County buys ex-strip club

Rose's to make way for FDR Blvd.

Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009

The 27,947-square-foot property was purchased for $450,000 in order to demolish the building and connect the Bay District firehouse, Lexington Park library and Lexington Park Elementary School more directly to Great Mills Road. The former strip club property was appraised at $502,472 by the Maryland State Highway Administration.

Mary Rose Turner, who held the last liquor license in St. Mary's County that still allowed topless dancers, died in February and her survivors turned the license in.

The county commissioners agreed 3-1 to the purchase with Larry Jarboe (R) voting no and Kenny Dement (R) abstaining without stating a reason. After the property goes to settlement, the building will be torn down.

"We've had a lot of requests" for its demolition, said George Erichsen, director of St. Mary's County Department of Public Works and Transportation. "It's now a hangout place for folks," though it is vacant.

The Rose's Place II building was first permitted as a temporary use in 1954 "for ice cream and dairy products," Erichsen said, with the understanding that a road was intended to come through the property.

That roadway has been in the county's transportation plan since 1985 and county government has been interested in obtaining the property since 2003, said Liz Passarelli, county government's property manager. She said if the parcel was purchased through eminent domain, the full market value would likely have to be paid. She added that if someone else came along and purchased the land, it would cost even more to buy eventually.

Jarboe said he's been against buying the property since the mid-1990s and he was going to remain consistent. In September he called the purchase "another expense for the taxpayers."

"Consistency is something each commissioner should try to achieve," said Commissioner Daniel H. Raley (D) on Tuesday, "but we should try to achieve consistency to do the right thing."

He said of Rose's Place II, "It's no longer a club. It is a vacant building." County government has been moving infrastructure in Lexington Park along South Shangri-La Drive to keep it out from under the airspace of Patuxent River Naval Air Station, he said.

Willows Road now has more than 1,000 new homes along it, he said. "We are developing a choke point at Willows Road and Great Mills Road. We have to improve that infrastructure," he said.

A new entrance from Great Mills Road to the existing stub of FDR Boulevard between the firehouse and the library would allow more access for large fire trucks to get in and out.

"For us not to take advantage of this opportunity would be a poor decision on the part of the board of county commissioners," Raley said. "For us not do it today would be a tragic mistake."

The rest of FDR Boulevard exists in sections to the north in California from Wildewood down toward Chancellor's Run Road. Eventually it intended to run from Wildewood to the heart of Lexington Park.

jbabcock@somdnews.com