Community Corner

Inner Arbor Trust to Unveil Team and Updated Plans for Symphony Woods

Two meetings are scheduled to update the public on the plan to develop Symphony Woods in the next two months.


The Inner Arbor Trust is holding two meetings in the next two months to update the public on its plan to develop Symphony Woods.

The first meeting, scheduled for Nov. 18 at Smith Theater at Howard Community College, will introduce the design team tasked with implementing the Inner Arbor Plan. The meeting starts at 7 p.m.

"It's about the team and who they are," said Inner Arbor Trust president and CEO Michael McCall. "The team members will introduce themselves to the community and detail their work and careers."

Landscape designers from Mahan Rykiel Associates will be present as well as Martha Schwartz, the Harvard professor and landscape architect who is heading up the design team.

McCall said specific details about the project itself will not be discussed at this meeting, however, the project will be showcased at a pre-submission community meeting on December 2.

The December 2 pre-submission meeting's location is not yet confirmed, but McCall said they plan on having it in the evening at Howard Community College as well.

The second meeting will be the ninth step for the project in the county's 16-step Downtown Columbia development process.

"We'll take the concept plans and move those significantly forward," said McCall, about the December meeting.

He said at that meeting the community will be able to ask questions and provide the designers with feedback.

Since the Inner Arbor concept plan was approved by the Columbia Association Board of Directors in February, there has been little information about implementing it. The Inner Arbor Trust's board of directors have been announced, and recently the addition of Schwartz to the team was released, but details about how things like the tree canopy walkway and the arts village will be built and their cost have not been released.

"We've just been hunkering down," said McCall. "We started a company, which has its own tasks to complete."

He said these two upcoming meetings will be an opportunity for the community to meet the team and examine the plan.

McCall said the Inner Arbor Trust is currently in the process of attaining a 501(c)(3) charitable designation from the IRS.

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