After three years of development, a master plan for the Crownsville Memorial Park has been finalized.

The 220-page document illustrates how the former hospital grounds, opened in 1911 as the Maryland Hospital for the Negro Insane, will be transformed into a park. The hospital’s troubled history will be told through educational facilities and by developing the land into “a place of healing, a place that focuses on mental health and physical health and well-being,” County Executive Steuart Pittman said during a Feb. 12 morning news conference.

The plan is similar to a draft released in October, Pittman said, which details existing site conditions, the county’s outreach efforts and recommendations for each part of the historic, nearly 500-acre property. Since then, the county has made several additions including cost estimates, traffic analyses, and a commitment to “preserve and protect the natural resources at [the] headwaters of the South River,” according to the document.

“We want to transform this from a site that we were ashamed of to a facility that we can be proud of,” said Chris Trumbauer, county budget officer and chair of the Crownsville Advisory Committee.

While the officials declined to give an estimate of how much the project will cost during the news conference, Trumbauer pointed to an analysis by Design Collective, a Baltimore architectural firm, within the plan that itemizes many elements. For example, recreation and landscaping is estimated at $67.3 million, which includes developing retaining walls, sidewalks and parking.

“The administration isn’t approaching this as a one bottom-line working number. We’re focusing on the individual components and looking for partners to make it happen,” Trumbauer said.

The county has already received $4.1 million from the federal government for trails and open spaces, said Renesha Alphonso, spokesperson for the county.

As of Wednesday, there are no specific start dates for any parts of the plan. Instead, there are “short-term actions” that can be completed in five years or less such as renovating or demolishing buildings or upgrading athletic fields on the property. Other items such as the Path of Reverence — a trail that will lead to the Crownsville patient cemetery at the Bacon Ridge Natural Area — are expected to take longer.

Janice Hayes-Williams, who helped the county acquire the property in 2022, wants the park to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. Hayes-Williams discovered the cemetery in 2001 and identified patients buried there. She is the organizer of the “Say My Name” ceremony, an annual clean-up event that also includes the reading of the names of the 1,700 patients buried there.

“We need to be honored for what happened there, what happened and where we are going. It’s a national site worthy of that honor,” Hayes-Williams said. The county will pursue that effort, Alphonso said.

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