Community Wants Vacant Gas Station Demolished

The looks drastically different than it did a year ago, when demolition of its vacant north end had just begun.

The and opened, business is booming and the shopping center has a new awning. opens later this month.

The vacant part of the north end is demolished and the rubble hauled away, but a vacant gas station owned by Exxon remains.

“It looks horrible,” said Reisterstown Improvement Association President Glenn Barnes at his organization’s meeting on Tuesday night. “It couldn’t look any worse than it does.”

The Reisterstown Improvement Association and Reisterstown-Owings Mills-Glyndon Chamber of Commerce will send letters to Exxon and Bob Pollokoff, president of the Fedder Management Corp., which operates the shopping center, to encourage them to complete the demolition of the gas station.

Barnes said that at a recent chamber committee meeting, Pollokoff declared the demolition process at a standstill. The shopping center owners do not want to be liable for any possible environmental problems that could result from the demolition, and Exxon won’t agree to those terms, Barnes said.

Councilwoman Vicki Almond, who attended Tuesday’s RIA meeting, said she would look into how the gas station can be safely demolished.

ROMG Chamber Executive Director Brian Ditto said demolishing the gas station is key to making sure the shopping center looks as good as possible.

“We definitely sense that the shopping center is making huge strides towards redevelopment,” he said. “If that piece of it were done additionally, it really would make an attractive entranceway to the Main Street corridor from the southern end of the town.”