[CPEO-MEF] CLOSURE: "Years after Fort Ritchie [MD] opened for redevelopment, base remains shuttered"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Years after Fort Ritchie opened for redevelopment, base remains shuttered

By Natalie Sherman
Baltimore Sun
August 8, 2014

The redevelopment of a former Army post in the Blue Ridge Mountains might not appear to have much in common with the renovation of the historic Hippodrome Theatre on Baltimore's west side.

Spanning roughly 600 acres in Western Maryland's Washington County, Fort Ritchie envelops two small lakes and is speckled with spruce trees and gray stone buildings dating to the 1920s. It's hardly a theater in a gritty part of downtown.

But like the Hippodrome, the installation presents a daunting set of questions — multiple stakeholders with competing interests, historic considerations, a difficult location. Redevelopment also represents the area's best shot to recover the jobs and sense of community lost when the base closed in 1998.

"It's at least as big a challenge," said Robert Boras, a former project manager for the Hippodrome. PenMar Development Corp., a quasi-public agency established by the state in 1997 to find new uses for Fort Ritchie, hired Boras in March to inject new life into those efforts.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-fort-ritchie-20140808,0,4957727.story

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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