Will new development make Towson a better Bethesda?

Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz sure thinks so.

An $85 million project under construction known as Towson Square will bring a 16-screen Cinemark movie theater, restaurant and retail space and a 862-space parking garage to a site adjacent to Towson Town Center, Towson Patch reported. And at a press conference announcing three restaurant tenants for the development – Nando’s Peri-Peri, La Tagliatella, and On the Border Mexican Grill & Cantina – Kamenetz said the development would be "better than Bethesda, better than Silver Spring or whatever else [Montgomery County Executive] Ike Leggett can churn up in Montgomery County.”

“[Kemenetz] mentioned Bethesda no less than half-a-dozen times during his news conference, even using it to punctuate comments made by others,” Patch editor Bryan Sears wrote in his blog, ‘Insider Politics.’ “Sigmund Freud had his penis envy. Perhaps we can call this Bethesda Inferiority Complex?”

Inferiority complex or no, it sounds like Bethesda’s reputation as a mixed-use destination has come to be recognized across the state.

Leggett’s response? In an email to Patch via a spokesman, he wrote:

“We wish Towson well.”

Read the full story at Towson Patch.

What do you think? Will the new Towson Square be better than Bethesda Row? Has Bethesda created a standard for developers across the state to match? Tell us in the comments.