Baltimore Development News

[Jasonhouse]

The new thread for folks to post articles and renderings and commentary about development in and around Baltimore...




The link to the old threads in the NASF Archive...

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=706

http://skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=181660



One Light Street
Floors 24
Construction 2004
Approved

http://www.onelightstreet.com/images/page2.jpg


Spinnaker Bay
18 Stories, 32 units
Construction 2004
Under Construction

http://www.bozzuto.com/_images/homes/photo_spinnakerbay.jpg


951 Fell St
8 stories, 275 units
Under Construction


http://www.designcollective.com/fulllist.rxml

http://i.xanga.com/jaysonjaz/951fell.jpg


The Zenith
22 stories, 200 apartment units
Approved

http://www.designcollective.com/_internal/cimg!0/8vvu8jlcwt8

[Jasonhouse]

Just so folks know, this new thread was created, and the old one archived because that's the way Jan wants it... Super huge threads slow forum performance, so from now on, worthy development threads will be archived at 500 posts, and others will be closed and pruned in time.

[SoBoChris]

Yet another great sign from the Westside!

Optometrists eye building restoration
Architecture: Edward Gunts
Barenburg on west side to get $150,000 face-lift

Originally published Feb 7, 2005

The Great Fire of 1904, which started 101 years ago today, destroyed more than 70 blocks of downtown Baltimore, including 20 banks, eight hotels, nine newspaper plants and four lumberyards.

Now one of the survivors will be restored for another century of use as part of the city's efforts to revitalize the west side of downtown.

The Barenburg Building at 100 Park Ave., constructed in 1892 to house a bank and now home to Barenburg Eye Associates, will get a $150,000 face-lift this year to return its stone and brick exterior to the way it looked before the 1904 fire.

The five-story building has been owned since 1980 by optometrists Mark Gordon and Howard Levin and their wives. Gordon and Levin use it as the headquarters for their practice, Barenburg Eye Associates, a network of optometric offices that was founded in 1912 and now has eight locations around the Baltimore area.

Gordon and Levin upgraded the building's interior in the 1990s and intend to restore the exterior starting in the next few months. They plan to spend another $150,000 to restore the adjacent four-story building at 202 W. Fayette St. and make it part of their practice.

It's a clear vote of confidence in the west side as a place to do business.

"We're packed with patients," Gordon said. "We have a very large following, and we only anticipate that will increase. Park Avenue is our No. 1 office. People will come downtown for good services."

The project is small compared to the 3.6-acre "superblock" project planned nearby, a $100 million development expected to contain hundreds of residences and dozens of retailers in a mix of new and recycled buildings.

But it demonstrates how older buildings can continue to play a role in the west-side renewal efforts - and even set the tone for larger projects - when owners value the historic nature of the buildings they control.

With its rounded corner, rusticated granite base and conical roof tower, the Barenburg Building is one of the most distinctive structures on the west side, even though some of its features have been obscured over time. A report on file with the Maryland Historical Trust, by O'Connell and Associates, calls it "a study in late nineteenth century stylistic eclecticism."

DRC Inc. of Ellicott City is the general contractor for the restorations of 100 Park Ave. and 202 W. Fayette St. Both will comply with federal restoration standards, so the owners will be eligible for tax credits for historic preservation.

As part of the Barenburg Building restoration, awnings will be removed to reveal large arched windows overlooking Park Avenue and Fayette Street. The brickwork will be cleaned and repointed. The cornice and ledges will be repaired.

"A lot of the windows that are closed up are going to be reopened," said architect Peter Notari of Notari & Associates, the design firm working with the owners.

"When we take off what we're going to take off, it will go a long way toward bringing it back to its original state," Notari said.

"They're not just going to take it back. ... They're going to make it look better," said Baltimore Development Corp. President M. Jay Brodie, who praised the project during an announcement last week about the status of the "superblock" project.



The Barenburg Building was constructed to house the Border State Savings Bank, which was incorporated in 1874.

The building was partially reconstructed in 1914 to move the main banking rooms to the ground floor, add an apartment for the directors and shift the entrance from the corner to the Park Avenue side. A 1920 photo shows a sign pointing to a barbershop in the basement.

The Great Fire of 1904 began at 10:48 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, and burned for 30 hours, until 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 8. It killed five people and destroyed about 1,500 buildings and 2,500 businesses, leaving 35,000 workers jobless.

One of the characteristics that makes the west side of downtown different from and in some ways more interesting than Baltimore's central business district is that it contains buildings that pre-date the fire and represent a variety of architectural styles.

By contrast, Baltimore's financial district was largely destroyed and rebuilt, so it contains many buildings dating from 1905 but few that were constructed before. There tends to be a certain sameness to streets where all the buildings were constructed within the same decade.

The Barenburg Building is noteworthy, Gordon said, because it marks the spot on the west side of downtown where the Great Fire stopped. To the west of it, buildings survived. But "all the buildings across the street are much newer."

Barenburg Eye Associates was founded by J.W. Barenburg, a physician who started an optometric practice on Eastern Avenue and expanded to Park Avenue in 1937.

Barenburg ran his Park Avenue office from 1937 to 1955 and lived upstairs in the building during that time.

Gordon said he and Levin kept the name when they bought the practice because Barenburg was so well known and respected - the place where many Baltimoreans got their first eye exams. "It's been an institution for so long," Gordon said. "He was ahead of his time."

[Brian21]

I think that another skyscraper should be constructed in the Mechanic Theatre's place. Its the perfect spot. right over top of the subway system dowtown smack dab in the CBD.

Also cityscape will look in the skyline although it will be partially blocked from the south by the 100E. Pratt. Can't wait until it begins construction :)

[fanofterps]

45% are under contract. Bulkhead work is going on AT the site. The actual construction of the foundation and buildings should begin in late spring. Sales department feels once they begin constructing the building sales will pick up full speed(people want to see a product).

2 page supplement appeared in Feb 6th New York times advertising the Ritz. The ad showed great pictures of the city.



I think that another skyscraper should be constructed in the Mechanic Theatre's place. Its the perfect spot. right over top of the subway system dowtown smack dab in the CBD.

Also cityscape will look in the skyline although it will be partially blocked from the south by the 100E. Pratt. Can't wait until it begins construction :)

[StevenW]

45% are under contract. Bulkhead work is going on AT the site. The actual construction of the foundation and buildings should begin in late spring. Sales department feels once they begin constructing the building sales will pick up full speed(people want to see a product).

2 page supplement appeared in Feb 6th New York times advertising the Ritz. The ad showed great pictures of the city.

I would love to see those renderings of the Ritz Condos and the city. :D

[StevenW]

Originally Posted by Brian21
I think that another skyscraper should be constructed in the Mechanic Theatre's place. Its the perfect spot. right over top of the subway system dowtown smack dab in the CBD.

Also cityscape will look in the skyline although it will be partially blocked from the south by the 100E. Pratt. Can't wait until it begins construction


I'd love to see a nice, quality styled skyscraper built there, too, Brian. ;) :)
Make it a 55 story mixed-used tower. It should rise to about 700 feet tall, with a beautiful crown. :D
Now that's a pretty picture. ;) :D :D :D

[StevenW]

TADA!
http://www.mdgovpap.net/msa/mdmanual/36loc/bcity/images/5458-7-039.jpg

http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect4/baltsamp.jpg

http://www.btco.net/ghosts/ads/walls/pw_Baltobarghouse.jpg

http://www.vm3d.com/DOMESTIC/POLYGONAL/Baltimra.jpg

You like? :D
Just picture what CityScape, 300 East Pratt, One Light Street, Water Tower, Zenith and the other towers will look like added to our already nice, dense skyline. :D
I love that model. Wish I could buy it. It costs $1,000.00 :D

[scando]

I think that another skyscraper should be constructed in the Mechanic Theatre's place. Its the perfect spot. right over top of the subway system dowtown smack dab in the CBD.

Also cityscape will look in the skyline although it will be partially blocked from the south by the 100E. Pratt. Can't wait until it begins construction :)

There have been suggestions made a couple years ago that the Mechanic site could be used for a tall building. I first heard about the idea when they were starting work on the Hippodrome but so far nobody has come forth with an idea. I have to admit that I am sceptical that anybody would choose that site for a tall building when there are still other sites closer to the water (McCormick site, etc) that havn't been built on yet.

[StevenW]

City searches for Charles Street developer

Heather Harlan
Staff
The Baltimore Development Corp. is searching for a developer to revitalize a Charles Street site that includes the former Chesapeake Restaurant.


The city's leading development agency issued a formal request for proposals Tuesday, asking development teams to submit plans for the area between Penn Station and the Charles Theater, Everyman's Theater and Tapas Teatro restaurant.

More specifically, the site includes 1701-09 N. Charles St., the former Chesapeake Restaurant building, a four-story building that has been vacant since the mid-1980's; 20 E. Lanvale St., a surface parking lot; an alley between North Charles Street and East Lanvale Street; as well as 22 and 24 E. Lanvale St., two vacant townhouses.

The city envisions a single or mixed-use project that either features rehabilitation or new construction, according to the Baltimore Development Corp. Projects should be supportive of arts and entertainment venues in the area, the organization noted.

"Reliance on public funds is discouraged and subsidies by the city should not be anticipated,'' according to a statement from the Baltimore Development Corp. The site is offered in "as-is'' condition.

Deadline for submission is noon on Friday, April 29.

Plus, this is a good article, too.
Read it:
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/02/07/story3.html?jst=s_rs_hl

[waj0527]

more about the Charle's Street RFP:

City targets defunct Chesapeake for renewal
Restaurant viewed as part of N. Charles St. gateway
By Lorraine Mirabella
Sun Staff
Originally published February 9, 2005

City officials, armed with the power of condemnation, are moving to breathe new life into the former Chesapeake Restaurant and other long-vacant properties at the gateway to the Charles North neighborhood, part of the city's arts district near Penn Station and the Charles Theater.

Baltimore Development Corp. said yesterday that it is seeking proposals from developers to transform the former landmark restaurant at 1701-1709 N. Charles St., a parking lot and two vacant townhouses around the corner on East Lanvale Street.

Future uses could include a theater, shops, a restaurant, a nightclub or apartments. The agency, the city's economic development arm, said it would seize the properties if deals cannot be reached with the owners.

"On behalf of the neighborhood and the city, we think it's time to move on it," said M. J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the development agency. "It's a critical area in the city from an economic development point of view, and it doesn't look good."

The area is re-emerging as a hub of the city's Station North arts and entertainment district, anchored by Everyman Theater, Club Charles and the Charles Theater, which expanded with four new screens in 1999 and spurred the opening of restaurants such as the adjacent Tapas Teatro.

But the former Chesapeake, at Charles and Lanvale, has been shuttered and on and off the market for more than 15 years.

Brodie said the city has given up waiting for the Chesapeake's owner, attorney Robert Sapero, to find a buyer for the building. The development agency has been granted City Council authority to proceed with condemnation and has made an offer to Sapero based on the higher of two appraisals. If he rejects the offer, the city could go ahead with condemnation, Brodie said.

Sapero said yesterday that the the agency's tactics are "questionable" and that he has been negotiating with restaurant operators and other potential buyers to reopen the restaurant in some form.

"Whatever the BDC is doing is very interesting ... and at the least I guess it's premature," he said. "I'm certainly not in favor, to put it politely, in terms of what their wishes are."

Sapero said he has been waiting for the area to be rejuvenated sufficiently to support a high-end restaurant.

"I was not going to open the Chesapeake to anyone who would affect the image of the property ... being a fine dining venue," he said. "My interest for the most part was to have whoever would operate the place to be either a national entity or someone that had the strength locally to operate a top-notch facility."

The property being assembled by the city also includes a parking lot behind the Chesapeake. The parking lot owner, Michael Shecter, declined to comment yesterday.

Brodie said the development agency has been working with the neighborhood for a couple of years to identify key problem properties.

"The Charles Theater is doing wonderfully. Tapas Teatro is turning people away," Brodie said. "It's an area of town where other people are showing that they can do well, and yet this property is sitting vacant and underutilized."

City officials said they envision a single-use or mixed-use project with housing on the upper floors.

Rebecca Gagalis, executive director of Charles Street Development Corp., said the Charles North area has become a priority for the nonprofit group, which is working to revitalize Charles Street.

"Some really great uses have opened up over the years that have given a synergy to the area," Gagalis said. "The Chesapeake is a missing piece that has been vacant for so long. The Chesapeake being redeveloped will create a connection with Penn Station and further enhance the area and generate interest in other properties."

She said she is seeing some of that interest, with people moving in and renovating houses.

Dale Dusman, president of the Charles North Community Association and pastor of St. Mark's Lutheran Church, said the neighborhood supports the development agency's action.

"That block is the gateway into our community," Dusman said. "We're anxious to see the building in use. We have some good solid attractions, and the Chesapeake is a crucial building."

Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery

[waj0527]

Does anyone know anything about any efforts to revitalize Baltimore's now defunct Chinatown? Ive been reading snipets here and there, but I was wondering if anyone has anything of substance.

I know there's a Baltimore Chinatown Enterprise (BCE), which is a charged with the task of bringing back Baltimore's Chinatown District, but I havent found a website or anything.

The reason Im asking is because a friend told me that the BCE recieved a substantial grant (close to $60 million)to redevelop our old Chinatown which is along Howard Street near Park Ave. He didnt know who provided the money or what the plans were, so I was a bit skeptical. If true, this could be a HUGE boost for the Westside/Mt. Vernon areas. Any reply would be great.

[StevenW]

Baltimore has a "ChinaTown"? :? :? :? :? :?
Since when? :?
How big is it? Or, was it?
I always wanted Baltimore to have a ChinaTown. I love San Francisco's ChinaTown. It's awesome! Just imagine if Baltimore had one like San Francisco. :D

[waj0527]

Baltimore had a Chinatown but is now defunct. It actally hasnt been around for several years. If you travel along Howard Street near Park Ave. you can actually see some buildings with Chinese characters on them. There's a pretty good Chinese resturant thats basically the last evidence of the apparently once thriving district. If you google for 'Baltimore Chinatown' you can find out more.

I'd really like to see this brought back.

[Eerik]

Baltimore's Chinatown has never been all that large...even during its "hey-day". There were some dashed hopes of revival back in the late 70s and early 80s. While every year there is some sort of parade during Chinese New Year (shouldn't there have been one today?) complete with the dragon and firecrackers, for all intents and purposes, the old Chinatown at Park and Mulberry Streets is long gone.

On the East Coast, I believe New York City and Philadelphia have the largest Chinatowns. The one here in Washington DC is also fairly large, although the immigrant community for the most part left long ago along with the Chinese goods. Today, with the exception of a handful of Chinese restaurants and the Chinese Gate, all that is left are national chains like Fuddrucker spelled-out in Chinese...

[scando]

Not only was there a little, two block Chinatown, but if you look at faded signs, there is a sign for a Baltimore branch of the Koumintong, a pre-Mao political group. In the 70's not only was Chinatown there but there was Abe Sherman's well known book store and the New Era bookstore, which was an orthodox bolshevik propaganda house. You could spend hours, if so inclined, in the basement poring over reports on 1938 Siberian hydroelectric plant progress. Baltimore doesn't have local color like that anymore. The only other thing that remains there is Morris Martick's amazingly quirky former speakeasy then restaurant with its snakeskin wallpaper and Morris himself, about 90, still cooking.

It's hard to figure out at this time, why anybody would want to spend 60 M on those blocks. The 80's Chinatown project never happened, that area isn't all that close to the prime Westside area and it certainly isn't close to the harbor or anywhere else that is happening. It kinda seems like everything around there will get fixed before Park Ave.

[StevenW]

:(
You know, with all this new development going on with tearing down old neighborhoods in east Baltimore and the like, why couldn't there be a new ChinaTown? A themed neighborhood to rival the other big ChinaTowns. I understand the demand has to be there. What is the Chinese population of Baltimore, currently? If a new, much bigger, well designed ChinaTown was constructed, would Chinese people come here? From the States? China? Other countries?
I mean, I can't tell you all how much I loved ChinaTown in San Francisco. It's a great neighborhood/town. The open markets, restaurants, shops, and other businesses and residences are all so great and fit together so well. You really can get lost there and feel like you are in a different country. China! ;)

Also, I read some time ago that there was an effort to create a "spanishtown" or "Latintown" of some kind. Anything on that? Has it come to fruition? I have not heard anything about that in a long while.

[scando]

City searches for Charles Street developer

Heather Harlan
Staff
The Baltimore Development Corp. is searching for a developer to revitalize a Charles Street site that includes the former Chesapeake Restaurant.


The city's leading development agency issued a formal request for proposals Tuesday, asking development teams to submit plans for the area between Penn Station and the Charles Theater, Everyman's Theater and Tapas Teatro restaurant.

According to the BBJ, Everyman Theater is interested in the site in order to expand their operation, which is quite successful. For more see - http://baltimore.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/02/07/daily25.html?jst=b_ln_hl

[scando]

:(
You know, with all this new development going on with tearing down old neighborhoods in east Baltimore and the like, why couldn't there be a new ChinaTown? A themed neighborhood to rival the other big ChinaTowns. I understand the demand has to be there. What is the Chinese population of Baltimore, currently? If a new, much bigger, well designed ChinaTown was constructed, would Chinese people come here? From the States? China? Other countries?
I mean, I can't tell you all how much I loved ChinaTown in San Francisco. It's a great neighborhood/town. The open markets, restaurants, shops, and other businesses and residences are all so great and fit together so well. You really can get lost there and feel like you are in a different country. China! ;)

Also, I read some time ago that there was an effort to create a "spanishtown" or "Latintown" of some kind. Anything on that? Has it come to fruition? I have not heard anything about that in a long while.

I think that the Chinatown concept is pretty much obsolete in Baltimore. There are a significant number of people descended from Chinese immigrants but those people have gone into all walks of life outside that area. There are a few concentrations of recent immigrants in areas such as the Rogers Forge Apartments in Towson but Chinatown? Not likely. The Latin area has grown significantly in recent years. It is located in upper Fells Point and east of there. There are lots of restaurants, bars, night clubs, grocery stores, etc but the area hasn't become much of a magnet for the non-Hispanic population except for some small businesses in lower part of Fells Point.

[jaysonjaz]

:(
You know, with all this new development going on with tearing down old neighborhoods in east Baltimore and the like, why couldn't there be a new ChinaTown?

Well knowing all of my asian friends from this area at UM @ Baltimore, I think you'd have more luck with a Koreantown or Vietnamese town. I think there are a lot more people from those areas around Bmore than actual Chinese

[Eerik]

The “problem” with ethnic neighborhoods like Chinatown and other immigrant communities is they developed and evolved on their own. Any attempt to revive or recreate an ethnic enclave by fabricating the context becomes a sort of “Disney-esque” reality which often times ends up failing.

However, this discussion of a “Chinatown” is most interesting since it brings to surface two notions: what is real and what is artificial.

I would offer that the Chinatown in San Francisco developed due to some sort of need, maybe even chance on part of an influx of people with a common culture clustering and sharing goods and services in a defined area. While in the process it became a regional and national draw, and today I’m sure San Francisco provides at least some sort of subsidy to help maintain the district, for all intents and purposes the original impetus was one based on need or desire and not on a larger public or municipal grand plan.

Take Baltimore’s Latin-town as another example. It wasn’t until after the fact that city government even became aware of a developing concentration of Latinos in Upper Fells Point.

Here in Washington DC, at one time we had a large Chinatown. Chinese immigrants clustered along the northern edge of the downtown core and over a period of time established shops and community centers; found work as well as housing.

However, reality wasn’t what we romanticize about today: living conditions were often crowded, often times filthy, and as a rule most lived at a sub-standard income level. No one considered the circumstances ideal, and all efforts (and spare income) generally was targeted toward “the American dream” of a better job and life -- if not for themselves -- then at least for their children.

Today, one could say the Chinatown here in DC has been revitalized. Yet in many regards, it’s a failure. While you will certainly find “Chinese elements” like a restaurant serving Asian food, or a Chinese knick-knack store, for the most part, the neighborhood has been drastically “de-Asianized”. With the advantage of hindsight, I must chuckle at the all too recent gestures and overtures which promised to help sustain Chinatown (via projects like the MCI Center) where hopes were pinned on people flocking to the neighborhood for a combination of entertainment, dinner at a local restaurant, and ultimately a thriving Chinatown.

What we ended up with was a boom all right. Property values shot through the roof. With revitalization came new construction and even higher property values. Those few Chinese-centric merchants from the pre-redevelopment days ended up being priced out of the area. Today, where a Chinese restaurant once existed you’ll find a Hooters, a CVS, or some other faceless chain. The only Asian elements left in the area is the name of the Metro Station (Gallery Place/Chinatown); the Chinese arch/gate spanning H Street; and the Chinese themed street lamps.

In the case of Baltimore, obviously anything is better than what we have now. However let’s try and remember what we’ve learned from the past, i.e. lessons learned from Howard Street. Instead of attempting to re-create the past entirely -- be it the experience of the old shopping district at Howard and Lexington, or a new Chinatown -- I think it would be far better and smarter to use the elements already present to perhaps develop a new vernacular, story or experience.

While down here I would really challenge anyone who could call Seventh and H Street as the epicenter of a Chinatown, in reality, the flavor of the neighborhood as it has been preserved and redeveloped is quite spectacular. The “old Chinatown” has been reborn into a very unique urban experience that one cannot find elsewhere. Likewise in the future, I hope a revitalized Westside will offer Baltimore the same. If some of the old existing structures can be reworked programmatically with new…as in what was done at the old Stewarts department store…the quirky old buildings along with new buildings offer exceptional promise. As we read in The Sun a few days ago about the Barenburg Building renovation at 100 Park Avenue, we have some excellent opportunities to reinvigorate and create unique and new experiences not found anywhere else!

[Eerik]

Not only was there a little, two block Chinatown, but if you look at faded signs, there is a sign for a Baltimore branch of the Koumintong, a pre-Mao political group. In the 70's not only was Chinatown there but there was Abe Sherman's well known book store and the New Era bookstore, which was an orthodox bolshevik propaganda house. You could spend hours, if so inclined, in the basement poring over reports on 1938 Siberian hydroelectric plant progress. Baltimore doesn't have local color like that anymore. The only other thing that remains there is Morris Martick's amazingly quirky former speakeasy then restaurant with its snakeskin wallpaper and Morris himself, about 90, still cooking.

It's hard to figure out at this time, why anybody would want to spend 60 M on those blocks. The 80's Chinatown project never happened, that area isn't all that close to the prime Westside area and it certainly isn't close to the harbor or anywhere else that is happening. It kinda seems like everything around there will get fixed before Park Ave.

Ahhh… Abe Sherman. What a loon! That old geezer really was as feisty as reported! Back then during the pre-Borders and pre-Barnes & Noble magazine selection days, old Abe had one of the largest, if not best selections of printed material around. Abe too often reprimanded a good friend of mine for merely “thumbing” through a magazine. If you wanted to read it, you first had to purchase it!

In fact, one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp was the idea that browsing and “thumbing” was encouraged at the new bookstores. Even today when I see someone grab a book or magazine off the shelf at Borders and then read it while they sip their flavored coffee-of-the-day…I simply shudder thinking what old Abe would say!

I don’t know if Park and Mulberry are too distant of the Westside action. After all, Park Street runs parallel to Howard; the Pratt Library is located at Mulberry and Park, which is only a few blocks southwest of Mt. Vernon. It would need to be a subset of the Westside development. It would be almost impossible to create a relationship with the Charles Street corridor development.

[waj0527]

Thanks for all the input guys.

[StevenW]

Great points, Eerik. :)

In other news:

West side leads city's resurgence

'Progress': Downtown Partnership to report today on gains in quality of life.
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
Sun Staff
Originally published February 10, 2005
Baltimore's long-struggling west side is outperforming the rest of downtown - even the waterfront - on jobs and some other measures of economic vitality, a sign that redevelopment efforts are gaining traction.

That statistical barometer of health comes from the nonprofit Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc.'s 2004 "state of downtown" report, which will be released today and paints a mostly positive picture of the city's core. Downtown as a whole lost about 765 jobs but gained twice that number of residents. It also registered a significant drop in office vacancies.


But the west side stands out as the only area that gained jobs, and it also added parking, housing and retail.

"It's clear to me that so many projects are now under way on the west side that the momentum will just continue apace," said Anirban Basu, chief executive of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm unconnected with the report. "The data are clear: There is progress."

The Downtown Partnership's report measures key signs of health, including employment, investment and office vacancies, from July 2003 through August 2004. Past reports have called for major initiatives to combat problems - such as too little parking and too many outdated office buildings - but this time the nonprofit simply recommends a continuation of smaller-scale efforts: deterring aggressive panhandling, attracting more retail, improving mass transit.

"The question is no longer 'is downtown going to survive,' because it's absolutely surviving if not thriving," said J. Kirby Fowler Jr., president of the group, which runs programs and advocates for downtown. "The focus now is on quality of life."

In its report, the nonprofit defines downtown as an area roughly bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on the west, Interstate 83 on the east with a jag outward to Central Avenue, Key Highway on the south and North Avenue on the north. That includes the west side, the waterfront as far as Harbor East, Mount Vernon and the central business district, which the Downtown Partnership has renamed City Center because more and more residents are moving into the corporate core.

Living downtown

The increase in housing and people throughout downtown is a key reason, Fowler said, why he judges the area to be more vital even though jobs continued to decline.

There were 7,500 people living downtown last summer, up 1,500 from a year earlier. By the end of this year their numbers are expected to rise to 10,000 - double the population in 1999.

The new residents since 1999 earn an average of $54,000, and 65 percent of them came from outside the city, according to the report.

"Downtown's diversifying and transforming itself into a 24-hour neighborhood," Fowler said.

More residents should make it easier for the city to get more retail. The Downtown Partnership, which tracked retail for the first time in this report, estimates that the area had more than 2 million square feet of retail space between summer 2003 and summer 2004. Nearly a third of that - 650,000 square feet - was available to lease, though a fair bit was either under construction or nearing construction.

The group traveled to a retailing conference in New York at the end of the year to market this space and the growing downtown population to national chains.

"I think we're about to cross the threshold into more and higher-quality retail ... the kind of stuff there hasn't been in downtown Baltimore for a long time - maybe ever," said M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of Baltimore Development Corp.

Developers' conversions of old offices to new apartments and condos have also helped the office market: Downtown's vacancy rate was 14.4 percent between summer 2003 and summer 2004, compared with 18.5 percent the year before.

Downtown continues to struggle to hold onto its employment base, though it's not losing jobs as fast as it once did. The 765 lost jobs amounted to a drop of 0.9 percent. The 12 months before, employment dropped by 2.9 percent.

Most of the job loss came from white-collar businesses, particularly finance and insurance companies. Insurance firm Euler Hermes ACI moved to the suburbs. So did the American Urological Association and logistics company John S. Connor Inc.

But a handful of large firms announced that they were staying, including mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price Group Inc., which extended its Pratt Street lease until 2017 last year after considering whether to move all operations to its Owings Mills campus.

"There is a strong preference among a number of the employees who work downtown ... to remain," said George A. Roche, Price's chairman and president, noting that new parking garages have eased the crunch for space that had pushed some firms out in years past. "There is a continuing improvement in the city."

Downtown parks and streets still need work, said Wally Pinkard, chairman and chief executive of the Baltimore-based commercial real estate firm Colliers Pinkard. But he's very encouraged by the state of the area overall, noting an uptick in the number and price of commercial building purchases.

"I've never seen anything close to the institutional interest in our downtown buildings," said Pinkard, also chairman of the Hippodrome Foundation Inc.

The city as a whole gained 9,600 jobs during the same period that downtown lost them, according to the U.S. Labor Department, which can be explained in part by the fast-expanding Johns Hopkins University and Hospital's non-downtown locations. Economists see downtown's employment situation as a positive trend because job loss slowed - and they think that now more employers are adding rather than subtracting.

Downtown has held up much better in the past few years of fallout from the 2001 recession than it did in the 1990s, when it was hit by wave after wave of consolidations, Basu said. "You will see the cycle turn, and it will turn in favor of downtown," he said.

The west side has already seen a turn: It added 130 jobs between summer 2003 and summer 2004, largely because of expansion at University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Biotech park

At UMB's new biotech park, the first building is almost done and close to being fully leased. The renovated Hippodrome Theatre reopened last February. Across the street, workers are building Centerpoint, a retail-residential complex that will have nearly 400 units and more than 30,000 square feet of space for businesses.

This month the city picked a team of developers to renovate the 3.6-acre "superblock" within Howard, Fayette, Clay, Lexington and Liberty streets into housing, retail and office space.

Despite the progress, Joe Cronyn, a partner at the real estate consulting firm Lipman Frizzell & Mitchell LLC, warned that "it's not time to declare victory quite yet." The area's on the right path, he said, but hasn't hit critical mass in its battle against blight. The superblock needs to get off the drawing board and Howard Street needs more economic activity.

Ronald Kreitner, executive director of the nonprofit WestSide Renaissance Inc., predicts that critical mass will come within two years.



Copyright © 2005, The Baltimore Sun | Get home delivery

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2005-02/16232926.jpg J. Kirby Fowler Jr., president of Downtown Partnership, stands near Centerpoint complex rising on Eutaw Street.
(Sun photo by Lloyd Fox)
Feb 9, 2005

[StevenW]

Downtown jobs dip, but optimism high
:)
Heather Harlan
Staff
Downtown lost less than 1 percent of its employment base, or roughly 770 jobs, from July 2003-August 2004, according to a new report from Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.


The figures mark an improvement over the previous year, when the downtown job base dipped about 3 percent. The area, which extends to Mt. Vernon and Key Highway, is now home to more than 2,500 businesses, providing about 88,600, the report shows.

Kirby Fowler, president of Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc., said the city, like others was struck, by the national economic downturn, but weathered it well. "The good news is that we seem to coming out of it,'' he said.

Downtown, he said, continues to gain momentum in other areas. For the second year, about $2.5 billion is being poured into downtown, according to the new report.

And, the number of residents continues to grow. According to the report, there were roughly 7,500 downtown residents between July 2003 and August 2004.

That number is expected to reach 10,000 by the end of 2005.



© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

[StevenW]

An awesome link: http://www.gbc.org/Member%20news/newmemberprofiles.html#Anchor-Baltimor-52112
Check it out!

Plus:

City targets fall 2005 for creation of public-private harbor management entity
1-19-05 -- Baltimore City's interim Inner Harbor manager, Andy Frank, is so encouraged by progress along the city's waterfront that his goal is to have a public-private harbor management entity in place by this fall, he told the GBC on January 19.

Frank, vice president of the Baltimore Development Corporation, was appointed Inner Harbor coordinator in May, 2004 after a GBC-report found that management of the city's waterfront was uncoordinated and fragmented, jeopardizing the future of one of the city's most valuable economic resources.

For the last seven months, Frank has been meeting regularly to coordinate the work of more than a half-dozen city agencies responsible for elements of harbor management and to address issues raised in the October 2003 GBC report, he reported.

The report recommended creating an entity similar to Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management, Inc., which oversaw the Inner Harbor's initial development and managed most planning and operational issues relating to the Inner Harbor.

Frank joined the mayor's Chief of Staff Clarence Bishop and Planning Director Otis Rolley III in outlining the city's current economic development strategy to members of the GBC's Built Environment Committee and President's Advisory Council.

Highlights along the waterfront cited by Frank include:

$26 million in promenade construction since 2000. The promenade that will ultimately afford pedestrians a 7-mile walk around the city's inner-harbor waterfront is now 90 percent complete, Frank said.
Completion of a new master plan for Baltimore's waterfront.

Other economic development highlights cited by Frank include:

Construction of a new National Institutes of Health building at Bayview, a $290 million investment that will consolidate in one building the three NIH agencies located there.
the pending completion of the Centerpoint project and the city's move to acquire the so-called "superblock" and other properties ripe for redevelopment on Baltimore's west side;
the selection of a development team for Phase One of the 80-acre life sciences park and neighborhood revitalization on the east side;
an $80 million revitalization project for Charles Village:
the creation of eight "Main Street" districts in city neighborhoods.

Bishop, the mayor's chief of staff, reported that $6 billion in economic investment activity is currently under way in Baltimore.

In the area of neighborhood planning and development, Rolley reported that the city has moved from a policy of "snaggle tooth" demolition of vacant houses to "whole block" demolition, while working with communities to identify areas where redevelopment could occur successfully.

Rolley also said he was "excited" to see the high degree of interagency cooperation that now occurs in Baltimore City in dealing with planning and economic development issues.

Meanwhile, Mayor O'Malley has expanded his economic development cabinet meetings to include the GBC. The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore also participate regularly in economic development meetings of the mayor and his cabinet, Bishop reported.

[Ron C]

Well knowing all of my asian friends from this area at UM @ Baltimore, I think you'd have more luck with a Koreantown or Vietnamese town. I think there are a lot more people from those areas around Bmore than actual Chinese

There does seem to be a noticeable Korean presence around Maryland and North Ave.

For what it's worth, according to the 2000 census, the highest concentrations (dark green areas) of Asian populations (between about 10-20%) are in census tracts 401 & 402 (central business district), 1206 (either side of Charles St. north of North Ave), and 1202 (Charles Village). I imagine many of them are students at UMAB and Hopkins.

http://factfinder.census.gov/leg1/55/36539455.gif

Other census data can be found at:

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/SAFFFacts?_event=ChangeGeoContext&geo_id=16000US2404000&_geoContext=&_street=&_county=baltimore&_cityTown=baltimore&_state=04000US24&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&ActiveGeoDiv=&_useEV=

[StevenW]

Great map! Thanks, Ron C. :)

[Eerik]

...very interesting maps. Take a look at the concentration of the Latin population in Baltimore:

http://factfinder.census.gov/leg1/17/36549917.gif

[scando]

I don’t know if Park and Mulberry are too distant of the Westside action. After all, Park Street runs parallel to Howard; the Pratt Library is located at Mulberry and Park, which is only a few blocks southwest of Mt. Vernon. It would need to be a subset of the Westside development. It would be almost impossible to create a relationship with the Charles Street corridor development.

Park Ave isn't distant at all but it seems pretty much forgotten and it doesn't mesh with the goal of connecting the CBD with the University of MD campus. I can see it improving someday but my bet is that it will be the last part of the area to improve. There just isn't enough there of interest. The buildings are pretty bland, it's north of the CBD-UMD connection and it's off Howard St. Abe Sherman is long gone, Martick won't be there forever. Who knows though, maybe it might catch on as a restaurant row or something like that. I'm not holding my breath waiting.

[BigBalto]

It would be goog idea to pick up a copy of the baltimore biz journal.
Good info on the Balto arena

[StevenW]

Tell me! Tell ME! What's it say? Please....? :D

[StevenW]

Miss USA means money, exposure for Baltimore City

Baltimore officials predict the city will gain nearly $1 million in economic impact when it hosts this year’s Miss USA pageant in the spring. But the real gains will be made in less than 10 minutes.
- Kara Kridler

[StevenW]

Check out this link: http://www.godowntownbaltimore.com/publications/State%20of%20Downtown%20Reports/SODT_05.pdf

It's to the State of Downtown 2004 info. :)
Good stuff! :) :D

[StevenW]

BTW, what do you think would be good to see developed at the parking site at East Pleasant Street, Saratoga Street, Guilford Avenue, and Holiday Street? It's a good sized site, but, it's right by I-83. :D
I'd like to see a hotel with retail or an office building with retail and/or residences. Maybe some entertainment venue of some kind. What type of entertainment venue does Baltimore not have, or not have an abundance of, that it could use?
Think about it. :D

[waj0527]

That whole Baltimore Street corridor needs to be addressed. Big time.

The buildings are great. They're intresting and historic. It could be a great residential/retail mix. Baltimore Street between Charles and Gay is just SCREAMING to be redevloped. The block can stay. It just needs to be fixed up and "de-sleezified" (yes, I just create a new word). If done right, an "entertainment" district and a healthy residential/retail can successfully co-exist.

As for that particular site, obviously I'd like to see an office tower. A nice slender 600 footer perhaps :) . But...in lieu of that, I'd take a slightly smaller mixed-use tower. Perhaps a residential/hotel/retail mix.

[fanofterps]

Ruppert Homes plans to build 30 homes in Fells Point/Canton and 70 in Locust Point. See www.rupperthomesinc.com. Also, I agree with Waj057 that Baltimore St is a mess and need a whole makeover.

I would like to see the city build a new arena near Camden Yards and rip down the old one and put luxury apartments where the Baltimore Arena is. Also, they can move the bus stops and redo Baltimore St with high end stores.



That whole Baltimore Street corridor needs to be addressed. Big time.

The buildings are great. They're intresting and historic. It could be a great residential/retail mix. Baltimore Street between Charles and Gay is just SCREAMING to be redevloped. The block can stay. It just needs to be fixed up and "de-sleezified" (yes, I just create a new word). If done right, an "entertainment" district and a healthy residential/retail can successfully co-exist.

As for that particular site, obviously I'd like to see an office tower. A nice slender 600 footer perhaps :) . But...in lieu of that, I'd take a slightly smaller mixed-use tower. Perhaps a residential/hotel/retail mix.

[scando]

That whole Baltimore Street corridor needs to be addressed. Big time.

The buildings are great. They're intresting and historic. It could be a great residential/retail mix. Baltimore Street between Charles and Gay is just SCREAMING to be redevloped. The block can stay. It just needs to be fixed up and "de-sleezified" (yes, I just create a new word). If done right, an "entertainment" district and a healthy residential/retail can successfully co-exist.

As for that particular site, obviously I'd like to see an office tower. A nice slender 600 footer perhaps :) . But...in lieu of that, I'd take a slightly smaller mixed-use tower. Perhaps a residential/hotel/retail mix.

The Block has shrunk but is amazingly resistant to extinction. I think de-sleezification (another new word) would be like removing the noise from a football game though. Hopefully development will eventually just squeeze it into a smaller and smaller package.

[StevenW]

Did you guys hit this link yet? http://www.godowntownbaltimore.com/publications/State%20of%20Downtown%20Reports/SODT_05.pdf

It's great! :D A yearly review of Downtown Baltimore development. :)

[NewBaltimore1980]

The Block has shrunk but is amazingly resistant to extinction. I think de-sleezification (another new word) would be like removing the noise from a football game though. Hopefully development will eventually just squeeze it into a smaller and smaller package.

I think Mayor OMalley should just go in there like Rudy Giuilani did and say, that this will no longer exist and shut the whole block down.

[jaysonjaz]

I think Mayor OMalley should just go in there like Rudy Giuilani did and say, that this will no longer exist and shut the whole block down.

I watched a story about Times Square on the History Channel and they said the way Rudy cleaned up the place was they passed a law saying that there couldn't be adult businesses within 30 feet (or something that that) of each other.. that drove the weak ones out of business.. then as the area improved.. that drove the others ones out...
I would love to see the block gone forever.. I am sure the power is within city council.. I just don't think there’s the will.

[StevenW]

Why not? :? Do you think they may go to those places, maybe? :? :D ;)

[robert parsons]

BTW, what do you think would be good to see developed at the parking site at East Pleasant Street, Saratoga Street, Guilford Avenue, and Holiday Street? It's a good sized site, but, it's right by I-83. :D
I'd like to see a hotel with retail or an office building with retail and/or residences. Maybe some entertainment venue of some kind. What type of entertainment venue does Baltimore not have, or not have an abundance of, that it could use?
Think about it. :D
DOWNTOWN NEEDS SOME MOVIE MEGA PLEXES LIKE LOWES IN WHITE MARSH!!!!!

[robert parsons]

IF THEY DO GO WITH THE IDEA OF PUTTING UP A SUPER HIGH RISE AT THE MACANIC SITE , DO IT UP LIKE THE WITH A MALL UNDERNEATH THE TOWER LIKE WTC IN NYC USED TO BE LIKE OR LIKE LIBERTY PLACE IN PHILLY?????

[Eerik]

Perhaps I am a sleaze-ball, but The Block has never really bothered me. As long as the existing businesses obey the law, I think it would be unfair to close them down; the practice of eminent domain has always bothered me. While I am not proud of past episodes of prostitution and drug activity in the area, at least one positive feature of The Block is no matter what time of the day or night, or week, this is one part of the city that actually feels like a real city.

In the morning, you’ll find office workers on their way to work grabbing their breakfast; lunchtime also does a very brisk business. I know of many who worked at One South Street for Alex. Brown that would grab their morning chow on The Block. Evenings of course you have the occasional tourist or nearby “local” alongside the weekend bachelor-party crowd frequenting the show bars. While I have never been inside any of the show bars, I understand the laws governing “skin exposure”, touching, and other “acts” are controlled not only by city and State laws, but also dancers themselves. The Block is pretty tame. Drive down to Washington DC or go to some other city and pretty much do what you want at a show bar…

Yes, The Block today has been compressed into a less than two-block stretch; however being that it is immediately next door to the central BCP station, leave it alone. If the Baltimore Police Department can’t control a stretch of the city right under its nose, then I think the real problem isn’t The Block but rather with the police department...

About ten years ago the city and State raided The Block. They were there to wipe out all the purported prostitution, drug activity, and seedy folk who were rampant and present. The raid that night included hundreds of police, various criminal squads from all the agencies. With the exception of a few minor offences (and boy did they have to look for them) the city was left empty handed. While you will still hear about all the seediness, prostitution and drugs…I think the city was embarrassed and beaten with the outcome. Especially once the ACLU and the flood of attorneys started to file suit. While I do not know for sure, it has been suggested the city was told to “back-off” or else.

Again, I’m not a fan of prostitution and the drug trade, but the one thing I appreciate is that with The Block what you see is what you get. There are a couple of times where I have walked down Baltimore Street at night. I have felt safer there than most side streets in Bolton Hill, Mt. Vernon or even Fells Point. It’s genuine, it’s full of people and street activity, and it’s the only district in the city actually alive around the clock. My only fear of redeveloping The Block into another “entertainment district” is that Baltimore will end up with another Cordish-type development that we now have at Marketplace. Talk about cheesy…

So, before we start closing down The Block, let’s make sure we have a better alternative...

[StevenW]

Eerik, what do you think would be good to see developed at the parking site at East Pleasant Street, Saratoga Street, Guilford Avenue, and Holiday Street? I'm curious as to your comments on that site. :)

Thanks. :)

[NewBaltimore1980]

Again, I’m not a fan of prostitution and the drug trade, but the one thing I appreciate is that with The Block what you see is what you get. There are a couple of times where I have walked down Baltimore Street at night. I have felt safer there than most side streets in Bolton Hill, Mt. Vernon or even Fells Point. It’s genuine, it’s full of people and street activity, and it’s the only district in the city actually alive around the clock. My only fear of redeveloping The Block into another “entertainment district” is that Baltimore will end up with another Cordish-type development that we now have at Marketplace. Talk about cheesy…

So, before we start closing down The Block, let’s make sure we have a better alternative...

Eerik, the problem with Baltimore is that they are not tough enough on prostitution and the drug trade. If there is any evidence of drugs in a business it should be shut down immediately and those involved should be prosecuted. You say you appreciate the block for what you see is what you get, but really if you see it, then it should be taken away. There is never an excuse for drugs. Baltimore is in such a bad state right now for the very reason of drugs that leads to the typical urban problems.

A cordish-type development is a good thing for a city. It take the trash and moves it out of downtown and provides jobs, economic relief, and a tax base. Seedy dollar stores and wig shops does not do anything good for the city or its residents.

[Eerik]

Re-read my previous post; as long as the existing businesses obey the laws, then I propose the city let them stay. Crime is evident wherever you find people. The reason we still have The Block is because merchants along East Baltimore Street are conducting their businesses within guidelines of the law. If they weren’t, individually, or collectively they would have been shut down long ago…

If crime is truly a concern, then what about all the folks who leave drinking establishments in Fells Point, Federal Hill and Canton and jump into their cars at night to drive home? Aren’t they committing a crime by drinking and operating a motor vehicle? One could argue the city should shut those establishments.

The irony about The Block is that both the Police Department Headquarters and the city’s Planning Department in the Benton Building anchor it. As Charles Center demonstrated, you can plan all you want; yet the people, i.e. “the market” will decide what works and what doesn’t. And, as I noted in my previous post, if the city police can’t tame crime in a stretch of the city literally right UNDER IT’S OWN NOSE well then what is the rest of the city supposed to hope for?

While I say kudos to Cordish for his redevelopment of the old power plant, his development at Marketplace is not an exemplar of urban redevelopment. I would categorize it as really tacky Disneyesqe. If we want a viable Baltimore, we need to start looking for real solutions, not simply cheap band-aids and lame excuses…

[BigBalto]

Page 2B: Saturday, Feb.12,2005: The Sun

SENATE PANEL OKs SLOTS BILL ALTERED TO APPEASE HOUSE

Proposal would allow up to seven sites but doen't specify locations.

[NewBaltimore1980]

Re-read my previous post; as long as the existing businesses obey the laws, then I propose the city let them stay. Crime is evident wherever you find people. The reason we still have The Block is because merchants along East Baltimore Street are conducting their businesses within guidelines of the law. If they weren’t, individually, or collectively they would have been shut down long ago…

If crime is truly a concern, then what about all the folks who leave drinking establishments in Fells Point, Federal Hill and Canton and jump into their cars at night to drive home? Aren’t they committing a crime by drinking and operating a motor vehicle? One could argue the city should shut those establishments.

The irony about The Block is that both the Police Department Headquarters and the city’s Planning Department in the Benton Building anchor it. As Charles Center demonstrated, you can plan all you want; yet the people, i.e. “the market” will decide what works and what doesn’t. And, as I noted in my previous post, if the city police can’t tame crime in a stretch of the city literally right UNDER IT’S OWN NOSE well then what is the rest of the city supposed to hope for?

While I say kudos to Cordish for his redevelopment of the old power plant, his development at Marketplace is not an exemplar of urban redevelopment. I would categorize it as really tacky Disneyesqe. If we want a viable Baltimore, we need to start looking for real solutions, not simply cheap band-aids and lame excuses…

I am not sure what planet you are on, but the Marketplace development is extremely successful. Its a great spot for nightlife, includes offices, and ties into the inner harbor. Also the new Restaurant Row brought in great restaurants like Ruth Chris, Blue Sea Grill, etc. I think its made Baltimore very viable as it pulls people into the city to night time entertainment.

Also the bars in Fells POint are not putting people into cars. In fact the majority of people who go to those places are responsible and take taxis, or walk or have a designated driver.

Not sure what your idea of success is, but I dont think revitalizing a porno district is going to help

[scando]

The Block continues to exist for several reasons. For one, there isn't a pressing alternative development for that area. Also, having an area with such a concentration takes some of the pressure off other areas and thirdly, being where it is, it probably gets more scrutiny than it would if it was off in an area like Edmonson Highway. We'd be fooling ourselves to think that that a city this size wouldn't have a market for sleaze. Knowing where it is allows me to know where not to walk.

[jaysonjaz]

I am not sure what planet you are on, but the Marketplace development is extremely successful. Its a great spot for nightlife, includes offices, and ties into the inner harbor. Also the new Restaurant Row brought in great restaurants like Ruth Chris, Blue Sea Grill, etc. I think its made Baltimore very viable as it pulls people into the city to night time entertainment.

Also the bars in Fells POint are not putting people into cars. In fact the majority of people who go to those places are responsible and take taxis, or walk or have a designated driver.

Not sure what your idea of success is, but I dont think revitalizing a porno district is going to help

As much as I hate the block and porn shops and all of that, I don't really see any other business ventures taking shape there just yet. If there was business going all the way up Calvert St. to Baltimore St. and business redevelopement was being held back by the block, then I think we have an opportunity for redevelopment.
Unfortunatly redevelopment will only happen where the market forces are calling for it. There are still tons of areas downtown that can use complete revitalization. I think we should put our efforts into the rest of Baltimore St/ Calvert St. and Fayette. Put the Superblock into the mix and then I'm all for destroying the block.
Just my opinion :)

[Eerik]

I am not sure what planet you are on, but the Marketplace development is extremely successful. Its a great spot for nightlife, includes offices, and ties into the inner harbor. Also the new Restaurant Row brought in great restaurants like Ruth Chris, Blue Sea Grill, etc. I think its made Baltimore very viable as it pulls people into the city to night time entertainment.

Also the bars in Fells POint are not putting people into cars. In fact the majority of people who go to those places are responsible and take taxis, or walk or have a designated driver.

Not sure what your idea of success is, but I dont think revitalizing a porno district is going to help

Shhh! Well first of all I can’t help but laugh at the suggestion all Fells Point patrons are responsible taxi-takers or have designated drivers. I’d laugh out loud, but at this hour, I’d wake up the entire house. While I would like to believe all Baltimoreans are responsible and saintly, unfortunately we’re all human. Please tell me that was tongue in cheek?

So, I drove up to Baltimore Sunday afternoon to take a look at The Block. Three things surprised me:

1) The Block actually looked cleaner than before. The last time I drove down that stretch of Baltimore Street must have been about two years ago. But since the last time, it appears the streetscape project has spruced up the area with new sidewalks, lampposts, and a new coating of street asphalt.

2) The Block looked smaller. Maybe due in part to the beautiful concrete and steel garage built by the city for the now departed Alex. Brown on the north side of 400 East Baltimore Street, or the hulking garage for One South Street?

3) Baltimore Street has been reopened (one lane) to proceed onto Frederick Street and further onwards towards President Street past the Police Department. Being that this stretch of Baltimore Street was once again open to vehicular traffic, I took the opportunity to swing past the Marketplace development and one thing did not change: my opinion that Power Plant Live is a cheesy and hideous Las Vegas-style circus. No class whatsoever. With the exception of Ruth Chris, all of the garish neon, weekends of binge drinking and vomit make The Block look peaceful and tame to me.

Folks, while we would all love to see all of the CBD inhabited or occupied by a Fortune 500 (Baltimore based) corporation or a residential project; unfortunately we are not a New York. If in the process of attempting to be like a New York or Chicago, we wipe out every last detail of who we are, or whitewash over every idiosyncrasy, all we’re going to be left with is a faceless downtown with no character, sense of place, or individuality. Go and visit downtown Dallas, Atlanta, or Houston. If that’s too far, come to Washington DC. You can’t compare their downtowns with Baltimore. If you still don’t understand, take the Baltimore subway to Owings Mills, or drive out to Tysons Corner and stand in the middle of the six-lane highway and ask yourself what makes that experience different than -- let’s say -- the 500 block of North Charles Street?

[Eerik]

As much as I hate the block and porn shops and all of that, I don't really see any other business ventures taking shape there just yet. If there was business going all the way up Calvert St. to Baltimore St. and business redevelopement was being held back by the block, then I think we have an opportunity for redevelopment.
Unfortunatly redevelopment will only happen where the market forces are calling for it. There are still tons of areas downtown that can use complete revitalization. I think we should put our efforts into the rest of Baltimore St/ Calvert St. and Fayette. Put the Superblock into the mix and then I'm all for destroying the block.
Just my opinion :)

I totally agree. If in five…ten…or fifteen years from now there is market demand for The Block, let the market do the bidding and work. While porn and sex shops aren’t my idea of prestige either, I’d rather have that (under the watchful eye of the city) than yet another stretch of underutilized and boarded-up storefronts in the CBD.

At least the 500 block is generating some kind of tax revenue. While the activities within the buildings are questionable, at least the structures are being maintained. Develop all the other parts of downtown first that sorely need the investment…

[Eerik]

BTW, what do you think would be good to see developed at the parking site at East Pleasant Street, Saratoga Street, Guilford Avenue, and Holiday Street? It's a good sized site, but, it's right by I-83. :D
I'd like to see a hotel with retail or an office building with retail and/or residences. Maybe some entertainment venue of some kind. What type of entertainment venue does Baltimore not have, or not have an abundance of, that it could use?
Think about it. :D

This is a problematic area programmatically for the city. It is neither “here” nor “there” and since most of the urban context in this area was obliterated over forty years ago, there is very little context to draw upon. Today it is really a wasteland of sorts…

One of the reasons there has been very little development in the zone north of East Lexington and East of Calvert has been just that: investors have no idea what potential (if any) this zone possesses. Developers, and more so investors aren’t known for their visionary and “idea” thinking. While they can foresee potential to make money, if the clues aren’t there for them to notice and read, you might as well forget about it.

I hope that in another five to fifteen years, we’re going to see a new push for inexpensive space within the CBD. I’m truly one of those who believe we’re about to witness a burst of the housing bubble, something that will slow development for a while. Interest rates have really skewed the market, and a correction is long overdue. Once that happens, investors are going to be looking for opportunities in undervalued areas, hence demand will focus on this area with low to mid-scale residential, some retail, along with light industrial.

If I were a developer, while personally not a big fan of these, I would build a parking structure with about 350-500 spaces with no medium to long-term outlook. Parking is still sorely needed in the CBD, while not as sexy as a condo or office, getting a bank loan should be fairly easy. Meanwhile I would wait out to see what 417 East Fayette Street decides to do with the eastern edge of the CBD. Big things will be coming our way…

[NewBaltimore1980]

I hope that in another five to fifteen years, we’re going to see a new push for inexpensive space within the CBD. I’m truly one of those who believe we’re about to witness a burst of the housing bubble, something that will slow development for a while. Interest rates have really skewed the market, and a correction is long overdue. Once that happens, investors are going to be looking for opportunities in undervalued areas, hence demand will focus on this area with low to mid-scale residential, some retail, along with light industrial.

If I were a developer, while personally not a big fan of these, I would build a parking structure with about 350-500 spaces with no medium to long-term outlook. Parking is still sorely needed in the CBD, while not as sexy as a condo or office, getting a bank loan should be fairly easy. Meanwhile I would wait out to see what 417 East Fayette Street decides to do with the eastern edge of the CBD. Big things will be coming our way…

I have to disagree with you again. Although I believe the housing bubble will pop in a majority of the country, there is a housing shortage in DC, a 'smart growth' initiative in many surrounding counties, and plenty of housing available in the city. PLus you have to compare the values of houses from DC to Baltimore and the liklihood of more people starting to do that commute. People are commuting from Martinsburg, WV and they will commute from Baltimore to DC.

Having said that, I agree there will be slowing of the growth, but even with higher interest rates you still cannot beat the value of Baltimore real estate. In fact I believe that when the interest rates go up and the bubble starts to burst, it will be a great boom for cities like Baltimore who still will have reasonable priced real estate.

[NewBaltimore1980]

This is absolutely huge!!!!

I really think we are not giving enough credit to the East Baltimore development. This is going to be the prime area to live in the city in five to ten years and it is already beginning.

http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/02/14/story3.html

Hopefully the city will not put up and roadblocks and try to save public housing in a growing market, where private housing can exist.

I can't wait to see the Chapel NDP apartments leveled in two weeks!!

[waj0527]

You're right NB, thats great news or the city. The great thing about it is that similar initatives are taking place on the West side too (not Downtown's westside, but the real Westside). The deal between the city and the massive New Psalmist Baptist Church is probably the most exciting on the westside. Its very much like what they're doing over by Hopkins.

Has anyone noticed that he 33rd Street corridor is cleaning up very nicely. Not only is Hopkins building and improving, but the Greenmount intersection is getting better. The new grocery store looks great. The 'Stadium Place' complex is coming along very nicely. The YMCA and two apartment buildings are up now and from what I understand more is coming.

[NewBaltimore1980]

You're right NB, thats great news or the city. The great thing about it is that similar initatives are taking place on the West side too (not Downtown's westside, but the real Westside). The deal between the city and the massive New Psalmist Baptist Church is probably the most exciting on the westside. Its very much like what they're doing over by Hopkins.

Has anyone noticed that he 33rd Street corridor is cleaning up very nicely. Not only is Hopkins building and improving, but the Greenmount intersection is getting better. The new grocery store looks great. The 'Stadium Place' complex is coming along very nicely. The YMCA and two apartment buildings are up now and from what I understand more is coming.

Who would have thought they would be putting a Trader Joe's in East Baltimore especiatlly on Fayette St. These high values should help to push out the 'riff-raff' and further gentrify the East Side.

[StevenW]

Florida firm in $2.7B deal for area retail space

Heather Harlan
Staff
Regency Centers Corp., a publicly traded shopping center developer and owner, and its Australian joint venture partner, Macquarie CountryWide Trust, have acquired 31 properties in Baltimore and Washington, D.C.


The deal, which will give the companies about 3.5 million square feet of retail space in the region, is part of the joint venture's purchase of 101 properties nationwide from CalPERS/First Washington. Valued at $2.74 billion and expected to close in the second quarter, the overarching transaction will give Regency Centers and Macquarie about 13 million square feet of retail space nationally.

The Baltimore real estate includes Elkridge Corners Shopping Center, Festival at Woodholme, Northway Shopping Center, Parkville Shopping Center, Southside Marketplace and Valley Centre.

The national portfolio is 96 percent leased and spread across 17 states as well as D.C. Macquarie will own 65 percent, with the remaining belonging to Regency.

Based in Jacksonville, Fla., Regency (NYSE: REG) will own or manage 392 retail centers totaling more than 49 square feet of gross leasable space in 26 states when the deal is finalized. The company specializes in developing, operating and owning grocery-anchored, neighborhood and community shopping centers.



© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

[waj0527]

From the BBJ:

Clipper Mill draws tenant from county

Heather Harlan
Staff
Biohabitats Inc. is relocating its corporate headquarters from Baltimore County to the city.


The company, a design and consulting form specializing in ecological restoration and conservation planning, expects to shift its 25 employees from Timonium to Clipper Mill by mid-summer.

Clipper Mill is a mixed-use development featuring 235 residential units and more than 90,000 square feet of office/studio space. Developed by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. of Baltimore, the project is located in the Hampden section of Baltimore City, just off Falls Road, adjacent to Druid Hill Park.

Tim Burkett, operation team leader for Biohabitats, said the company's growth fueled a search for new and expanded office space.

"We're kind of buttoned up against the walls here,'' said Burkett of the Aylesbury Road headquarters.

The company looked at alternative offices throughout the Hunt Valley corridor and into the city before selecting Clipper Mill, where Biohabitats signed a lease for 7,500 square feet of space.

The deal represents a coup for Baltimore City, whose economic development leaders are often fighting to keep companies from moving their operations to the suburbs.

Typically, rents are cheaper in Baltimore County, and parking at most projects is free. According to a fourth quarter 2004 report from MacKenzie/Cushmann & Wakefield, average asking rents for office space in Baltimore City and the central business district were $18.53 per square foot, compared to $14.29 in the eastern part of Baltimore County and $15.08 in the western part of the county.

Burkett said the central location of Clipper Mill to the homes of the company's employees played largely into the decision to move.


© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.

[Eerik]

Nice view: Cities of all sizes embracing high-rise living
Tue Feb 15,10:12 AM ET Top Stories - USATODAY.com
By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

Within an hour of learning that billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump had signed on to build a luxury high-rise downtown, Stephen Page was ready to buy in.

Page and his wife, Linda, paid "close to $1 million" for a 34th-floor, two-bedroom condominium in Trump Tower Tampa, a 52-story, $220 million edifice to elegance that will be the tallest residential building on Florida's Gulf Coast when it opens in 2007.

This city of 321,000 is perhaps best known nationally for its Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who won the Super Bowl two years ago, and tourist attractions such as Busch Gardens. It might be the last place one would expect to find people living among the clouds, in digs outfitted with valet services, exotic wood finishes and imported marble floors with inlaid onyx.

But 3½ years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - when the images of passenger jets slamming into New York City's landmark skyscrapers seemed to underscore the nation's vulnerability - high-rise living is enormously popular. And not just in New York, Chicago and other places long known for it. High-rise condominiums are under construction or planned in dozens of cities.

Cities across the country are witnessing a renaissance of downtown living, and, in every center-city ZIP code, some of the most sought-after addresses tower above the urban landscape. The buildings often include on-site amenities such as concierge service, restaurants, pools and spas. Some are combined with luxury hotels, and some cater to the very well-heeled - Trump Tower Tampa units range from $700,000 to more than $6 million.

"We're seeing only a few (high-rise) office buildings, but dozens and dozens of high-rise residential, mostly condos," says Ron Klemencic, chairman of the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The group monitors skyscraper construction worldwide.

"Immediately after 9/11, there was a lot of concern for tall buildings," Klemencic says. "That, for residential buildings, has gone by the wayside. There still is concern over very tall, prominent office buildings. But people have realized that we live in this free and open society, and we have to maintain our lifestyle as before, and that means living and working in tall buildings."

The lure of luxury
Sharing that sentiment is Trump, who is known to millions as the blunt boss of TV's The Apprentice. His holdings include some of Manhattan's most prestigious residential towers, a luxury condo tower in Las Vegas and hotels and casinos in Atlantic City.

"There is no doubt that Sept. 11 had a big impact on high-rise living," Trump says. "At the time, I was planning to build the world's tallest building in Chicago, but then scaled back the plans to a 90-story tower. However, I think one of the reasons that people have decided to live in tall towers once again is the luxury services and amenities they receive, not to mention the great views they see."

For Page, the possibility of a terrorist attack wasn't really a consideration. "I feel very comfortable," he says of his Trump Tower Tampa condo. "It's not going to stick up 1,000 feet high."

"When I saw it was a project of (Tampa Bay developers) SimDag-RoBEL and Trump, I just knew it was going to be the best address in town. I had to have one," says Page, 40. "Everybody's talking about it. I think it's going to be phenomenal."

It's not surprising that 9/11 fears have eased, because other nations have endured repeated terrorist assaults without people altering their lives, says housing expert John McIlwain of the Urban Land Institute, a Washington, D.C., research group that tracks land-use trends.

Neither ULI nor Klemencic's organization keeps statistics on the boom in high-rise living. But anecdotal evidence is plentiful:

• Denver developers plan to begin construction this year on a 50-story downtown skyscraper that will house a five-star Four Seasons hotel and the most expensive condos in city history. It will be one of the city's tallest buildings.

• In downtown Milwaukee, construction is underway on two luxury condo projects, the 33-story Kilbourn Tower, with units reportedly selling for $700,000-$2.8 million, and the 34-story University Club Tower, with most units over $1.5 million. They will be Wisconsin's tallest residential buildings.

• Portland, Maine, has its own downtown condo boom, including the proposed 12-story Waterview, which will have 94 units priced from $250,000 to $475,000 when it opens in 2007.

• Just 16 years ago, Seattle voters banned skyscrapers over 45 stories. Now, Mayor Greg Nickels is calling for new high-rise residential buildings, part of an effort to double the downtown residential population over the next 20 years.

• Miami, no stranger to downtown high-rises, is seeing explosive growth in the market, with 70 projects either built, under construction or planned. If all the projects materialize, about 55,000 condominium units would be built in the city over the next 10 years.

• Las Vegas is in the middle of an unprecedented surge in high-rise condos, with 1,000 people a month plunking down deposits on units. About 20,000 units in 122 buildings have been approved, and nine buildings are under construction. "We're undergoing the Manhattan-ization of Las Vegas," real estate consultant Stephen Bottfeld says.

Even quintessentially suburban places are cashing in on the trend. In Orange County, Calif., south of Los Angeles, more than 6,500 high-rise condos are under construction or on the drawing board. And on Long Island - one of America's first suburbs - Charles Wang, founder of Computer Associates and owner of the New York Islanders hockey franchise, wants to build a 60-story hotel/condo project that would be Nassau County's tallest skyscraper.

Many projects around the nation aren't "high-rise" by Manhattan or Chicago standards, but they often dwarf local norms.

Boomers feed the demand
Real estate and land-use analysts say many factors are driving the nation's high-rise condo-mania:

• A major demographic shift. Baby boomers are inheriting wealth at the same time that they're becoming empty nesters. "We're retiring earlier, and we want to be able to lock and leave," Bottfeld says. "For people in their 50s to their 70s, their most precious commodity is time."

People don't want to spend time mowing lawns, sitting in rush-hour traffic or getting in their cars to pick up the dry-cleaning. If they live in a downtown high-rise, there's no grass to cut, they often can walk to work and cultural events, and many high-rises have on-site concierge service to take care of life's every little need.

• Real estate as an investment. Many high-rise condo buyers are young professionals of both sexes and single women who purchase them as homes - and as their primary investment vehicles.

• An emphasis in some cities on "smart growth." These principles, which promote the protection of open space by concentrating development close to jobs and services and connecting it with mass transit, fit perfectly with high-rise living.

Page, a developer who lives near Clearwater, about 20 miles from Tampa, says that one attraction for him was access to the city's nightlife. "We love Tampa," he says. "We go there almost every single weekend. We'll sometimes stay at one of the nicer hotels there. Well, now, we can just stay at our own place."

'Never get in the car'
Trump Tower Tampa, which will adorn a revitalized Riverwalk on the Hillsborough River in downtown's financial and cultural districts, is attracting buyers who live on Harbour Island, a tony residential enclave near downtown.

"It's the convenience of downtown living," says Jody Simon, a managing partner of SimDag-RoBEL. "You'll see more restaurants and shops. To be able to walk out your door and take a stroll down to your office and never get in the car - that's what people want."

Trump Tower Tampa will be the city's tallest - and most luxurious - high-rise residential building. But Mayor Pam Iorio, who has made downtown residential development a priority of her administration, says three other sets of twin-tower condominiums are planned.

More than 5,000 downtown housing units, many of them high-rise condominiums, have been approved, says Christine Burdick, president of Tampa Downtown Partnership, a non-profit organization that represents downtown property owners and others.

Burdick discounts questions about whether there are enough people here who can afford Trump Tower Tampa. "There is money in this area," she says. "There are people who want to invest in a quality housing product."

Trump, responding to e-mailed questions, says his building will pump energy into Tampa's revitalized downtown.

"A livable city needs downtown residential development," he says. "It's one of the reasons that Manhattan is so great. I believe high-rise living is here to stay."

[StevenW]

Great article! :)
Thanks.

[StevenW]

A good article: http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2005/02/14/daily19.html
Talking about housing and all. :) ;)

[StevenW]

Does anyone remember this proposed tower?

http://www.pfarc.com/97003/02.jpg

http://www.pfarc.com/97003/01.jpg

Sure is a shame it did not go up. :(

[jaysonjaz]

Is that One Light Street?

Speaking of disapointments, has anyone driven by the Lockwood Place project recently? It looks terrible. It looks totally uninspired. I think I could design a much more interesting place. It looks like its only going to be 3 stories tall.

I can't belive the city would allow such an attrocious project to go ahead on a signature lot for this city.. :bash: simply stupid

We went from this:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2004-07/13534492.jpg


to this:

http://www.davidsbrown.com/images/photo-lockwood-place.jpg

[NewBaltimore1980]

Is that One Light Street?

Speaking of disapointments, has anyone driven by the Lockwood Place project recently? It looks terrible. It looks totally uninspired. I think I could design a much more interesting place. It looks like its only going to be 3 stories tall.

I can't belive the city would allow such an attrocious project to go ahead on a signature lot for this city.. :bash: simply stupid

We went from this:

http://www.davidsbrown.com/images/photo-lockwood-place.jpg

to this:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2004-07/13534492.jpg

I agree, thats why we should let the market decide what to build, not the city planners.

[Hugh Jaramillo]

I agree about Lockwood Place. The city really missed the boat on that project! The only positive thing that can be said for it, is that at least it fills in that awful void that was there before, where all you could see was the wall of the parking garage built in back of it. But the word uninspired is really an understatement. However I blame Kurt Schmoke (or is that Smuck) for bringing this about. Originally that site was supposed to be the new home of the law firm of Piper Rudnick and instead they left downtown entirely for a suburban style campus out in Mt. Washington. That was a huge loss in terms of high paying jobs for the city tax base, but that jerk just sat by and let it happen. I think that Baltimore now must be the only city where the major law firm is located in the suburbs and not in the downtown! Does that send a message to other corporations who might be considering relocating to downtown Baltimore? Lets hope that they at least get some upscale shops in that otherwise bland new 3 story building. like maybe a Virgin Records, HMV or Sephora but I have a feeling it will be more like Taco Bell or Olive Garden.

[jaysonjaz]

Lets hope that they at least get some upscale shops in that otherwise bland new 3 story building. like maybe a Virgin Records, HMV or Sephora but I have a feeling it will be more like Taco Bell or Olive Garden.

Well I had heard all along that Olive Garden was one of the tennants.
However I do believe you are correct. We need to get some special stores there.. People will come downtown to go to unique stores that they can't find in the surburban malls..

[StevenW]

"Baltimore lauded as filmmakers' town"

Julekha Dash
Staff
Baltimore is one of the top 10 cities for independent filmmakers, according to a recent issue of MovieMaker, an industry magazine.


In the winter 2005 issue, Baltimore is ranked number nine on its annual countdown of the best cities for independent filmmakers to live and work. Film production incentives and accessibility of film resources were some of the criteria considered in the ranking.

The magazine recognized Baltimore's "one-stop shopping" system, whereby permits and fees are obtained in one location.

Baltimore shared the honor with New York, Austin, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Portland, Ore., Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Orlando, Fla.

The film industry has generated nearly $200 million in economic impact in Baltimore. The city has been the location for Hollywood film productions such as 2004's "Ladder 49," starring John Travolta, and John Waters' "A Dirty Shame."



© 2005 American City Business Journals Inc.


What ever happened to the people, I forget who they were, that were going to build a couple of movie studios in the city? :?
Does anyone knowwhat I'm refering to? :? :D
That would be a big PLUS for the city's movie scene development. :)

[StevenW]

BTW, yes Jason, that is One Light Street. Or should I say, "was One Light Street". :(

[NewBaltimore1980]

Well I had heard all along that Olive Garden was one of the tennants.
However I do believe you are correct. We need to get some special stores there.. People will come downtown to go to unique stores that they can't find in the surburban malls..

Unique and upscale. Especially at the harbor. People are not going to come downtown to go to 'hippie' stores or ecletic stores that cater to a lower class of people. We already have plenty of that in Baltimore.

[Eerik]

I agree, thats why we should let the market decide what to build, not the city planners.

Interesting comment and thought-chain:

The original comment "I can't believe the city would allow such an atrocious project to go ahead on a signature lot for this city" followed by the thought "that's why we should let the market decide what to build, not the city planners" is somewhat of a contradiction.

Are we suggesting the city should have prohibited the current construction in favor of something larger?

So are we, or are we not in favor of city planners meddling? To me it appears the market did exactly that -- decide what to build. Apparently the pro forma didn't work out in favor of something larger. Keep in mind the city did not pull the plug on the latest idea, or any of the earlier proposals. The market dictated their fate...

If things change, it appears the structure can be easily replaced. The four storey parking garage at the north end of 100 E. Pratt Street became a 28 storey tower; Festival Hall was torn down and replaced with the expansion of the convention center, etc.

(Although the two photos above do demonstrate two extremes. It would be interesting to hear from the various developers over the last ten years as to what they were thinking, where they were getting their market data, etc. PLUS, it would be interesting to hear what BCCC thinks about the current construction.)

[Eerik]

I don't know if anyone heard or read about it, but the Board of Estimates on Wednesday approved the payment of $122,985 to pay for the relocation of The Peanut Shoppe from the SE corner of Lexington and Liberty Streets. The Peanut Shoppe moved last year to a new location on Baltimore Street, right below the Mechanic Theatre. The Peanut Shoppe is one of the first acquisitions/relocations for the West Side in the super-block development.

[StevenW]

"(Although the two photos above do demonstrate two extremes. It would be interesting to hear from the various developers over the last ten years as to what they were thinking, where they were getting their market data, etc. PLUS, it would be interesting to hear what BCCC thinks about the current construction.)"

I've often wondered those questions too, Eerik. It would be nice to know.
But, how? If there is an e-mail address or a link of some sort, I would try to contact someone and ask them. They might tell me, who knows?
Good comments, though.

[StevenW]

BTW, Eerik, if you get the time and are able, would you please post all those older proposed highrise projects? Those renderings are great. I think I saved a few. The name of the projects and the developers name and/or projects address would be great, too. I know there are alot of new guys here that probably have not seen these projects of old. :)

[jaysonjaz]

So are we, or are we not in favor of city planners meddling? To me it appears the market did exactly that -- decid what to build. Apparently the pro forma didn't work out in favor of something larger. Keep in mind the city did not pull the plug on the latest idea, or any of the earlier proposals. The market dictated their fate...

If things change, it appears the structure can be easily replaced. The four storey parking garage at the north end of 100 E. Pratt Street became a 28 storey tower; Festival Hall was torn down and replaced with the expansion of the convention center, etc.

Heres some text from the Sun Article about this from August 2004:

""We're going to scrap our hotel project and apartments and go back to the three-story retail," said Tony Rodgers, vice president of A&R Development Corp. "We would put ourselves at significant financial risk if we were unable to finish the job by the given deadline of July 2005 for the retail."

The decision came hours after developers, who had proposed 29 stories of hotel, luxury apartments and retail space at 600 E. Pratt St., received their second rejection from the city's Design Advisory Panel in two weeks.

Work will begin immediately on the alternative 90,000-square- foot retail project estimated to cost between $10 million and $15 million, Rodgers said late yesterday.

"It is disappointing," Rodgers said. "We're very interested in doing the project. We just can't take the risk. Time was tight anyway. If we thought we were close to understanding what the design panel wanted, we may have submitted another plan. But our team left saying we would have to start back at [the beginning]."

The Lockwood Place project has languished for years, hostage to bureaucratic, legal and economic woes since the state legislature granted Baltimore City Community College permission to market the site, which it owns, to developers as a way to enhance its revenue in 1998.

A substantial financial penalty would result if the deadline for completing the retail space is not met, Rodgers said, because of financial guarantees made to the college and Kravco Co., the original developer. He would not reveal the amount of the possible penalties."

So you have a developer who was willing to build a 29 story building, but the city Deisign Advisory Panel didn't like the original proposal.. So it was the city who stopped the old project from going ahead.. and they think this is better?
:bash:

[Eerik]

You really can not blame the Lockwood Place problems on the city. While it is obvious from the article pulled from The Sun which states the city's Design Advisory Panel rejected the design, A&R Development jumped into the arena at a very late point in the development of this parcel. The Lockwood Place development has been a nightmare from the start.

I'll remind you that the Kravco Co. along with A&R Development signed a ground lease with BCCC in 1999, promising to construct 100,000 square feet of retail as part of the original deal. Of course for awhile the development team itself stalled, in part due to the 9/11 economic downturn/post dot-com bubble. First they dropped the idea of a hotel in 2000, and then both the office and retail. In January 2003, after getting Trammell Crow as a third-party developer, site work started on the office tower and the city granted tax breaks...payments in lieu of taxes...to Kravco with the promise of a finished retail complex. David Brown entered the scenario by partnering with A&R Development Corp. While he is involved with the Symphony Center development, most of his work is traditionally suburban, and is relatively new to the city-scene.

So when the tower proposal appeared, it was the revival of an old idea, yet due to economic constraints that the developers themselves have assumed...none that the city imposed. The developers wanted money, the city made an offer with the pretext the retail be finished within a specific timeframe. There really was no way the tower could be built within this timeframe. Even in the article offered from The Sun, it plainly states: "A substantial financial penalty would result if the deadline for completing the retail space is not met, Rodgers said, because of financial guarantees made to the college and Kravco Co., the original developer. He would not reveal the amount of the possible penalties."

Everyone was surprised by the sudden announcement and intention to build the tower. It was all spur of the moment, and in hindsight I can't believe The Sun, BDC and myself had any realistic hope that this thing would actually get built. The idea appeared on the Baltimore development scene as quickly as it evaporated. Blaming the city is a lame excuse.

[jaysonjaz]

So when the tower proposal appeared, it was the revival of an old idea, yet due to economic constraints that the developers themselves have assumed...none that the city imposed. The developers wanted money, the city made an offer with the pretext the retail be finished within a specific timeframe. There really was no way the tower could be built within this timeframe. Even in the article offered from The Sun, it plainly states: "A substantial financial penalty would result if the deadline for completing the retail space is not met, Rodgers said, because of financial guarantees made to the college and Kravco Co., the original developer. He would not reveal the amount of the possible penalties."

Well if the problem was penalties, then the city could have extened the deadline for the penalties.. anything to make a good project to go through..

but i'll guess we'll just have to disagree about whos at fault here :-P

[Eerik]

No one is “at fault” per se. The law is the law, and in the case of PILOTS, I assume the developers decided to take what they could and make whatever they could make. Just as 414 Light Street to this day sits empty (the former McCormick factory) as a parking lot (with a prime harbor view) the 29-story Lockwood tower wasn’t feasible to construct. Even the current program is better than what was there before…an asphalt parking lot.

Believe me, the city won’t prevent large-scale development wherever it can reap additional dollars. CHAP and others really don’t wield any power. There are lots of examples in Baltimore were design guidelines were abolished; where zoning laws have been totally overturned in favor of development: 100 E. East Pratt, 200 E. Pratt, Harbor East…

In the end, be it ten years or fifty years from now, something bigger and better will replace the structure under construction.

[scando]

However I blame Kurt Schmoke (or is that Smuck) for bringing this about. Originally that site was supposed to be the new home of the law firm of Piper Rudnick and instead they left downtown entirely for a suburban style campus out in Mt. Washington. That was a huge loss in terms of high paying jobs for the city tax base, but that jerk just sat by and let it happen.

It's amazing that the Schmoke administration was so clueless that Baltimore pretty much missed the 90's. Their motto should have been changed from "The City That Breeds" to "Baltimore - About as good ever likely to be". In spite of my reservations about the O'Malley administration, things have happened and inertia has changed direction. The Lochwood Place property was only one of the major losses of that era. It seemed as though the previous administration was intent on chasing anything not State funded out of the city.

[scando]

it would be interesting to hear what BCCC thinks about the current construction.)

BCCC doesn't have much of a track record for urban development. It was they who rejected the Piper Rudnick proposal in favor of Lochwood Place, which always looked second class. If you check out their remaining building downtown, you can see that they were never much as architectural critics.

[Eerik]

Schmoke was a victim of a national downturn in the national, and to a greater extent world economy. If you switched Schmoke with O’Malley, I think the state of the city today would be no better or worse. Schmoke arrived on the scene at a bad time; Baltimore was in a freefall. The same holds true for leadership at the BDC: around the same time they ousted Freeman in exchange for Brodie. (Unlike the comparison of the mayors, I must admit my bias for Brodie due to his previous experience at PADC.)

Lockwood has been a mess from the beginning. Ironically BCCC originally rejected a proposal by the Cordish Co. to develop a parking and retail center that would have included a department store. Having just finished the Pier Four complex, Cordish was looking to expand his success across the street.

Along comes Piper who announces they want to vacate a dozen or so floors at the One South Charles tower and get a view of the harbor. Cordish makes a proposal, but the BCCC is leery of the retail focused Cordish, continues to court other developers. (Of course in the end, Cordish jumped past Lockwood and developed the old Brokerage complex into Power Plant Live.)

Meanwhile next door, the owner of Inner Harbor Center at 400 E. Pratt St., David Leibowits starts to churn. Since the Inner Harbor Center is a small office building in total square footage, Leibowits always wanted to expand his 400 E. Pratt holdings. A long time ago he had RTKL drawn up plans for a 15-storey addition that would be built on top of the parking garage. So Leibowitz having the plans in hand was expected to court Piper to 400 E. Pratt…

So what does he do? Leibowits abandons the Inner Harbor Center plans, and jumps into the Lockwood proposal as a potential developer. The college…most likely suspicious of his intentions told him to take a hike. (You may recall Leibowits proposed a two-towered development for Piper at the SW corner of the Lockwood site, pretty much where the new building stands.)

Meanwhile, BCCC is getting tired and exhausted of the entire process. Just before the end of the “Digital Harbor” along with the bursting dot-com bubble, BCCC picks Kravco to develop the project. Why? First and foremost Kravco promises to get the entire project developed and built all in one phase.

Along comes the economic downturn, the “headquarters” hotel for the convention center is debated/contested and eventually built more than a mile away at Harbor East (keep in mind plans called for a 30+ storey hotel at one time for the Lockwood site) and of course 9/11. Piper being anxious for new space (little did we know at the time they were looking at a merger and desperately needed new/expansion space ASAP) gives up and leaves the city altogether!

In the end, I can’t find real fault with the city, Schmoke, O’Malley or Piper. The two detriments were BCCC and its board along with the economy. The original hotel tower would have been bad had it been built since it was still too far away from the convention center. While Piper would have been a great tenant, the blur of developers along with the uncertain economy clouded the prospects for development. The apartment tower proposal that appeared and disappeared back in the summer of 2004 would have been an interesting (new) programming component, but the developers were a bit too inexperienced and unwilling to take the risk. In the end, “the ship ended up leaving the harbor” for the BCCC. They missed several opportunities. But I still think something will be built replacing the current retail component. While not as valuable at the vacant Light or 300 Pratt Street property, it won’t be viable (for long) just selling plates of pasta or music CDs.

[Eerik]

BCCC doesn't have much of a track record for urban development. It was they who rejected the Piper Rudnick proposal in favor of Lochwood Place, which always looked second class. If you check out their remaining building downtown, you can see that they were never much as architectural critics.

While BCCC didn't reject Piper (they rejected the developer)...I do agree their [remaining] building is somewhat of a disaster. Recall they had to reclad the building: it used to be covered in orange-red tile that began to fall off the overhang! Fear was that someone would get hurt!

[NewBaltimore1980]

Schmoke was a victim of a national downturn in the national, and to a greater extent world economy. If you switched Schmoke with O’Malley, I think the state of the city today would be no better or worse. Schmoke arrived on the scene at a bad time; Baltimore was in a freefall. The same holds true for leadership at the BDC: around the same time they ousted Freeman in exchange for Brodie. (Unlike the comparison of the mayors, I must admit my bias for Brodie due to his previous experience at PADC.)

Lockwood has been a mess from the beginning. Ironically BCCC originally rejected a proposal by the Cordish Co. to develop a parking and retail center that would have included a department store. Having just finished the Pier Four complex, Cordish was looking to expand his success across the street.

Along comes Piper who announces they want to vacate a dozen or so floors at the One South Charles tower and get a view of the harbor. Cordish makes a proposal, but the BCCC is leery of the retail focused Cordish, continues to court other developers. (Of course in the end, Cordish jumped past Lockwood and developed the old Brokerage complex into Power Plant Live.)

Meanwhile next door, the owner of Inner Harbor Center at 400 E. Pratt St., David Leibowits starts to churn. Since the Inner Harbor Center is a small office building in total square footage, Leibowits always wanted to expand his 400 E. Pratt holdings. A long time ago he had RTKL drawn up plans for a 15-storey addition that would be built on top of the parking garage. So Leibowitz having the plans in hand was expected to court Piper to 400 E. Pratt…

So what does he do? Leibowits abandons the Inner Harbor Center plans, and jumps into the Lockwood proposal as a potential developer. The college…most likely suspicious of his intentions told him to take a hike. (You may recall Leibowits proposed a two-towered development for Piper at the SW corner of the Lockwood site, pretty much where the new building stands.)

Meanwhile, BCCC is getting tired and exhausted of the entire process. Just before the end of the “Digital Harbor” along with the bursting dot-com bubble, BCCC picks Kravco to develop the project. Why? First and foremost Kravco promises to get the entire project developed and built all in one phase.

Along comes the economic downturn, the “headquarters” hotel for the convention center is debated/contested and eventually built more than a mile away at Harbor East (keep in mind plans called for a 30+ storey hotel at one time for the Lockwood site) and of course 9/11. Piper being anxious for new space (little did we know at the time they were looking at a merger and desperately needed new/expansion space ASAP) gives up and leaves the city altogether!

In the end, I can’t find real fault with the city, Schmoke, O’Malley or Piper. The two detriments were BCCC and its board along with the economy. The original hotel tower would have been bad had it been built since it was still too far away from the convention center. While Piper would have been a great tenant, the blur of developers along with the uncertain economy clouded the prospects for development. The apartment tower proposal that appeared and disappeared back in the summer of 2004 would have been an interesting (new) programming component, but the developers were a bit too inexperienced and unwilling to take the risk. In the end, “the ship ended up leaving the harbor” for the BCCC. They missed several opportunities. But I still think something will be built replacing the current retail component. While not as valuable at the vacant Light or 300 Pratt Street property, it won’t be viable (for long) just selling plates of pasta or music CDs.

Schmoke's policies were the cause of the downturn of the city neighborhoods. He knocked down those highrises without any plan on where to put those people. Those people then brought their 'gimme' vouchers to the neighborhoods and ruined many more neighborhoods.

[fanofterps]

The city really went downhill with Schmoke and is still trying to recover. All you have to do is look at T. Rowe Price , Baltimore Life and Piper. They employ approx 2500 people in the suburbs and they left the city in the Schmoke era.

We had the largest employment and population loss in the history of the city during his tenure.

Schmoke's policies were the cause of the downturn of the city neighborhoods. He knocked down those highrises without any plan on where to put those people. Those people then brought their 'gimme' vouchers to the neighborhoods and ruined many more neig