Basement Waterproofing | Columbia, MD | 21029-21044-21045
AquaGuard Waterproofing Services
AquaGuard Waterproofing contractors recognize that every home is unique and therefore treat every wet basement problem as such, creating a specific solution for every issue they come across. In order to decipher the root of your watery basement and construct an estimate for your personalized waterproofing service, AquaGuard offers FREE basement inspections and evaluations. We pride ourselves on providing the most cost-effective and noninvasive resolution to your problem. Our team doesn’t want to find the easiest way to finish the job and just put a band-aid on your foundation. Our goal is to do things right and find a permanent solution to keep your basement dry forever. AquaGuard specializes in exterior foundation repair, basement waterproofing, and crawl space waterproofing for existing homes. The first step is carefully excavating around your foundation before installing a plasmatic core membrane around your entire foundation. This high-tech material is dynamic, moving with your building’s foundation and resisting cracking, deterioration, and leaking. Forming a barrier between the water outside your home and your basement, this exterior foundation membrane is a great way to ensure your basement stays dry. If you suspect your original foundation coating is starting to fail or you’re noticing leaking, our foundation contractors can help. We offer basement waterproofing for commercial buildings as well as for private residences. From churches and schools to stores and offices, our waterproofing systems can help you avoid further damage, cleanup, and restoration costs and are the premier choice for any type of basement water problem. Our commercial basement waterproofing systems are your answer for a dry, safe commercial property, and they’re not a temporary fix but a long-term solution. Are you consistently finding water leaks in your basement? Are you noticing a damp or stale odor coming from down there? Do you hate rainstorms because you know that means a wet basement? If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions, you NEED to call AquaGuard Waterproofing today. We also offer foundation repairs and can assist you with the installation of egress windows. We service South Laurel and other surrounding areas.
Facts About Columbia
Columbia is a census-designated place in Howard County, Maryland, United States, and is one of the principal cities of the Baltimore metropolitan area and the Washington metropolitan area. It is a planned community consisting of 10 self-contained villages. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents’ quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, rather than merely economics and engineering. Opened in 1967, Columbia was intended to not only eliminate the inconveniences of then-current subdivision design, but also eliminate racial, religious and class segregation. Columbia was founded by James W. Rouse (1914-1996), a native of Easton, Maryland. In 1935, Rouse obtained a job in Baltimore with the Federal Housing Administration, a New Deal agency whose purpose was to promote homeownership and home construction. This position exposed Rouse to all phases of the housing industry. Later in the 1930s he co-founded a Baltimore mortgage banking business. In the 1950s his company, by then known as James W. Rouse and Company, branched out into developing shopping centers and malls. In 1957 Rouse formed Community Research and Development, Inc. (CRD) for the purpose of building, owning and operating shopping centers throughout the country. Community Research and Development, Inc., which was managed by James W. Rouse and Company, became a publicly-traded company in 1961. In 1966, Community Research and Development, Inc. changed its name to The Rouse Company, after it had acquired James W. Rouse and Company in exchange for company stock.
By the early 1950s Rouse was also active in organizations whose goals were to combat blight and promote urban renewal. Along the way, he came to recognize the importance of comprehensive planning and action to address housing issues. A talented public speaker, Rouse’s speeches on housing matters attracted media attention. By the mid-1950s he was espousing his belief that in order to be successful, cities had to be places where people succeeded. In a 1959 speech he declared that the purpose of cities is for people, and that the objective of city planning should be to make a city into neighborhoods where men, women and their families can live and work, and, most importantly, grow in character, personality, religious fulfillment, brotherhood, and the capacity for joyous living. In the early 1960s,
Rouse decided to develop a new model city. Rouse’s ideas about what a new model city should be like were informed by a number of factors, including his personal Christian faith as well as the goal for his company to earn a profit, influences that he did not consider to be incompatible with one another. After exploring possible new city locations near Atlanta, Georgia, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, Rouse focused attention between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. in Howard County, Maryland. In April 1962, Mel Berman, a longtime Howard County resident who was also a member of the CRD’s Board of Directors, saw a sign on Cedar Lane in Howard County advertising 1,309 acres (530 ha) for sale.
Berman reported the option to the CRD and a decision was made to purchase the land. This was the first of 165 land purchases made by Rouse over the next year-and-a-half. In order to keep land costs low, Jack Jones, an attorney from Rouse’s firm of Piper Marbury, set up a grid system to secretly buy land through dummy corporations like the “Alaska Iron Mines Company”. Some of these straw purchasers included Columbia Industrial Development Corporation, 95-32 Corporation, 95-216 Corporation, Premble, Inc., Columbia Mall, Inc., Oakland Ridge Industrial Development Corporation, and Columbia Development Corporation. Robert Moxley’s firm Security Realty Company (now Security Development Group Inc), negotiated many of the land deals for Jones, becoming his best client. CRD accumulated 14,178 acres (57.38 km2), 10 percent of Howard County, from 140 separate owners. Rouse was turned down in financing from David Rockefeller, who had recently cancelled a planned Rouse “Village” concept called Pocantico Hills.The $19,122,622 acquisition was then funded by Rouse’s former employer Connecticut General Life Insurance in October 1962 at an average price of $1,500 per acre ($0.37/m²). The town center land of Oakland Manor was purchased from Isadore Guldesky who was turned down from building high-rises on the site by Rob Moxley’s brother, County Commissioner and land developer Norman E. Moxley. Sensing that he had a key property, he requested $5 million for his 1,000 acres (400 ha), signing an agreement by hand on a land plat. The competition between Rouse and Guldesky carried over to the competing Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria projects, with each hiring their competitor’s employees.
A Storied History
At the unveiling on June 21, 1967, James Rouse described Columbia as a planned new city which would avoid the leap-frog and spot development threatening the county. The new city would be complete with jobs, schools, shopping, and medical services, and a range of housing choices. Property taxes from commercial development would cover the additional services with which housing would burden the county. The urban planning process for Columbia included not only planners but also a convened panel of nationally recognized experts in the social sciences, known as the Work Group. The fourteen-member group of white men and one woman, Antonia Handler Chayes, met for two days, twice a month, for half a year starting in 1963 The Work Group suggested innovations for planners in education, recreation, religion, and health care, as well as ways of improving social interactions. Columbia’s open classrooms, interfaith centers, and the then-novel idea of a health maintenance organization (HMO) with a group practice of medical doctors (the Columbia Medical Plan) sprung from these meetings. The community’s physical plan, with neighborhood and village centers, was also decided. Columbia’s “New Town District” zoning ordinance gave developers great flexibility about what to put where without requiring county approval for each specific project. Columbia has never incorporated; some governance, however, is provided by the non-profit Columbia Association, which manages common areas and functions as a homeowner association with regard to private property. The first boards were filled entirely with Rouse Company appointees. The first manager of the Columbia Association was John Estabrook Slayton (d. 1967). For Slayton’s contributions to the early planning of Columbia, the community center in the Wilde Lake village, Slayton House, was named for him. Wilde Lake was the first village area to be developed in Columbia; accordingly, the town’s first high school was Wilde Lake High School, which opened in 1971 as a “model school for the nation”. Constructed in the open classroom style, it was razed in 1994 but reconstructed on the same site in 1996. Columbia Maryland is a city that has a storied past coupled with many historic buildings. While historic buildings tell an important story, they also come with their share of structural issues. Read below about how AquaGuard Waterproofing can provide assistance with some of these potential problems.
WHERE TO FIND US:
AquaGuard Waterproofing Corp
6820 Distribution Drive
Beltsville, Maryland 20705
(800) 784-9913
