Where's the Wow?

The owner of the Wilde Lake shopping center has offered its vision for remaking the village square, according to the ExploreHoward blog.


Two-hundred apartments, an open courtyard, a 27,000-square-foot food store and a 14,000-square-foot stand-alone drug store are among the elements planned for the future of the Wilde Lake Village Center, according to plans outlined for residents Thursday night.

The proposal, on which planners hope to break ground in summer 2012, was described to residents by Geoff Glazer, Kimco Realty Corp.'s vice president of development for the mid-Atlantic region, as a "balancing act of what we can do, feasibly, what the market will let us do and what we've heard from you about what you think is important as a community."

The redevelopment of Wilde Lake — Columbia's first village shopping center, built in 1967 — has been in the works for several years by Kimco, the company that owns the majority of commercial space at the center.

Reaction seemed to be mixed. And then there was this comment:


Though pleased with the plans, resident Michael Davis asked Kimco to incorporate a "wow factor" to distinguish the center as "the birthplace of Columbia."