Google Bike Map route from Poly to Lake Montebello.

by FERN SHEN

Baltimore bicyclists are checking out a new tool this week, Google’s long awaited bike map application, unveiled yesterday in Washington.

The idea: you plug in a starting point and a destination and the software gives you the bike-friendliest route. This feature is in beta mode and Google asks users to report errors or suggest changes.

But for now, right out of the box, how good is it in Baltimore?

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by FERN SHEN

 Benn Ray, owner of Hampden’s Atomic Books, couldn’t get over the language in the Baltimore Sun’s Friday Wal-Mart story, their first on the fact that a north Baltimore development proposal now includes a Wal-Mart, as well as a Lowe’s.

“A second Walmart store will open in Baltimore by the fall of 2011…” was the lede sentence.

“Why does it say ‘WILL open?’ The whole thing is being couched as a done deal, but they need to get a PUD,” Ray pointed out, correctly noting that, in order to be built, the mixed-use development would need to be green-lighted by the City Council as a  ”planned unit development.”

 “It’s unbelievable,” said Ray. “The government and the media are just accepting this is going to happen.”

Indeed, within hours after the Wal-Mart news broke, Baltimore government, community and media types  were staking out their positions, overtly or implicitly, on this hot button issue.

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by GERALD NEILY

Oh no! Didn’t anyone tell Rick Walker never to do what Gerry Neily says? When the Brew published my “Five fixes to make the Lowe’s redevelopment work for Remington“ several months ago, the developer must have paid attention, because the newly-revised plan incorporates almost all of the five fixes.

Coincidence? Perhaps, but when the city government finds out, he’s doomed!

The addition of a Wal-Mart may be controversial, but the new design, in my opinion, is now less so. Here’s how I score it on those five fixes: Read the rest of this entry »

The big-box just keeps on coming at Remington. The Daily Record reports that Wal-Mart has been talking to the developers of the north Baltimore site occupied now by Anderson Automotive and plans to plop a store on top of the Lowe’s.

Neighborhood activists who have been concerned about the project’s impact on the community told The Record they aren’t so much concerned about who the tenants are as with with the way the project is ballooning in size.

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Royer's Hill Methodist Episcopal Church. (Photo by Dottie Campbell)

by FERN SHEN

An old stone church on 24th Street in Remington that is threatened by a proposed Lowe’s mixed-use development just got a new champion: the Baltimore preservation community.

It may be in a somewhat gritty area and not used as a church since at least the 1950s, but the former Royer’s Hill Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1891, has a rich history as a mission of the famed Lovely Lane Methodist Church, according to Baltimore Heritage.

In a new blog post,  the group says the dark stone church building “which retains significant historic character,  should be preserved and utilized to help establish a successful transition between the commercial development and the historic residential Remingotn neighborhood.”

The controversial proposal unveiled last fall to redevelop the site of the former Anderson Automotive (with a Lowe’s Home Improvement store and other structures) appears to assume the demolition of the church.

Baltimore Heritage’s blog post has some fascinating history that explains the church’s role in Baltimore-area urban-suburban issues that date back more than a century.

The Brew has a photo slideshow about the neighborhood and the proposed development.

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