Design panel pans Remington Wal-Mart

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Baltimore’s design review panel Thursday rejected a set of revised drawings for a Wal-Mart in Remington, saying the changes did not reflect an urban design and were not pedestrian friendly.

“It is a utilitarian solution without any grace to it,” said Gary A. Bowden, a member of the Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel, during a nearly two-hour meeting at City Hall.

“There is an aspect of this building that looks like a school, and that’s a plus on one level and a minus on another.”

It was the second time in two weeks that UDARP rejected designs for the Wal-Mart, the anchor of a massive 25th Street Station development near 25th and Howard Streets.

Wal-Mart and other development officials said they will regroup and make a third presentation to the panel in the near future.

In an emailed release sent by Wal-Mart officials before the meeting, the revised plans were described in glowing terms.

“The new plans also call for more vertical highlight elements that utilize various building materials designed to match the store’s city-centric setting,” the release said. “The updated design activates the front sidewalk with bike racks and benches and creates a series of pedestrian nodes and meeting places. Additional enhancements include increased glazing, particularly in the vestibule, to improve transparency in the store.”

But some of those features were exactly the ones criticized by UDARP members and local residents of the project.

A plan to add a stairwell and glass elevator to ferry shoppers from a second-level parking area to the main Wal-Mart entrance on 24th Street was seen as narrow and a potential security risk because of its size and scope, UDARP members said.

Plans to add more landscaping and bike racks were also questioned for their function, and a five-foot wide pathway from 24th Street to the front door of Wal-Mart was labeled as inadequate for walkers. A maze-like ramp also added to the design for pedestrians was labeled “laughable” by UDARP member Richard Burns.

Residents of the surrounding communities packed the meeting room and gave mixed reviews to the revised designs by New Jersey-based MMA Architects, who presented the new plans to UDARP.

“It looks like a 1960s or 1970s high school that is appropriate to suburbia,” said John Viles, who lives near the development site.

Joan Floyd, president of the Remington Neighborhood Association, said the new plans did not address any of recent concerns presented to the developer centered on pedestrian access, the main entrance to the shopping center off 25th Street or vehicle and walking circulation inside the parking lots.

Minutes from last week’s closed meeting of the Planning Department’s site review panel, regarding issues raised on the Wal-Mart project, had not been completed, said city planner Laurie Feinberg, and were unavailable to community representatives or UDARP.

Jon M. Laria, who represents developer Rick Walker and his company, WV Baltimore-24/Sisson LLC, said after the vote that he was not discouraged.

“There were a lot of good comments about the architecture, I think we’ve become more urban,” said Laria, an attorney with Ballard Spahr LLP in Baltimore. “It’s going in the right direction and I think we are very close to having an approved plan.”

On complaints that the Wal-Mart truck loading dock was located too close to a strip of existing row houses, in a place approved for a Lowe’s home improvement store that has since pulled out of the development, Laria pushed back.

“The number of trucks at the site will be less,” he said, of the loss of Lowe’s. “The (design for a) loading dock is in the same place, so I do not understand what the concern is. The loading dock was approved for that location. There’s going to be a loading dock in that location.”

The site is the former home of Bruce Mortimer’s Anderson Honda, now located in Hunt Valley. The development was tied up in litigation for several years, but the state’s highest court ultimately ruled against the opponents.

Then, in March, Mortimer’s company sued Walker and WV for breach of contract. Two months later, Mortimer announced he would deal instead with Seawall Development Co.

Walker, however, contended he had spent $6.3 million and was ready, willing and able to perform, with a lease in hand from Wal-Mart.

The two sides came to terms and the lawsuit was dropped in August, clearing the way for the development to resume, with the plans now under review.