Content area
Full text
It could just as easily happen in any community: Developer pitted against neighborhood. Rumors flying. Residents panicking about commercial encroachment and the prospect of their property values dipping.
But in Us case on North Charles Street just inside Baltimore County, the struggle matches some of the area's more affluent residents against one of the most powerful real estate developers.
Willard Hackerman's nascent plan to demolish a long-time retail and office complex to build a chain drugstore on North Charles Street near Stevenson Lane has residents fighting back. Neighbors worry that Hackerman's concept and a flurry of requests to change the zoning along this easterly stretch of Charles Street between Stevenson Lane and Bellona Avenue could wreck the neighborhood's hope of creating an upscale village center.
Hackerman is someone who's hard to ignore. He is president and CEO of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., by far the largest privately held firm in the Baltimore area.
During the past several years, Hackerman...