Community park planned for Fairwood

A total of $2 million is included in the county’s fiscal 2009 budget for construction of the park, Montrie said.

Work on the park is slated to begin May 2009 and the current planning schedule calls for an eight-month construction window, Montrie said. The opening is planned for 2010.

Fairwood is a planned community just outside the Bowie city limits that includes more than 1,800 homes set into several neighborhoods, said Mark Thompson, the vice president of land sales at the Columbia-based General Growth Properties, Inc., the development company behind Fairwood.

The community already includes the Fairwood Green Retail Village shopping center. There also are plans for an elementary school, day care center, office building and assisted-living facility to be built within the community boundaries, according to a news release from The Ventures Group, which is handling marketing for the developer.

General Growth donated the land for the park to the M-NCPPC, Thompson said.

‘‘This is another unique amenity that the Fairwood community has to offer its residents,” Thompson said of the park. ‘‘It serves sort of a wide variety of recreational needs that cross lifestyles and households. We’re really excited about it. It’s going to be a great addition to our overall community. It really balances the existing amenities we have and even enhances them.”

Thompson said there has been a ‘‘high level of interest from landscape architects to participate in the project.”

Montrie said bids from the landscape architectural firms are due back May 8. He said it will then take M-NCPPC eight weeks to select a design firm, draw up a contract and give notice to proceed.

The conceptual plan for the park currently includes two full-size sports fields, a band and storage pavilion, two preschool play areas, a loop trail and restrooms, according to a Ventures Group news release.

The public park will sit near the front of the Fairwood community at the intersection of Route 450 and Fairwood Parkway, Fairwood resident Michelle Jackson said.

Jackson said the community has been heavily involved in the planning of the park. She said a ‘‘series of meetings” between M-NCPPC has taken place during the planning period.

‘‘We’ve been really involved,” Jackson said. ‘‘We’ve had many meetings with [the M-NCPPC]. It’s been a very good relationship.”

Jackson said the park will be of significant use to Fairwood residents.

‘‘There’s all kinds of benefits,” she said. ‘‘Our children won’t have to go as far to access a field. It will be beneficial in that families can come and spend time listening to a concert. ... It’s going to help businesses, not to mention home sales. It’s going to just bring more people into the community.”

E-mail Jonathan Stein at jstein@gazette.net.