P.O. Box 142 — Sykesville, MD 21784

Printable version (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Reprint from Gazette

June 13, 2004

Please join us when we welcome Sykesville Mayor, Jonathan Herman to our meeting tonight at 7:30 in the Freedom Christian Church in Carrolltown Center. Mayor Herman is a wonderfully informative speaker and he will surely have lots of news to share about all the recent goings-on in Sykesville. The town has had a busy year already and just recently celebrated its Centennial anniversary.

A number of major projects including the development of theWarfield complex and upcoming plans for a new intersection at the entrance to Springfield Hospital and the Warfield complex at Route 32 are in process. Plans for the new $4.5 million intersection at Warfield include a new traffic signal, turn lanes and a median, just north of Cooper Drive. Construction on the intersection may begin as early as this October and will likely result in the removal of the temporary traffic light at Springfield Avenue and conversion of Cooper Drive into a dead end road at Route 32. The bridge over Piney Run was finally completed and opened just a few weeks ago, so non-rush hour traffic should begin to improve, at least until construction on the Warfield intersection begins.

The town is looking forward with great anticipation to the official opening of the new $32 million State Police training facility, which is set to open later this summer. In addition to the new classrooms, dormitories and the police training facility, several older buildings in the Warfield complex are in the process of being rehabbed in an attempt to attract a major tenant, which could be perhaps a university or other institution of higher learning.

Additionally, the town, county and state continue to cooperatively negotiate substantial expansion of the Springfield Hospital site, which together with the Warfield complex, form one of the premier economic development projects in the entire state. The site was recently selected for the county's new drug treatment facility and it was also just announced that about 180 patients from a closing mental health hospital in Crownsville will soon be joining existing patients in Sykesville. The Springfield Hospital campus will also soon be home to a new young womens'shelter, which will replace the currently overcrowded shelter adjacent to Cooper Park.

Main Street bustles with shoppers and the town continues to negotiate with developers for a "River Walk" along the banks of the creek bordering Howard County, which will attempt to incorporate Sykesville's antique theme with a complimenting retail and restaurant arcade.

We hope you will take an hour this evening to come listen to Mayor Herman as he shares his enthusiasm for all the wonderful things going on in Sykesville, the Freedom area's "hometown". For more information please visit FACC on the web at www.freedomareacitizens.org.