Big Redevelopment Announcement Coming, County Executive Says

(Updated, Nov. 10 at 6:16 p.m.) The Owings Mills Mall will be torn down and redeveloped, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said. Read .

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Baltimore County will announce a "large-scale redevelopment project in Owings Mills" at the Historic Courthouse in Towson Thursday, a county statement said.

The statement said a "very significant economic development" would be announced.

A county spokeswoman declined to comment further, but County Executive Kevin Kamenetz has spoken since the spring about using the and as a way to jumpstart the rest of Owings Mills business, including the Owings Mills Mall.

“We’ve had some conversations with the owners of the mall, which I initiated last May,” Kamenetz . "Stay tuned."

County councilwoman Vicki Almond, along with councilman Ken Oliver, have been deeply involved in discussions about development in Owings Mills.

In September, Almond said Kimco Realty may take over the mall and turn it into an open air shopping center with "medium box" stores.

And she said last week that she thought mall owner General Growth Properties, Inc., was hearing from other potential buyers.

"I do believe there are people looking at it. I really do believe that part," she said at the time. "I don’t know who."

Given the number of projects in the air, Almond and Oliver introduced a resolution at a county council meeting in September that would have created a community committee to discuss the future of the area.

One goal was to have a conversation about finding a way to connect the different areas, either by trails or through another form of transportation.

That resolution was pulled in October, though, after Almond said it was decided the group didn't need to be a formal one. Representatives from , and were all expected to sit on the committee.

Meanwhile, community leaders announced at Monday's Reisterstown-Owings Mills-Glyndon Coordinating Council meeting that the Solo Cup Property along Reisterstown Road and Painters Mill Road would be turned into a "small scale Hunt Valley" Towne Centre by developer Greenberg Gibbons.

The anchor of that development is expected to be an upscale grocery store, and former ROG president Mary Molinaro said Wegmans, Whole Foods and Harris Teeter were all options.

A spokeswoman for Whole Foods, however, said the store was not looking to open a location in Owings Mills. Messages left at the corporate offices of Wegmans and Harris Teeter were not immediately returned.

A General Growth Properties spokesman declined comment on the Owings Mills Mall in September, and since then neither General Growth Properties nor Kimco Realty have responded to requests for comment.

Kamenetz's announcement is expected at 1:30 p.m. Thursday.