An open space bordering the Tanyard Springs residential community in Glen Burnie will soon be transformed into a county park.
Construction of the future Tanyard Springs Park, at the corner of Heritage Crossing and Tanyard Springs Lane, is anticipated to begin Monday, according to Kathryn Garafola, a project manager for the county’s public works department. The county expects the park to be completed by fall 2025.
Plans for the park, in the works for several years, include a lighted multipurpose field, baseball and softball fields, a park pavilion with picnic tables and bike racks, a playground and walking paths that connect tonearby Tanyard Trail.
The estimated cost for the park is roughly $6.3 million, according to Anne Arundel County’s fiscal 2025 capital budget.
Lights on the multipurpose field, which is large enough to hold soccer or lacrosse games, are planned to be cutoff-style fixtures, meaning light will only be directed onto the field, said Jonathan Norman, a project manager for Pennoni Associates, a consulting firm. Lights will be turned out by 10 p.m. when the fields are in use.
At a virtual meeting Thursday, residents on Mockingbird Circle, which abuts the planned park, raised concerns about trees being removed behind their homes. It’s not the first time residents in the neighboring Tanyard Springs development have voiced worries about trees, or the project as a whole. In July 2023, dozens of residents submitted comments to the county opposing the plans, focusing on traffic and loss of green space.
Nearly two acres of the forested area are set to be cleared from the park site, as well as a 31-foot southern red oak and a 32-foot willow oak, though the county is planning to replant some native trees and shrubs to compensate for the loss, Norman said. The county is also paying a fee in lieu, which will go toward planting trees in other parts of the county.
Others, including Tanyard Springs resident Mike Brown, have questioned the need for a new community park with Solley Park, an existing county park with athletic amenities, nearby.
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“Why can’t we improve the parks that we already have in the northern district before adding another park, especially within a residential district?” he said Friday.
Brown, who has lived in the community for a decade, raised concerns about the project at a county meeting last summer, though he knew the park’s development would be “inevitable.” Even though he finds cutting trees “disheartening,” Brown said he feels that residents and the county came to a compromise on certain aspects.
The county is also planning a 38-space paved parking lot with seven accessible spots, as well as a 150-space grass parking lot with enclosed portable toilets for larger events. The portable toilets will be removed in the winter months.
The grassy lot could “easily” be turned into a paved parking lot for future plans on another part of the site, Norman said.
A portion of the land was set aside for future development, with potential use by the county public schools system, said Bruce Bruchey, chief of planning and construction for Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation and Parks. Plans presented last year to the community indicated the grassy overflow parking lot could be used as a parking lot for a future elementary school.
“Right now, we’re not sure if it’s going to be the schools or if they would ask us if we wanted to use it for further park development,” Bruchey said Thursday.
The property is still considered a future school site, said Bob Mosier, a spokesperson for Anne Arundel County Public Schools, though no project is planned in the school system’s six-year capital improvement plan and there’s no definitive timeline for adding a new school there.
Current Anne Arundel County Public Schools bus stops at Tanyard Springs Lane and Heritage Crossing, however, will be relocated, Garafola said, with new stops shifted farther down Tanyard Springs Lane at Mockingbird Circle and Tanyard Knoll Lane.
Traffic in and out of the community will be affected during construction, as a water line will be installed across Heritage Crossing. Workers will close one lane of traffic at a time at the construction site entrance to ensure access to the neighborhood, Garafola said. The county will do its best to make sure there isn’t an overflow of parking along the road, as well.
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