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UPDATED March 25:

Here's a summary of the updated information contained throughout this thread.

Arundel Mills GW will be open till around the end of April.

GW has still not announced the location of the the new Battle Bunker in Maryland, but friends told me the location a few weeks ago and then it leaked out to some others as well. Once someone else posted it here I decided to let fly with everything I know. Another forum member finally spotted a sign at the location posted by the shopping center management yesterday. That photo is posted further along in this thread. The exact address and associated information are shown below.

Supposedly, GW wants the Battle Bunker open around the time they close Arundel Mills, but no announcement about this has been made yet and progress does not appear to have been made to date at the new location. However, the end of April is a month away and a lot can be accomplished in that time. We'll have to wait and see.

Interviews for the Battle Bunker Manager job take place during the first couple weeks of April. Several internal applicants are vying for the job, some from Maryland and some from outside the area.

Here's the new Battle Bunker location information. There's plenty of food and services in the area both at the actual shopping center and at many locations extremely close by on Route 450 and Route 301. Some nearby restaurants and quick food options include Outback Steakhouse, 7-Eleven, Grace's Fortune Chinese Food (excellent food!), Sakura, Pizza Hut, Glory Days, Taco Bell, Popeye's, Giant Food.

Games Workshop
Hilltop Plaza Shopping Center
6820 Race Track Road
Bowie, Maryland 20715

Md Route 450 & Race Track Road, Bowie, Maryland | 800-760-7118
http://hilltopplazabowie.com/

Hilltop is is easily accessible by Maryland Routes 3, 197 and 450. With our new construction and renovation underway, and a slew of exciting new shops moving in, Hilltop truly is...Better than Ever!

It's also easily accessible from State Highway 50 which drops you on Route 3 just down the road from the junction with 450.

April 27 UPDATE:
GW's latest newsletter announces the opening of the new Battle Bunker in Maryland, though they still insist on calling it the "Baltimore Battle Bunker" in spite of the fact that Bowie, MD is a suburb of D.C., not Baltimore:

North American News and Events
Hobby Centers

Baltimore Battle Bunker opening this month! Keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter for more info! Also, we have Hobby Centers in West Vancouver, BC, Cypress, TX, Toronto, ON, Houston, TX, Annapolis, MD, and Seattle, WA celebrating the founding of their store with a Birthday party in May! These events will feature gaming, prizes and a variety of different limited edition items, so if you're in the area, make sure you stop by! For exact dates, visit the store or our website.)

May 13 UPDATE:
Opening day and hours announced too. I'm already digging that 10-10 opening day. Just like old times.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?aId=16400045a

Bowie Bunker Opening Day

OPENING DAY! Join us at the new Bowie Bunker on Saturday, May 21st for a day of Games Workshop madness filled with gaming and hobby events! Bring your armies and prepare for battle!

6820 Race Track Rd.
Bowie, MD 20715
301-464-3246

Sat. Hours: 10am-10pm

May 13, Additional UPDATE:

Store Hours for the Bowie Battle Bunker:

Monday - Thursday 12-9
Friday 12-10
Sat. 10-10
Sunday 12-6

Remember, opening day is May 21!

BrassScorpion wrote:Games Workshop at Arundel Mills Mall is closing around Feb. 21. Apparently the Mall is raising rent on their tenants and GW was having no part of it. This is a closing, not a relocation.

However, the good news if there is any is that GW is still supposedly looking for a new Battle Bunker location in Maryland.

Probably about the time I leave...

Nice store, only shopped there a handful of times, but it sucks to see it go. I never really cared for that mall, even when it was brand new. Nice movie theater though. The Poor People Voluntary Taxation Center, aka the slots parlor, is gonna crank up the trashiness to 11 at that mall when its built.

NELS1031 wrote:The Poor People Voluntary Taxation Center, aka the slots parlor, is gonna crank up the trashiness to 11 at that mall when its built.

I thought it was a stupidity tax?

The beast goes by many names.

The bars already bring that crowd.

BrassScorpion wrote:Games Workshop at Arundel Mills Mall is closing around Feb. 21. Apparently the Mall is raising rent on their tenants and GW was having no part of it. This is a closing, not a relocation.

However, the good news if there is any is that GW is still supposedly looking for a new Battle Bunker location in Maryland.

Dang... Unless The Bunker opens up somewhere nearby, there goes lunchtime visits to GW...

Valete,

JohnS

True cygnnus, but the Columbia GW is not far off- I often wondered how 2 could coexist so closely... (although the Owings Mills and White Marsh GWs are probably a similar distance apart).

Sorry to hear this... but I have also heard that they are still searching for a Bunker location, so hopefully that continues.

Dang, I was just in there yesterday. I always stop in before I go in for a movie. I find it very hard to buy anything from them though with all the price increases that GW has done over the past few years. But it was always good to go in and play a different person other than my normal gaming group.

Beware local MD stores, with the Arundel Mills store closing, the person my group likes to call "Stewart" (from the SNL skits) will be looking for a new store to play at. If you ever see him and talk to him, you will know exactly who I am talking about. Don't waste your time playing him.

A friends of mine got a great deal on a citadel gaming board for about 80 bucks when the Franklin Mills, PA store closed. Anyone living in the MD area should become friendly with the staff if they are smart ...

MD folks who are looking for deals already got loads when the Bunker closed. Unfortunately, it's a really bad tradeoff . I didn't attend, was too sad to see it go...

BrassScorpion wrote:Games Workshop at Arundel Mills Mall is closing around Feb. 21. Apparently the Mall is raising rent on their tenants and GW was having no part of it. This is a closing, not a relocation.

However, the good news if there is any is that GW is still supposedly looking for a new Battle Bunker location in Maryland.

Just had a similar thing happen here, the local GW just closed down in December. Although there are a couple other gaming stores nearby, nothing as close to me as GW was.

Sigh, now the only one is in Pasadena for me. And that store seems to be closed more than it's open. Guess it's a good thing the DE didn't convince me to dive back in. By the time Chaos or Eldar get redone they'll probably have closed them all in Maryland.

RiTides wrote:True cygnnus, but the Columbia GW is not far off- I often wondered how 2 could coexist so closely... (although the Owings Mills and White Marsh GWs are probably a similar distance apart).

Sorry to hear this... but I have also heard that they are still searching for a Bunker location, so hopefully that continues.

'Fraid Columbia's too far for a lunch run for me... The Annapolis GW store is, almost literally, a stone's throw away from my house, so it's not like I don't have a GW option nearby, but it was kind of nice to have the option to hit GW at lunch for those impulse buys. Besides, Arundel Mills was, unlike some of other other stores in the area, open on Mon/Tues.

Kind of ballsy, though, for Arundel Mills to raise rent in the current climate. I haven't been there for a bit (Arundel Mills is the absolute last place I want to go around the holidays!), but I've seen more than a few local malls with a lot of open store fronts... Guess they're prepping for the coming self-taxation center.

Valete,

JohnS

Apparently, Arundel Mills Mall is raising rents on their tenants and demanding long-term, really long-term leases from them and they think they can get it because of the new "slots parlor" coming to that area. Seems they think it raises the value of their property. That remains to be seen, a lot of people feel the increased traffic and crime from the slots parlor might have the opposite effect.

BrassScorpion wrote:a lot of people feel the increased traffic and crime from the slots parlor might have the opposite effect.

a lot of people are not as stupid as my cynicism would believe.

Its too bad about the Arundel Mills store. I am surprised they decided to close it, considering that they just closed the bunker.

I am lucky to be in Northern Maryland where we have three GW shops. White Marsh where you can go across the street and drink, York Ridge where there is tons of space to paint and play, and Owings Mills where you can get WIFI from the coffee shop.

The thing that I will miss most about Arundel Mills spot are the Red Shirts. Well, one of them, at least. Everyone was alright, and it is unfortunate that I probably won't see them anytime soon, but I am really disliking the fact that I won't be able to see the guy that first got me into Guard. Hopefully I can get an army together in short order so I can have a play before the place closes down; I have only ever played a game in a GW once, and that was over in Columbia (and even then, it was a 200-point Killteam affair that was ended early, so I don't think it was that much of a game...)

At least the Columbia store is just about equadistance from my house as Arundel Mills is, so it won't be too much of a problem to get whatever it is I need.

Another thing I found out is how many of the Bunker staff got hired at other stores. I encountered one at the Olney GW, one in Owings Mills, and they said there were a few more elsewhere.

I believe the manager went into motivational speaking (he'd be good at it) and one staffer didn't want to continue to work for GW, but it looks like a lot of them got taken care of... which is good, since everything was so uncertain for a while there.

Hopefully the Arundel staff can find positions elsewhere, too, even if they have to re-apply like the Bunker staff did...

One guy from the Bunker did go to Olney, two others, the part-timers, went to Arundel Mills and so they are potentially losing their jobs for the second time since last September.

Sad to hear that. It was always nice to drop in when waiting for a movie there.
-Tim

Does this count as a profit?

From what I was told, the Arundel Mills store was once the number 1 store in sales, and then things went downhill fast. Rather then rehabilitate the store, they decided to close it.

What I see Games Workshop as doing is putting a store in an area, recruiting as many gamers as possible...when those gamers are saturated with product and more people cannot be recruited, and sales go down, they yank the store.

The Mall is now raising the rent by about 50% and demanding a long-term lease. GW was having no part of either, that was the trigger for the store closing at this time.

If the store was still the number 1 store in America, it would stay there, or at least be relocated. GW has a habit of getting rid of bad staff ( i.e. staff that are not selling lots of product) by getting rid of their store....

Raising the rent by a large amount, based on a casino that may bring in the wrong crowd, and being forced to take a long term lease is not a good combination. Especially in light of GW's trend to move out of malls, and going to 1-2 person stores.

'Long term' for malls means 8-10 years. That's a long time to lose money if things go bad. The casino could be a poison for a lot of businesses.

The Arundel Mills GW store closing has been postponed till April from the original Feb. 21 closure date announced last month. That's good news, two more months the store will be around.

But didn't they just open that place 2 years ago? i remember winning at the drawing they had at the grand opening.

I go to the one in Owings Mills, 25 mins away. Dave is a nice Manager. I live like 5 mins from White Marsh and 15 from the one in Timonium. Timonium is loud as hell because of the small children under 16 yr olds. Or at least they seem that way. White Marsh is jsut kinda meh.

OM just seems friendlier and more enjoyable.

Hey Smolo82, you should join the Fans of St. Thomas GW Facebook page... We're trying to help the community with communicatin'. You probably know me, but you just don't know it.

Its good to hear the Arundel Mills store will stay open a bit longer. Any word as to why the closing date was pushed back?