Municipalities and communities of Anne Arundel County, Maryland, United States
Piney Orchard is an unincorporated community within the Washington DC suburb of Odenton, Maryland, United States. Piney Orchard began as a Planned Unit Development, and was a project of the Constellation Real Estate Group, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Constellation Energy Group, which itself, is now owned by Exelon.
Construction of the community began in 1991, although groundbreaking for what was to become the Nature Preserve started in 1987, when Constellation Real Estate Group began the effort to restore wetlands in an area which had been mined for sand and gravel in the 1940s and 1950s. Several mitigation projects, the term used for this restoration, followed in five phases to replace wetlands filled in by the development of the community, and included the building and enhancement of five large ponds and the planting of shrubs, trees, and grasses native to the area. The Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees such efforts, monitored the progress of the mitigation sites until 1995, when it was determined the efforts had been successful. In 1996, the Piney Orchard Nature Preserve was officially opened.
More than 3500 housing units have been built in Piney Orchard and approximately 8500 residents live there. Constellation turned over the day-to-day supervision of Piney Orchard to the homeowners of the community in 2005. The Piney Orchard Community Association, or "POCA" as it is known, arranges several community-wide social activities and collects annual fees from all homeowners to maintain the aesthetic qualities of the community.
Piney Orchard Ice Arena, located at the corner of Piney Orchard Parkway and Riverscape Drive, had been the practice site for the Washington Capitals hockey team until 2006, when they moved to their newly built practice facility, Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Virginia.
