Over the past few months our group has held several meetings with EDENS and county officials to discuss the future of Burtonsville. Over the next couple weeks, we will be posting summaries of these meetings. Be the first to find out about our progress by signing up for our email updates.

On September 29, 2018, six members of the “Build a Better Burtonsville” group met with EDENS, the owner and developer of the Burtonsville Crossing Shopping Center, to discuss short-term and long-term uses of their property. At the meeting, EDENS expressed a willingness to allow short-term uses on their property for “pop-up” type events and also provide a draft long-term vision for the site that incorporates some of the community’s ideas and suggestions.

Steve Boyle and Jeff Kaufman, the representatives from EDENS, were pleased with the enthusiasm and professionalism of the BaBB group, as well as by the number of people that attended our meeting in June 2018. They expressed appreciation for our enthusiasm and community engagement and mentioned that it was encouraging EDENS to reengage and refocus on Burtonsville. They explained how certain challenges have made it difficult to redevelop the site, such as the lease restrictions on large grocery stores, the cost of meeting new stormwater regulations, and lack of a structured parking garage.

Several elected officials and government staff also attended the meeting, including State Delegate Eric Luedtke, Councilmember Tom Hucker, Councilmember-Elect Evan Glass, and two representatives from from the County Executive’s office: Special Assistant Tina Benjamin and East County Regional Service Center Director Jewru Bandeh.

The group discussed short-term, community-oriented uses for the shopping center, such as a food truck rally, concert, or movie night, were also discussed. EDENS expressed support for collaborating with the county and the local community to allow pop-up events on their property. We hope to have events starting later this year.

Moving forward, EDENS committed to providing us with an updated long-term vision, as well as a proposed plan for implementing this vision in various phases. Once these plans are developed to the point where EDENS is ready to solicit feedback , we will share them with the community so that your feedback and ideas can be passed along to EDENS.

Our group looks forward to collaborating with EDENS in the future to identify a solution despite these challenges.

In the next few days we will post a summary of our first meeting with the new County Executive, Marc Elrich.