More News

The Urbana Village Center, a shopping center under construction near the intersection of Md. routes 80 and 355, will open without an anchor store.

JBG Rosenfeld, the company that is leasing the shopping center, intends to find a supermarket to anchor the 94,000-square-foot center.

But it hasn't had any luck finding a grocery store to lease the space, according to Theresa Vivona with Wooden Rooster Communications, who represents JBG Rosenfeld.

"Yes, the center will open without an anchor," Vivona wrote in an e-mail to The Gazette.

The company expects construction to wrap up on the shopping center this month, Vivona said.

She said the businesses that have already signed leases will need about 90 days to settle in. "Based on an end-of-March completion, I would anticipate tenants opening around the end of June/beginning of July," she wrote in her e-mail.

Motorists driving along the newly realigned Route 355, which passes between the Cracked Claw and Urbana High and was paid for by the land's owner, Lowell Baier, have noticed the outer structure going up for the past several months.

Jeff Topchik, a leasing representative for the Chevy Chase-based commercial development company JBG Rosenfeld, said in late 2008 that the company has leased Buffalo Wild Wings, a Rite Aid Pharmacy, Bank of America, Georgetown Valet dry cleaner, Ledo Pizza, and The Fractured Prune, all of which Vivona expected to be open by summer.

Baier paid to for Route 355's realignment in late October to accommodate additional traffic from the shopping center. This is the final phase of realignment to Route 355 as it passes through Urbana. The road also now passes through the Villages of Urbana, where the realignment was paid for by Natelli Communities.

The Gazette's Construction Connection column addresses the community's questions and concerns regarding growth and development in southeastern Frederick County. The column runs twice each month in the New Market/Urbana edition of The Gazette. If you have any questions about growth that you want to see addressed in The Gazette, please call New Market/Urbana reporter Christian Brown at 301-846-2132, or e-mail him at chbrown@gazette.net.