Plans for redevelopment of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor inched forward yet again on Tuesday evening. After a four hour long meeting, the Baltimore City Council’s Economic and Community Development committee advanced legislation that would expand the footprint of Inner Harbor and remove height restrictions for buildings at the harbor’s waterfront.
The legislation, including a proposed charter amendment that would go before voters in November, are all necessary to bring MCB Real Estate’s Harborplace designs to life.
In 2022 MCB Real Estate purchased the waterfront retail properties out of receivership. Last fall, MCB unveiled plans that would raze the current pavilions on Light and Pratt in favor of an architectural feature dubbed “the Sail” and two towering multi-use residential and commercial towers.
Those buildings are all privately owned but the land under and around them belongs to the city as per charter.
Under current city charter, the Inner Harbor is dedicated as a “public park for uses and benefit for this and future generations” of the city and state. It sets aside 3.2 acres for commercial space and outdoor dining establishments. The legislation advanced by the city’s economic and community development committee expands that footprint to 4.5 acres by shrinking Pratt Street and eliminating the Calvert street spur. It also would allow the use of “multi-family housing”-- apartment buildings– to exist in that space, something that is currently prohibited by charter.
In all, the designs by MCB include about 900 apartments.
Another bill, which was also moved forward by the committee, removes the height limits.
“The expanse between what has been presented to the public and what these bills will allow is vast. There’s so much room for what could possibly happen,” said Councilmember Ryan Dorsey, who represents District 3. He was the only person on the seven member committee to vote against all three pieces of legislation.
The project will cost nearly one-billion dollars, using a combination of private and public dollars. Currently, MCB estimates that they will need about $500 million in private money and another $400 million in public funds.
That money will not come from the city’s coffers, representatives from the real estate company assured the council.
“There are promenade improvements that are going to need to be made regardless of this project. They're going to be expensive. We expect though that the federal government is going to pay for those improvements,” said Caroline Hecker, an attorney representing the company, who also noted that the federal government paid for the promenade during the first iteration of Harborplace nearly 50 years ago.
“The realignment of the streets, the Calvert Street reconfiguration, we expect will largely be state funds. We think with the red line coming in there's going to be a significant amount of state funding that's going to come into the transportation and infrastructure improvements that need to be made,” said Hecker.
All of that feels like putting the cart before the horse for Dorsey, who thinks that redesigning the streets around the Harbor is something the city should be leading. The councilman wondered if reconfiguring the streets around the harbor would actually help alleviate some of the problems, like accessibility, that currently affect the area.
“There's nothing to say that that alone won't cause significant improvements to the quality of experience at harborplace,” he said in an interview after the meeting. “And to do so is a great way to make forward progress while also buying time to undertake the sort of very deliberate and deliberative process that I think Harborplace deserves to be led by real thought leaders, led by the public, not a private interest.”
The council also heard nearly two hours of public comments, with a mixture of citizens in favor and against the proposed plans.
David Tufaro, a longtime Baltimore developer, continued to speak out against the plans, calling instead for a public planning process.
Duane Alexander, a founder of LWD Consolidated Trust, was once a young man who got his start working in storefronts at Harborplace. “When those opportunities were taken away from our community, I ended up in a life of crime and did almost 10 years in jail,” he said. He didn’t speak directly on the bills in front of the council but urged the council and MCB Real Estate to encourage youth involvement at every step in the process.
“I don't care if we just bring the kids to watch you build. The things that I watched happening around the city changed my life,” he said.
Others expressed concerns about equity. One woman noted that even though there is public park space, that space is behind the buildings, blocking off access to waterfront views for people who don’t have the resources to live in waterfront luxury apartment buildings.
Still, others were in favor.
Timothy Dean has run restaurants around the world and competed on the reality TV program Top Chef. He says that the designs proposed by MCB Real Estate would allow him to open up a restaurant concept he’s been dreaming up for years.
“While I may be one of the first… I'm certain I will not be the last major culinary talent to seek to come to Baltimore storied waterfront and reimagined harborplace,” he said.
The bills and proposed charter amendment still need to be heard by the full council at least one more time before the bills get signed into law. The charter amendment, if successful, would go before voters in November.
