Designed to meet LEED Gold criteria, Little Patuxent Square offers 125,000 square feet of Class A office space, 160 luxury apartments, and 45,000 square feet of retail space in downtown Columbia, MD.

With a frontage on Little Patuxent Parkway – the main road that links the central business district of Columbia, MD with the performing art center, Merriweather Post Pavilion, and central shopping district – Little Patuxent Square sits between The Mall and Lake Kittamaqundi. The 668,000 sf mixed-used complex is composed of a 10-story 125,000 sf office building, a 12-story 160-unit residential building with recreation amenities, and a 12,000 sf space designed for a fitness center with a requirement for a regulation basketball court, retail, and a 744 parking space. Bordered by Wincopin Circle, the 54,450 sf site slopes 2.5 stories from the NW corner down to the SE corner. The height for any building on the site is limited to a maximum of 120’-0”. Pivotal to Downtown Columbia’s redevelopment efforts, the LEED gold designed project reinforces the city’s vision for a walk-able, pedestrian-friendly streetscape, and sustainable growth.

CORE’s team addressed the complicated program involving complex structural and mechanical requirements by applying a 3-D “puzzle” approach more typical for a downtown urban area in order to achieve a cohesive design. The solution involved vertically stacking unrelated elements (residential on top of a large fitness program and parking structure), with a strategically placed structure to achieve the maximum benefit for each individual use. To achieve the continuity of retail and sloping of the street, the retail design draws its inspiration from a hill town mirroring the organic nature of its topography. The ground floor retail is designed to engage the edges of the site, promoting interaction between building tenants and the surrounding environment. To further reduce the effect of vehicular intrusion, the project features only one vehicle entrance above ground while all 744 parking spaces are placed below grade.

To achieve the quiet and rational nature of the design, the office building is wrapped in a clean stick-built curtain wall, deploying a range of vision glass, shadowbox, and metal panel, delivering a subdued tailored mass. The glass façade parallel to Little Patuxent Parkway is skewed slightly. As a result, the office building takes on a gentle trapezoid shape, that slightly points towards Wincopin Circle for a more slender glass elevation on the South side. The residential building, in stark contrast with the office building, is mainly composed of a warm color brick, dark metal panel, and glass wall. The L-shaped building, with the narrow West side connected directly with the office building, attaches only at the lower level via a shared egress path. Both buildings meet at the same height level, topping out right below the maximum height of 120’-0”. To showcase the complex relationship between the building components, each of the residential building corners are composed of a floor-to-floor glass wall to pick up the simplicity and lightness of the office building. Offering uninterrupted views of the lake on the East side, the residential building is branded as “The Lake House” to reflect the proximity and influence of Lake Kittamaqundi. The primary office space tenant is Optum. Howard Bank opened a branch on the ground floor. 

Photo credit: Ron Ngiam

Client: Costello Construction