anything especially fancy. It was great to have one open up in the area, finally.
This was in the mid-90s. Glad to see Towson is catching up to Raleigh. And I still stop in the Teeter when I vacation at the Carolina beaches. Still moderately priced.
In my experience, it's Safeway that is obscenely overpriced and you couldn't pay me to go back to Trader Joe's.

Beth, first time was with my cousin in the md-90s in the Southern Pines area. Last time was about 4-5 years ago in Carolla in the Outer Banks. To be fair, I was comparing the OBX store to the Food Lion a little bit down Highway 12, and certainly the H-T store was a NICER store than the Food Lion. I just checked out the weekly specials for the H-T store in Columbia, and I guess the sale prices aren't too bad, except for produce. Those produce SALE prices were more expensive for most items than the everyday price at other stores. By the way, I only go to Safeway for sale items. I am a cheap blankety-blank and shop sales most of the time. But I do agree with others that the York Road corridor has plenty of grocery store options as it is. That site deserves better.

Look across Bosley. That's all single family residential with a minimal property value of $400k. Kiss it goodbye and its accompanying mil rate.

Of course, Marks hasn't produced any numbers so he can claim the offset is all wild speculation. Just like the sale will pay for a new facility and install A/C in the schools. "Trust me, the county exec is a visionary. A chicken in every pot."

Due diligence is a real thing in business.

Guess a lifelong bureaucrat living miles away wouldn't know anything about that.

JD, I can't speak to Marks as I don't live down there anymore, but the effect to those $400,000 homes will be minimal. First of all, all of the buildings along Bosley have been converted to offices since at least the 1980s, some a decade earlier than that. So even the closest handful of residences have at least one lot of offices between them and Bosley. Also, while they will hear more sirens going northbound on Bosley, they will hear fewer going southbound because the new station will already be south of those residences. And I hope you're not trying to say that those $400,000 homes deserve more quiet than the $200,000 row homes in Towson Park and Stoneridge :-) I've never heard anyone in Towson complain about the fire sirens.

JDS, its not entirely accurate to say that it is all single family residential across Bosley. Immediately opposite is the old Towson Jail which over time became the Women's Jail, and is now rehabbed office space in the historic jail structure. Immediately behind that is the so-called Green Ravine, a natural buffer. You probably recall the proposed swim club plans for that location which was definitely not single-family residence in mind, featuring a pool and other amenities designed to attract members, particualry members from the Southland Hills and neighboring communities, but unfortunately despite approvals to proceed, the economy and lack of available interest prevented its creation. A little further up on Bosley before you reach Chesapeake is a row of townhouse-style structures used commercially. There are offices on Bosley from Towsontowne Blvd all the way up to Joppa Road on both sides of the street. I am old enough to remember the frat house on Chesapeake, now converted into office space (thank goodness that it gone). I believe there are commercial-like buildings all the way up West Chesapeake to Dixie Drive. There are single-family residences on 2 streets that run behind the jail and other nonresidential properties on that side: Colonial Court and Alabama Road. There are others further inside the community of course, but those are the 2 I think you must be thinking about.

Thanks K Blue. Much better detail than I presented.

Ed, I grew up in that area. When news of destroying the green ravine or disrupting the buffer were afloat recently, I knew that would be a mistake. The swim club wasnt a bad idea provided they maintained the buffer. Organizers revised the plans to accommodate the nearest neighbors. But, as I noted previously, the swim club itself didn't come to fruition due to other conditions out of their control.

K Blue,

The buffer isn't. Technically what you claim is a sight line buffer. Acoustically speaking, especially the ravine, its does nothing for a 125-140db brake line powered air horn. (Soundproofing comes from varying layers of density within a compact area.) The strip of CRE doesn't offer anything like that. In fact a truck leaving the new site will hit that horn through 4 intersections before leaving West Towson to hit York Road northbound. That is what in real estate we call a game changer.

Ed,
Above is also to your point. The station's present location has given the market time to adjust a price accordingly. Obviously its not a net plus. Now through a knee jerk reaction and not proper planning you are going to negatively impact a entirely new, larger market segment.

All of which leads back to my point. No estimate or study has been attempted to gauge this impact since there was never a plan to determine a new location, only a plan to sell the old lot.

Try this. Call/email Marks and ask for numbers. In another forum someone remarked this was KK proposal. It is. But Marks can squash it with a no vote in the council.

If he thinks its a good idea it must be because he has seen numbers that certify the sale will more than cover the cost of new construction/offset any decrease in the property tax rolls/and have plenty left over for new A/C installation.

If he hasn't seen these numbers then that's very poor leadership.

There's a glut of available sites along York from Starbucks to the beltway and many underutilized buildings throughout Towson. I'm not convinced dumping this parcel during a down market helps taxpayers in the long run? How does it help the existing businesses? Most of what struggles in Towson is the retail and there's at least three new grocery stores nearby, not sure how many of the 24hr-chain-drug-convenience stores there are. If this goes office building, what makes it better than all that's already available?
Bad as the access is for this parcel, at least it's set up as a fire station. Proposed fuel station site seems an almost comical suggestion. What's the turning radii on those fire trucks. Not sure you get that and any meaningful building on that lot. I suppose the firefighters will park in the county garage and walk over there, or will they ride bikes? The small office building next door is on a larger lot and has only a few spots under so mostly those folks park across and down the hill at the American Legion.

Old Terp, I agree with the vast majority of what you say. The timing is awful, strictly retail would be a bad use of the space and a grocery store clearly is not needed. As for office, I don't know what the vacancy rates are in Towson now, but before the downturn, vacancy rates in the Towson area were low compared to the rest of the metro area. And a good developer would want to start constructing new space as a down market is ending to have good space available as the market improves.
I will admit I'm not sure how the size of the fuel station parcel fits in, but remember a few things when comparing to the current space. First, the new station likely would be drive-through (garage doors at the front and back), increasing the flexibility of moving equipment in and out. Second, the existing site is the size it is because it was designed for four purposes: local fire station, fire headquarters (the offices on the north side along York Road), the equipment repair shop and the training academy. The last three functions no longer take place there (with the last two being replaced by the highway shop/salt dome, which shouldn't be in downtown Towson in my opinion). That's why there is so much open space on that location. The timing is tough because the existing station is functionally obsolete (the oldest station in the county that has not been replaced or rehabbed by about six years) and needs to be replaced soon. -- more --

In my ideal world, with budget and commercial real estate issues not in play, I would find a spot in the Timonium/Hut Valley area to move the highway shop and salt dome, construct a modern fire station as far south along the Bosley Avenue side of the parcel as possible. Then, when the market was better, I would sell off the rest of the parcel for some sort of mixed use complex with strict design standards and the new building fronting York Road and parking areas between the new fire station and the new commercial structure, with requirements to add additional turn lanes, etc., to help with traffic flow. Alas, what is ideal and what is feasible aren't always one-and-the-same.

Ed,

We in Southland Hills would have loved to see this with the a new Firehouse built back where the highway shop and salt dome are presently located. We suggested that and it was immediately shot down. Never considered.

There was never a real process for this decision.

The whole, "let's put it in the park" feels now like a ploy not unlike when my son asks me for $50 dollars, and I say, "NO WAY!" He responds, "well how about $20 then?" And I give it to him. He walks away thinking, "That's what I wanted the whole time..."