Site of Proposed Hollywood Gateway Park
After the City Council voted to authorize the city staff to pursue a grant to fund design and building of the Park at the intersection of Route 1 and Edgewood Road, the University of Maryland has shown interest to work with the residents to design the park.
Earlier, the North College Park residents formed a committee to study the proposed eco-park .
At the last month’s NCPCA meeting, committee Chair Larry Bleau told members that the City’s Department of Planning, Community & Economic Development director Terry Schum was looking to see if the Landscape Architecture department at the University of Maryland would be interested in developing some conceptual designs as a class project.
“We have had a positive response (from the UMD) and are working out the details now. Having this as a class project is a good way to brainstorm conceptual ideas to see the range of possibilities before working with a design professional” – Ms. Schum wrote to me in an email.
“The class instructor has indicated availability in March 2011 but the logistics still need to be finalized.” – Ms. Schum added.
A similar landscape architecture class project went into North Gate Park. The project was coordinated by the City-University Partnership and its final design was derived from a 22-student sophomore Landscape Architecture class competition.
Ms. Schum also said earlier that City’s planning department have met with an organization about the deconstruction/demolition of the site.
The property on the site has been on the market for sale for over two years and the City later purchased the property for $346,000, based on average of two appraisals. The City intends to redevelop the lot and spend $185,000, of which it will use $100,000 from a community legacy fund. City has considered using a green job vocational training program to deconstruct the existing single family home and salvage building materials, but the timing and method for demolition has not been finalized.