The Warfield complex in Sykesville hit a major snag when the developer backed out after the town rejected a request for more money for what would be Carroll?s largest development in years.
Columbia-based Manekin LLC wanted the county to invest $7 million for infrastructure such as roads and lighting. That translates to a 50 percent increase over previous requests, said Brad Rees, president of Sykesville?s Warfield Development Corp., a nine-member advisory board created by the town.
Sykesville inherited Warfield, a 570,000-square-foot former psychiatric hospital on Route 32, from the state in 1995, and the state?s Department of Business and Economic Development provided a $4 million loan to transform the abandoned building into business space. Its tenants are Nexion Health Inc., a nursing home management company, and Carroll Dance studio.
“They?re pretty expensive,” Rees said of Manekin. “There?s a lot of fees in there.”
Once developed, officials hope Warfield will boost the county?s economy, now fueled mainly by residents? taxes.
But members of the county commissioner-appointed Industrial Development Authority, which must recommend a developer to commissioners, are growing impatient.
“My concern is that this thing needs to move forward quickly,” member Lou Ann Dent said. “So if we have to make a compromise, that?s better than letting it sit there for three or four more years.”
Rees defended his group?s work with Manekin, saying loans from the state and county would outweigh economic benefits.
“It wasn?t languishing on the vine,” Rees said. “The economics just don?t make sense to the board or myself at this point.”
But the group may be forced to put more money into Warfield so it can eventually profit from it in the end, said Donald Hull, the development authority?s treasurer.
“We?re going to have to invest in this to get it over the goal line,” he said.
