WARD & LAMBDIN
Box Hill South
office buildings
are taking shape
By Jennifer Hutt
Aegis staff
The outlines of new buildings going up in the Box Hill South Corporate Center signify the beginning of the end of the development of Box Hill, essentially the area south of Bel Air around the Routes 24 and 924 corridor.
Box Hill development has been orchestrated by Bob Ward, a principal, along with his sister, Jennifer Lambdin, of the Ward & Lambdin Real Estate Development Group.
Ward & Lambdin is responsible for development of most of the, major projects in the community including the Festival at Bel Air, housing developments Box Hill North and Box Hill South, the Box Hill Square Shopping Center and the Bel Air South Professional Center - on land acquired by the Ward family in the mid-1960s.
When complete, the Box Hill South Corporate Center should prove to be no less impressive than any of those projects.
Ed Steere, a planner with the Harford County Department of Planning and Zoning, said the corporate center, which is between Routes 24 and 924 just north of I95, includes 25 lots.
Those lots will be developed in a campus-like setting, complete with open space and walking trails.
"It's their plan to do a nice, upscale corporate center, similar to ones you might find outside of [Washington] D.C.," Steere said Monday.
The project has been on the books for some time now, said Steere, adding that preliminary plan approval was given for subdivision of the property in 1993.
"The area that they're developing was planned for more industrial type buildings, but this is going to be more flex office space," Steere said.
The two buildings under construction are both of about 30,000 square feet, said Jim Martin, vice president of Ward & Lambdin, who is responsible for construction and development.
Construction of the buildings is expected to be finished this summer, after which development of a third and much larger building will begin in the fall.
Last Wednesday, the Harford County Development Advisory Committee, made up of representatives from many of the county agencies, heard plans for the third building from Tori Pierce of Frederick Ward Associates, which engineers many of Ward & Lambdin's commercial projects.
Overall, the committee had no problems with the proposed professional office building, which will be 46,500 square feet.
"We're planning for anywhere between eight to 12 tenants in there," Martin said. 'It is broken up into 3,000-square-foot spaces right now."
Martin said although there are no tenants slated for the third building so far, the company is banking on growing interest in the Box Hill Corporate Center to fill the space.
"We're hoping that there will be interest drawn to the site by the other buildings," Martin said, adding that one tenant has committed to occupying one of the buildings now under construction.
There is one tenant committed to the second building with "several other proposals out in the market," Martin said. He was unwilling to disclose any of the businesses at this time.