Upscale apartments coming to Hunt Valley Towne Centre

Hunt Valley Towne Centre is expanding again. This time, though, the expansion is taking the form of upscale apartments, the first residential component to be added to the project since its inception about a decade ago.

The apartments are being built on a 6.5-acre parcel that Greenberg Gibbons Commercial Corp., developer of Hunt Valley Towne Centre, 118 Shawan Road, Hunt Valley, sold to AvalonBay Communities, a national residential developer.

"We had designated a residential area" in the original Hunt Valley design, Tom Fitzpatrick, Greenberg Gibbons' president and chief operating officer said last month. "We went to multiple residential developers" for bids on the property. He declined to provide a sale price for the land.

Fitzpatrick said the sale of the land for residential use completes the mixed-use intent of Hunt Valley. "We had the retail and the office," he said. "Now, we're bringing in the third component, the residential."

AvalonBay is calling the residential project Avalon at Hunt Valley Towne Centre. It will consist of a five-story building with 332 upscale apartments that will rent at market rate. The building is located on the east side of Hunt Valley, adjacent to the Pier 1 retail store. Construction may begin in fall of 2014, with completion in spring of 2016.

Greenberg Gibbons is developing and will manage 30,000 square feet of retail space that is going into the ground floor of the building.

Headquartered in Arlington, Va., AvalonBay owns and manages 276 apartment complexes with more than 82,000 apartments nationwide.

AvalonBay has already gone through the Baltimore County approval process and received zoning approval to proceed, according to Fitzpatrick. He also said that approval from tenants of Hunt Valley's retail portion was not required for the residential development to move forward.

Fitzpatrick said that Greenberg Gibbons owns other, undeveloped land that is part of the retail center of Hunt Valley. But, he added, "We don't anticipate selling off additional land at this time."

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Upscale apartments coming to Hunt Valley Towne Centre