The Merriweather Post

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The Merriweather Post

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The Merriweather Post is a hyperlocal news site covering housing, development, policy and restaurants/retail in Columbia, MD and Howard County written by Jeremy Dommu.

08/01/2026

The Mall in Columbia has 6,675 parking spaces. The Banner and WBAL (links in comments) are reporting that beginning this Monday, August 3, 120 of those spots will now require payment ($2.45 for one hour, $6.45 for three, $10.45 for four or more). ~6,550 will remain free. Handicap spots are not impacted.

The paid spaces will be the non-handicap spaces in the central surface lot closest to Main Event, B&N, Seasons 52, Maggiano's, and the AMC Theatre. Keep in mind, there are ~800 spots in this lot to begin with (at least that's what ChatGPT estimated for me when I uploaded a Google satellite image and asked it to count them!), so only ~15% of the spots in that main lot will now require payment.

My take: this is a nothing burger, and makes total sense. That central surface lot is already a crowded headache, which I personally avoid, instead opting to park in the garage between Nordstrom and the restaurants, the public garage in the Warfield apartment buildings (yes, there are free public spots in there), in front of Lidl, or in the Nordstrom surface lot down the steps behind the AMC, depending on my destination. These lots always have plentiful parking available.

Perhaps the new paid spots will encourage people to spread out and seek alternatives instead of defaulting to their status quo.

This is not an indication that the Mall is failing, nor on crime, or anything else. Despite consumer shopping preferences shifting, the Mall in Columbia is a vibrant, successful retail destination that continues to change and evolve to meet our community's needs. It's able to attract new tenants, and this modest change is a sign of its continued success. I hope the paid spots are successful, and I'd welcome more spots being converted in the future.

Agree? Disagree?

07/25/2026

🚨 The Merriweather Post has been hijacked for the ultimate explainer on “New Town” zoning🚨

Michael Golibersuch, Vice Chair of the CA Board and member of the New Town Task Force, has hijacked The Merriweather Post while Jeremy is away to write a full breakdown of “New Town” — the 60-year-old zoning system that governs literally everything about how Columbia gets built (and rebuilt).

Density caps. The “Original Petitioner” loophole that hands veto power to Howard Hughes Co. Why townhouses are legally “apartments.” MIHU exemptions. The Kafkaesque approval maze that makes it nearly impossible to redevelop a Village Center.

10 rules, all 60 years old, all potentially about to change — and the incoming County Council will decide how.

If you’ve ever wondered why Columbia development works so differently than the rest of the county, THIS is the explainer.

📖 Read it here: https://themerriweatherpost.substack.com/p/what-upcoming-changes-to-new-town

07/21/2026

The first ever The Merriweather Post “HoCo Wonk” happy hour was a big success tonight at The Collective Encore! I want to thank Staci, Rea, and the entire Collective team for hosting us! Nearly 50 subscribers showed up to chat local politics, zoning, development, and any and everything else local that was on folks mind. No agenda, no requests, no fundraising, just folks who love chatting HoCo, chatting HoCo! Thank you so much to everybody who came out. I hope you enjoyed the evening as much I did. And for those who couldn’t make it, have no fear, this will become a quarterly event for paid-subscribers to The Merriweather Post, so please sign up and I’m looking forward to seeing you at the next one! - Jeremy

07/16/2026

Purely hypothetical question for you all: Would you rather Columbia keep its current 23 neighborhood outdoor pools — or trade some of them for one, bigger, better, massive new community pool, like this one in Ohio that somebody posted to r/ColumbiaMD earlier this week?

For example, what if Columbia kept *just* 15 to 18 neighborhood pools exactly as they are now, but added one major waterpark style pool like the one pictured, or maybe even better than it?

To be crystal clear: CA is NOT considering this. Just curious where the community lands, and why. Drop your take below. 👇

07/14/2026

When one of your favorite bands, Muse, is coming to Merriweather Post Pavilion in two weeks on July 28, but you are going to be away, you do the only logical thing, hop a flight to Cincinnati to see them when you could. Columbia, you all are in for a treat in 2 weeks!

07/11/2026

🌮 MYSTERY SOLVED: WHERE DID THE EL SABOR CHAPIN TACO TRUCK GO?

The beloved El Sabor Chapin taco truck built a devoted following over the past 3 years operating at the Sunoco in the Hickory Ridge Village Center — and then suddenly vanished in March. No sign. No goodbye. One day there were steak tacos, and the next day there were none.

So I went and got the whole story — on the record. From Sunoco, ROCO, Celia’s, Kimco Realty, and Carlos himself, who’s now operating up in Elkridge.

And yes, I looked into THE RUMORS circulating on social media about why he left. They’re not true — and I’ll show you why.

Also inside: why he had to leave, and the simple move that could bring him back to Hickory Ridge.

👉 Full story, as always, free: https://open.substack.com/pub/themerriweatherpost/p/solving-the-mystery-of-the-disappearance? 🌮

07/10/2026

🍽️ FOGO DE CHÃO 🥩 AND NAN XIANG SOUP DUMPLINGS 🥟 ARE COMING TO THE MALL IN COLUMBIA —they taking over the exterior-facing spaces that Walrus Oyster & Ale House, Chicken + Whiskey, and Bennie’s Pizza left dark more than a year ago.

If you know, you know - Fogo is a Brazilian Gaucho steakhouse chain. Chefs walk the floor with skewers of picanha, sirloin, filet, beef rib and more and you flip a little card — green for KEEP IT COMING I WILL EAT IT ALL, red for PLEASE HAVE MERCY, I GIVE UP. There’s a gigantic salad bar and charcuterie. It’s prix-fixed all you can eat! I have a soft spot here. I normally dislike chains but ever since first went to a Fogo as a teenager in Atlanta 30 years ago, I have been hooked. My motto as a teen - green must stay up. My motto now - green only up for the premium cuts. My family last took me to the Baltimore location for my birthday a couple years back. I still have the meat sweats. I still regret nothing.

Nan Xiang Soup Dumplings is also a chain but a chain that has been Michelin-recommended NINE YEARS RUNNING for their xiao long bao. Soup dumplings in pork, crab, chicken, truffle, scallop, abalone varieties — or order a “Lucky Six” basket with one of each. Pan-fried pork buns, siu mai, shrimp potstickers, hand-pulled noodles. It’s legit!

So how did this news break?! That’s the strange part. This news was the LAST THROWAWAY SENTENCE of today’s Baltimore Banner story today about something else entirely.

Lillian Reed’s piece (link in comments) is about Desmond Reilly, who closed all three of his Columbia mall restaurants last year (Walrus, Chicken+Whiskey, Bennie’s) and he blamed crime at the Mall for their closure. I wrote at the time that I didn’t buy it. Turns out I was right. There plenty of other Downtown Columbia restaurants that are doing just fine, but increased competition means you gotta be good to survive. Sorry, but Walrus and Chicken+Whiskey were not good, but pour one out for Bennie’s.

Court records now show Reilly stopped paying its $18,200 monthly rent in SEPTEMBER 2023. EIGHTEEN MONTHS before The Mall evicted him and they are now suing for $5.6M. Oops!

📌 A note on sourcing, because I checked: Nan Xiang is CONFIRMED — it’s on their own website, Unit 3035, coming soon. Fogo is NOT CONFIRMED. No permit. No liquor license application. Nothing on Fogo’s site, nothing in their press releases. No hits on Google. The Banner is the only source that exists. Lillian’s good and I believe her. But that’s where we are.

—————

ABOUT THE MERRIWEATHER POST. Deep dive analysis on Substack. Breaking News bits on Facebook. Everything I write is free, for everyone. But, to support my work, becoming a paid subscriber on Substack (starting at $7/mo) is how you keep this going. And as an added bonus for paid subscribers, I’m hosting the first-ever The Merriweather Post “HoCo Wonk” Happy Hour later this month at Encore on the Columbia Lakefront. Date, RSVP form, and the subscribe link are all in this article👇 https://open.substack.com/pub/themerriweatherpost/p/youre-invited-the-first-ever-the?

07/09/2026

The first-ever Merriweather Post “HoCo Wonk” Happy Hour is coming up later this month at The Collective Encore, on the Columbia Lakefront.

This is an EXCLUSIVE EVENT FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS of The Merriweather Post.

Anybody who reads my in-depth articles on Substack, or follows my breaking news alerts here on Facebook, knows this publication is an enormously time-consuming effort. It’s one I love doing, and one I’m committed to keeping all articles free for everyone, because a community that understands the nuanced issues shaping its future makes better decisions about that future. Becoming a paid subscriber is the best way to support that work and keep it coming.

Paid subscriptions to my Substack start as low as $7/month. Please consider subscribing, and I hope to see many of you at the event.

It’s going to be a low-key happy hour schmooze. No asks, no speeches, no donations requested. Just a chance to socialize with me and others who share a passion for Columbia and Howard County.

Encore’s happy hour pricing on food and drinks will be available all evening.

MORE DETAILS — including the date and the RSVP form — are below the paid break in the article linked in the comments. You can also find the link to subscribe to the Substack there!

I’m looking forward to it! And a HUGE THANK YOU to Encore for hosting this one!

07/07/2026

The Long Reach Village Center redevelopment was one signature away from Zoning Board approval — Then the developer, Columbia Concepts (yes, that Columbia Concepts - the entity also selected to redevelop The Source) asked to DELAY ITS OWN APPROVAL. Why? The most likely reason: they don’t actually own the land they’re planning to build on. Full breakdown 👇

https://open.substack.com/pub/themerriweatherpost/p/the-redevelopment-that-stopped-itself

07/03/2026

🚨 THE SOURCE UPDATE: The meeting's cancelled. The questions aren't.

The Howard County Council special meeting that had been set for June 30 with the development team behind The Source — the Columbia community center that received a $25 million county grant — was cancelled.

Here's how the meeting fell apart. It takes three councilmembers to call a special meeting, and councilmembers Jung, Walsh, and Yungmann had signed on — until Yungmann pulled his support, saying he wants the county auditor's documents in hand first. So the meeting isn't happening at this time.

Look - this whole project got tangled up in campaign season — ethics complaints, donor stories, accusations everywhere. I'm not here to referee that fight.

But now that the primary's over, the legitimate questions remain — and the one chance to answer them just got cancelled.

QUESTION ONE: How was $12.2 million spent before construction begins? There's no reason to believe that the money was spent on anything other than legitimate expenditures, but the amount has raised questions — and an audit, apparently underway, will settle it. Good. That's worth waiting for.

QUESTION TWO — The one I keep asking and the one that could be answered now: Will The Source get built with $25 million as the ONLY public money? The math: roughly $70 million in total project cost, $25 million public, a ~$45 million gap that the developers always said private investors would cover. So where's that investment — has it closed, and what's the status? That's the answer I was most hoping The Source's team would give at the meeting.

Here's my take: I want this project built. A group of good-faith community builders trying to provide young men and women a place with purpose and opportunity is worth rooting for, especially if private investors are going to pay for (most of) it! But my business instincts keep telling me that this project doesn't make fiscal sense the way it has been laid out — community centers don't generate revenue, and banks and investors don't fund projects that don't.

These are entirely reasonable questions for any resident to be asking. Because if that private money isn't coming, we're looking at either $25M of public money stranded on a stalled project — or more public money needed that was never part of the announced deal. To be clear, I'm not opposed to public dollars here; it may well be worth it. But the budget's finite, and the County should weigh every capital project against one another as part of the normal budget process.

Yungmann had made these same points when he originally raised questions about the Source back in 2025, so I'm puzzled he is no longer interested in finding out the answer to my second question.

The election's over. So what's the reason for the silence now? The public deserves transparency and accountability, and for the folks behind the Source, providing these answers has always been the best way to gain public support.

📖 More on The Source — and everything Howard County — at The Merriweather Post 👉 https://themerriweatherpost.substack.com/

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