County offers $450,000 for old strip club

Rose's Place II would be torn down to extend FDR Boulevard to library

Friday, Sept. 11, 2009

License holder Rose Turner died earlier this year, and with her went the license. Now St. Mary's County government has offered her survivors $450,000 for the property so FDR Boulevard can connect from the Lexington Park library to Great Mills Road.

John "Tex" Turner, Rose Turner's widower, said Wednesday he hasn't seen the offer from his attorney yet.

The 27,878-square-foot property was appraised by the Maryland State Highway Administration recently as part of preparation for a streetscaping project on Great Mills Road. The appraisal listed the value of the property at $502,000, said Francis Jack Russell (D), president of the St. Mary's County commissioners.

For property tax purposes, the land and building is valued at $394,900, according to the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation. Usually land acquisition projects are conducted behind closed doors and are confidential until it's time to vote on a purchase. Because word leaked out, Russell said this week, he decided to go into detail about the acquisition. "Everything in executive session gets very sticky," he said.

Commissioner Larry Jarboe (R) voted against going into the closed-door session Aug. 25, and voted against the offer. "I voted against a lot of the bailouts and the buyouts over the years," he said Wednesday. He called the offer "another expense for the taxpayers."

"The county is looking at this piece of land because it's been in our transportation plan for Lexington Park," Russell said. "The path through Rose's has never changed."

A letter dated July 9, 1985, from Frank Gerred, then the director of St. Mary's County Planning and Zoning, to Rose Turner's attorney said, "the transportation plan for Lexington Park does indicate a continued desire for some time in the future to extend Roosevelt Boulevard through the aforementioned property. Should this plan be adopted … Roosevelt Boulevard will be extended."

"This is a stand-alone project to enhance Lexington Park," Russell said. Great Mills Road can be connected to the Lexington Park library and Bay District firehouse without having to wait for FDR Boulevard to be fully constructed from California down to Great Mills Road, he said.

Parts of the roadway have been built already, mainly by developers. What started as an idea to provide an alternate and parallel route to Route 235 is now planned as a neighborhood connector road, with slower speeds and roundabouts.

Money has already been budgeted for acquisition of rights of way for FDR Boulevard. There is $650,000 in this fiscal year and $5.9 million for construction in fiscal 2011. The total estimate for the road is $16.3 million. FDR Boulevard is ultimately to be five miles long, from Route 235 in Wildewood down to the Lexington Park library. The fiscal 2010 county budget book estimates for FDR Boulevard acquisition for commercial properties to be between $10 and $20 per square feet. At an offer of $450,000, Rose's Place would sell for $16 a square foot.

Russell said, "I think we've acted responsibly in doing so and we've made an offer to the heirs."

Rose Turner's death and the closing of her establishment closed out an era. Decades ago bars featuring exotic dancers flourished in the Navy town of Lexington Park.

A 1988 state law banned nudity in bars in Southern Maryland, but a five-year grandfathering provision left Rose's in operation to 1993, and then beyond after a separate ruling.

The St. Mary's County zoning ordinance permits adult entertainment establishments, as a conditional use in town mixed use, downtown mixed use and commercial mixed use zones. No alcohol license is allowed and the business must be located above the ground level to prevent hawkers and loiterers, and to protect passersby from seeing something they don't want to see, said Harry Knight, permits coordinator with the St. Mary's County Department of Land Use and Growth Management. "Yeah, it's a permitted use," he said. "That is the complication — the lack of a [liquor] license."

Jarboe said county government would not be getting into the strip-club business.

jbabcock@somdnews.com