Waldorf Town Center

Qurious

Qurious

Im On 1.
Okay I'm all for it, but please build some more ways OUT/IN OF WALDORF...

I heard its PG county who is refusing to expand route 5 because of the costs. Traffic sux because of everyone who has to leave Waldorf to go to work and now on the weekends I can expect it to be even worse because of people coming into Waldorf to shop.

I wont be surprised by 2026 if they build a Metro down here.
 
huntr1

huntr1

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Qurious said:
Okay I'm all for it, but please build some more ways OUT/IN OF WALDORF...

I heard its PG county who is refusing to expand route 5 because of the costs. Traffic sux because of everyone who has to leave Waldorf to go to work and now on the weekends I can expect it to be even worse because of people coming into Waldorf to shop.

I wont be surprised by 2026 if they build a Metro down here.
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I would LOVE for metro to come to Waldorf. Preferably well before 2026 since I retire in 2028.
 
FastCarsSpeed

FastCarsSpeed

Come Play at BigWoodys
Im just glad they are building the new town center soo close to the Ghetto of Acton Lane. Will make for some interesting evenings on the scanner...
 
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OldHillcrestGuy

Well-Known Member
I remember when I first came to Waldorf to work around 1974, there were only 2 stoplights, 301 and 5 and 925 and 5. Had a hour for lunch ran home everyday to Cedarville for lunch took about 10 minutes to get home, would hate to think how long it would take now, and the maybe dozen stoplights I'd encounter.
Alot of people complain about the traffic but most long time Waldorfian's proably know different ways to get around town and avoid 301 for the most part. Once Western Parkway gets completed that will help alot and the extension from St Charles Parkway to Rosewick rd will help a whole lot, unfortunetly St Charles Parkway will get alot busier, you'll be able to get off 301 at the county line by PG line get on Mattawomen Beantown and not hit 301 again to just before LaPlata, right where they will be building the new shopping center with Lowes and Giant.

The new town center will be nice, but unfortuatetly it will backup to the Acton Lane area, which cant be too good.

I like where I live, Northern St Marys go north about 13-15 miles I have Waldorf, go south about 18 miles which I did last night (love the gas prices $2.54) I have First Colony and all the other shopping areas. If I go east about 16 miles its Prince Frederick (hi Speedy :howdy: ) and west 14 miles I have the growing LaPlata area.
 
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OldHillcrestGuy

Well-Known Member
Speedy70 said:
You have to have a special pass now to get into Prince Frederick. :shrug:
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So thats how you going to be :smack:

Hope they blowup the wrong bridge Monday morning and they do the Benedict bridge instead, wont that make for a nice commute for you. :lalala:
 
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Speedy70

***
OldHillcrestGuy said:
So thats how you going to be :smack:

Hope they blowup the wrong bridge Monday morning and they do the Benedict bridge instead, wont that make for a nice commute for you. :lalala:
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It just so happens I'm on the phone with your boss right now. :whistle:



:lmao:
 
Claff

Claff

New Member
I love hearing about how Waldorf "used to be" especially since I moved here just a few years ago. Coming from the very quiet western Massachusetts where the powers that be were dying to have some kind of development and growth, it's fascinating to see a place that seems to be finding ways to slow down the same thing.

FWIW I see very little "New England town" in St.Charles, and I've spent quite a bit of time in New England towns.

And there's a lot of land where they're going to build this thing. The link below goes to a screen grab from Google Earth which uses aerial and/or satellite photography probably from around 2002-2003 showing the Stardust still standing and a bunch of undeveloped land to its southwest. Who knows what's been developed since this pic was taken but I don't think it's all that much. The biggest limiting factor on the development's size is where the expansion of Western Parkway cuts through this land.

http://www.claffie.com/photos/towncenter.jpg
 
Vote Flaherty

Vote Flaherty

New Member
Dymphna said:
When I moved to Waldorf, I lived on a farm. There were three grocery stores, two in the same shopping center. Safeway, where the Circuit City is now and A&P. Then the Grand Union, where Bed, Bath and Beyond is now. There was a drive-in theater in the shopping center with the Safeway. There were four restaurants, McDonalds (only 1 of them), Burger Chef, Rustler's Steak House (for all your fine dining needs) and Herb's Diner. The drug store had a soda fountain counter where we went after church on Sundays. There was one indoor movie theater, it had two screens. There were three shopping centers. The one with Safeway, the A&P, People's Drug, a flower shop, and a Realtor. It had two sets of stores with a big field in between where they would have a carnival every year. The second shopping center had Grand Union, Peebles Dept. Store, Movie Theater, Rustler's Steak house, Mammoth Mart and Dart Drug. And the last of the shopping centers was the one with the paint can on the roof. Other than the paint store, I don't know what was there.

We had three motels, the Waldorf, the Stardust, and the Martha Washington. The Stardust Lounge was closed for regular business, but you could rent it for receptions or other activities. Their sign advertised Fats Domino, until the letters fell off the marquee.

St. Charles was only one neighborhood, no one ever heard it called "Carrington" Smallwood drive was the main road through into it and it ran from 301, passed 925, over the railroad and dead-ended in front of the 7-11. The driveway to the church, there by the 7-11 and the gas station was the driveway to the neighborhood pool. (no church at the time). It was a nice pool, I heard they recently rediscovered it's existance.

Pinefield was the new neighborhood, where they were building all the fancy houses.

There were two elementary schools, Malcolm and JP Ryan and they'd just build a fancy new high school a couple year before, called Thomas Stone.

Dayum I feel old. (I"m 37)
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Ditto's on the above quote. I remember when McDonald's first opened, that was a very, very, big deal back then.
Don't forget Dr. Mudd Elementary, went there starting from 1st grade.
Now I'm 42. Lived on Copley Ave. from '67-'86
 
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Speedy70

***
greyhound said:
That would be soooooooo nice......... :popcorn:
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Especially for the shopping center where Safeway is. I've been there twice this week and there was a lot of riff-raff there both times (young and old). One guy would not stop staring at me and gave me the creeps. I was trying to figure out why you don't see that crap at the other shopping center where Giant is.
 
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OldHillcrestGuy

Well-Known Member
Speedy70 said:
Especially for the shopping center where Safeway is. I've been there twice this week and there was a lot of riff-raff there both times (young and old). One guy would not stop staring at me and gave me the creeps. I was trying to figure out why you don't see that crap at the other shopping center where Giant is.
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Darn I was hoping you would'nt catch me stalking you. :razz:
 
B

Bruzilla

Guest
Simon just built one of those malls in Jacksonville, just a mile from where I work, and I don't care for it at all. It really sucks in the summer if you wear glasses (like I do) because you're going into a store with the AC blowing, then coming out into a fog from the humidity, then back into the next store. In between bumping into folks you can't see, and having to wait a minute every time you enter a store for your glasses to clear, it's just not fun. The other problem is the stores don't have passthroughs, so if you're on one street, and the store you're going to is on another street, you're going to be doing some walking. It's not like an enclosed mall where there are escalators and crossovers so you can get from store to store quickly.

I think they're going to have a problem in Waldorf with the upscale restaurants because there won't be much of a lunch business. I work at Blue Cross where we have 8,000+ employees, and we're next to the Merill Lynch complex that has about 4,000+, so there are a lot of well paid lunch goers to support the mall here. Without the lunch business the high-end restaurants wouldn't be able to stay profitable. I don't see a lot of repeat business for places charging $20+ for lunch in the Waldorf area.
 

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Dymphna

Dymphna

Loyalty, Friendship, Love
Vote Flaherty said:
Ditto's on the above quote. I remember when McDonald's first opened, that was a very, very, big deal back then.
Don't forget Dr. Mudd Elementary, went there starting from 1st grade.
Now I'm 42. Lived on Copley Ave. from '67-'86
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You're right, I forgot Dr. Mudd, which was my bad, since my aunt went to school there, in fact, since she's also 42, and lived a block off of Copley from 69-82, I guess you went to school with her.

Middleton Elem was probably built around the same time as Mudd and Ryan too, they all have that same design that the county used over and over again. They built a lot of schools in the late 60's and early 70's

My knowledge of St. Charles City back then was actually limited to my visits to my "city-folk" relatives, there.
 
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