Harford County officials are looking for developers to replace decrepit apartment housing in Edgewood.
County Executive David Craig gathered officials and community representatives at the empty Washington Court apartment complex Tuesdaymorning to announce that the county would ask for redevelopment proposals on the 28-acre property near Edgewood Road.
As he stood before one of the site?s boarded-up buildings, Craig said he hoped the redevelopment would be the first step of many in revitalizing the unincorporated Edgewood community while preserving the county?s existing land.
“We don?t have to go out to the green space and develop open land anymore,” he said.
Built in the 1950s as housing for workers at Aberdeen Proving Ground, the apartment complex has been vacant more than 20 years. The county acquired the property in 2000.
Now it could serve new facilities that will move to Aberdeen and the Edgewood Arsenal as part of the military base realignment and closure process, Craig said. The property is close enough to the Army?s facilities that the distant thumping of ordnance testing echoed sporadically between the empty buildings Tuesday.
Washington Court had been put out for proposals twice before over the past six years, said Lisa Webb, project development specialist for the Office of Economic Development. No developers were interested.
But that was before the announcement that base realignments would create new jobs at Aberdeen, said Beth Hendrix, deputy director of the Department of Community Services, and now as many as five developers have been asking about when the site would become available.
Edgewood Community Council member Sam Gibson praised the county?s efforts to invigorate Edgewood, both with Washington Court and the recent purchase of other surplus land for conversion to park space.
“The purchase of this property gave the county more of a say in its development,” Gibson said. “It would have been our death knell ? but now it will save our community.”
While plans for the site would depend upon the developer and the community?s input, Webb said it could becomeanything from luxury homes to a dense mix of apartments, retail and office space.
WASHINGTON COURT
» 55 original buildings; two destroyed by fire in 2003
» Last occupied in 1984
» Currently used by Harford County Sheriff?s Department for training
