LEONARDTOWN — Whoever ends up building homes on the Tudor Hall property, Leonardtown’s elected leaders want one thing in the ground before the houses: a main road running the full length of the tract, from Clark’s Rest to downtown.
Mayor Dan Burris told the Town Council on Nov. 9 that he recently spoke by phone with the developer of Tudor Hall and laid out the town’s position that the road should be built all the way through rather than in pieces. Burris said the developer was receptive, even though, by the mayor’s account, the team drawing the concept plans had said a continuous road probably would not work.
The account came during the mayor’s report and reflects only Burris’s description of the call. No plan was presented and the council took no vote. The mayor also said the developer does not intend to build the project himself, which means the commitments that matter will be the ones written into whatever plan the town eventually approves.
Tudor Hall is the large undeveloped tract between downtown Leonardtown and the Clark’s Rest neighborhood off Route 5, and it has been the subject of development proposals for decades. An earlier concept, still described on an archived page of the town’s website, called for 593 homes along with a hotel and conference center, a marina, an office park and a golf course on land fronting Breton Bay and McIntosh Run. That version was never built.
Why the road comes first
Burris said he told the developer the town needs the road to come all the way down into the downtown street grid, in part so that people living in the new neighborhood can walk into town. He said he also raised the kind of housing the town wants closest to the square: smaller units such as apartments and condominiums.
A council member said during the discussion that the developer’s side had wanted to build the road in two or three phases and that the town has insisted from the start that it go in first. Members described the road as the up-front investment the town has asked for since the project was first discussed, and one noted that a development of that size needs more than one way in and out.
Phasing a road with the houses is the cheaper path for a builder, because it spreads the cost over years of lot sales. The town’s concern is the reverse: a first phase that connects only to Route 5 would function as a stand-alone subdivision for years, sending its traffic to the highway and its residents to their cars rather than linking them to downtown shops and restaurants.
Tudor Hall is already shaping town spending
The project surfaced repeatedly at the same meeting, even without a plan on the table. In her report, the town administrator said Duke Street is being donated to the town and will need what she called a pretty expensive repair before Tudor Hall comes in. She also said the town needs to video a long stretch of sewer line running through Tudor Hall to Route 5 to learn its condition, after finding a badly deteriorated pipe when the McIntosh pump station was replaced. Both were on a list of infrastructure projects the town is lining up, some of which may need budget amendments.
Tudor Hall also figures in the town’s parking plans. While asking the council to consider raising the fee developers pay in lieu of providing parking, the administrator said she hopes a public-private partnership for a future parking garage could come out of the Tudor Hall plan for the part of the property nearest downtown.
The town has room to plan. Its auditor reported a clean fiscal 2026 audit at the same meeting, with the general fund’s unassigned balance equal to 96% of this year’s budget, though staff cautioned the council against spending it before the infrastructure list is priced.
Tudor Hall is separate from the 22-unit Courthouse apartments, which won final approval from the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission in October and are much further along.
Burris did not give a timeline for a Tudor Hall submission. Any concept plan would go first to the Planning and Zoning Commission and then to the council, where the road’s alignment and the order of construction would be set as conditions of approval. The council’s next regular meeting is in December.
