Long Reach, Columbia, Maryland

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Long Reach is a village in the northeast part of Columbia, Maryland, along Maryland Route 108. It began in 1971 and is one of Columbia’s oldest villages. It includes four neighborhoods: Jeffers Hill, Kendall Ridge, Locust Park, and Phelps Luck. About 15,600 people live there. The village is governed by five elected board members through the Long Reach Community Association, Inc. The Village Office is in Stonehouse, the community center that opened in 1974.

The name Long Reach comes from a 448-acre land grant named Long Reach, granted to Major Edward Dorsey in 1696 near Dorsey’s Search. The Dorsey family owned the land for generations and it was developed and divided over time. The area later became part of the Columbia development in the 1960s, with farmland and an apple orchard among the features of the land.

Across the core area, Pfeffer’s Corner sits at the crossroads of Waterloo Road and Old Montgomery Road. It once had a blacksmith, a general store, and a schoolhouse, and German prisoners of war from Fort Meade worked there during World War II. Many streets in Long Reach, including in Jeffers Hill, are named after works by the poet Robinson Jeffers.

Long Reach Village Center is a key hub. It covers about 84,000 square feet and was designed in 1971 and opened in 1974. It housed 19 stores, including a grocery store, Pappy’s restaurant, a gas station, and The Columbia Art Center, which offers classes and exhibitions. The center was once tightly managed by the original developer, and later faced high rents and crime problems. About 17 percent of Long Reach’s housing is subsidized.

In 2014 and 2015, Howard County began plans to redevelop the village center. The county bought portions of the property and explored options, including relocating the arts council to the center and bringing in Celebration Church to the old Safeway space. A 2015 community meeting, ReImagine Long Reach, looked at renovation ideas and lessons from other village centers.