GGP Announces Series of Community Forums

General Growth Properties (GGP) will host a series of public forums to further engage the community in the development of a master plan for Columbia Town Center. As the first phase of its previously announced four-part process to promote community involvement, these forums will feature GGP's design and planning team. The first featured landscape architect Alan Ward and was held on Wednesday, March 5. The last three in the series are:
- Wednesday, March 19: An Evening With Gail Dexter Lord. As president of Lord Cultural Resources, the world's largest cultural planning firm, Lord specializes in planning in the museum and cultural sector. Her notable projects include the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain; and the Smithsonian's National African American Museum of History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
- Wednesday, April 2: An Evening With Keith Bowers. Bowers is the founder and president of Biohabitats, an ecological restoration design, planning and assessment firm. He has a broad and comprehensive background in restoration ecology, ecological planning and landscape architecture, which he has applied to hundreds of projects throughout North America.
- Wednesday, April 9: An Evening With Jaquelin Robertson. As founding partner of the architecture and urban design firm Cooper, Robertson & Partners, Robertson has led his firm's design work on many award-winning architectural and planning projects including Daniel Island, S.C., New Albany, N.Y., Celebration and WaterColor in Florida and Val d'Europe in France.
The forums will be held at the GGP Building at 10275 Little Patuxent Parkway in Columbia at 7:30 p.m., preceded at 7 p.m. with coffee and dessert.
In addition, GGP will share its draft master plan with the public on April 28; conduct village-based meetings to elicit feedback, questions and dialogue regarding the draft master plan; and host issue-focused community forums on topics such as the environment, arts, housing and transportation. For more information, visit www.columbiatowncenter.info.