In 2004, then-County Council member Kenneth Ulman voted to reject a developer's request to add 1,600 housing units to downtown Columbia, calling the plan too vague.

Four years later, Ulman said he's more optimistic about a 30-year plan to redevelop downtown with new businesses, homes and pedestrian walkways that officials of General Growth Properties Inc. unveiled April 28.

"What I see here gives us a great opportunity to create a special place," said Ulman, who is now county executive. "I did not see that happening ... four or five years ago when I was on the (council)."

The plan that General Growth unveiled this week is the end result of a process that began in 2005 and is based on a "framework" that Ulman unveiled in 2007, saying he expected General Growth officials to follow the suggestions outlined in the document as they drafted a plan to guide downtown's rebuilding.

The framework called for a lively, walkable downtown, but left the details of how to achieve that to General Growth.

The plan General Growth unveiled this week adheres to the framework, but is short on details, Ulman said.

"I'm pleased and optimistic, but with lots of questions," he added. "Clearly, there's still a lot of work to do."

Ulman said he still wants to know who would pay for downtown's redevelopment.

General Growth officials have floated the idea of financing some key projects through the creation of a special taxing district, Ulman said, though they have discussed no details about how such a plan would work.

"It's a conversation I'm open to having, but it's a delicate issue," he said.

He added that the 5,500 new housing units General Growth is proposing for downtown "seems like too much."

"I'm keeping an open mind," he said. "But they've got to demonstrate how that's going to be absorbed."

E-mail Jennifer Broadwater at jbroadwater@patuxent.com.

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