Panel will consider bills to allow Harborplace redevelopment
A Baltimore City Council committee is set to hear arguments Tuesday for and against a controversial proposal to revitalize the Inner Harbor by replacing the twin Harborplace retail pavilions with a multi-building, mixed-use development of housing, shops, offices and a park.
Baltimore-based MCB Real Estate, which purchased the aging, nearly vacant waterfront marketplace out of receivership in April 2022, unveiled proposed designs at the end of October.
MCB managing partner P. David Bramble has called for “sweeping change” that will help spark a downtown renaissance for the 21st century, winning support from city and state officials.
But opponents have objected to allowing people for the first time to live in apartments and work in offices in private buildings on the city-owned waterfront land. Opponents say the plan would essentially privatize the public Inner Harbor shoreline, a city park where charter amendments in the late 1970s locked in 26 acres of open space but allowed shops and restaurants in the pavilions.
“Most people recognize that it’s time for really big, sweeping change, huge change, and this project can be the trajectory setter for that change,” Bramble told The Baltimore Sun last month.
Land use legislation allowing such change has been recommended for approval by the city’s Planning Commission and moves to the City Council for hearings and a vote, starting with Tuesday’s hearing before the economic and community development committee. The committee could reach a consensus and make a recommendation to the full council after one hearing or keep the proposed bills in committee for further review.
Critics have objected to the proposed density, design and the inclusion of towering apartment buildings on the site.
John C. Murphy, a Baltimore attorney, said he plans to remind council members that before Harborplace was built in 1980, the city dedicated the Inner Harbor waterfront as a public park to be held in perpetuity.
Murphy said he plans to testify that “the proposal before you is inconsistent with a park,” and that as trustees, council members are “obligated to preserve the park for this and future generations.”
The developer has proposed demolishing the 43-year-old waterfront shopping and dining pavilions that for decades have symbolized the Inner Harbor attraction and replacing them with four taller, mixed-use buildings, including a conjoined tower with around 900 apartments, several smaller buildings, a large new park, a two-tier promenade and realigned roadways.
The proposal involves about $500 million of private investment and would need an estimated $400 million in public funds — about $300 million for parks and public spaces and $100 million for the roadwork — the developer has said.
A set of companion bills were introduced in October to allow the residential development and other new uses, remove height restrictions and expand both private and public space along the Inner Harbor arc from the Baltimore Visitor Center to the World Trade Center. The bills include rezoning requests, amendments to the city’s urban renewal plan governing the Inner Harbor, and an amendment to the City Charter that would require voter approval.
A handful of opponents formed the Inner Harbor Coalition, a group fighting to block high-rise apartments and offices and possibly put a ballot question of their own to city voters this fall.
Organizers said Monday that they’re expecting a large turnout at Tuesday’s hearing.
Cindy Conklin, a real estate agent and South Baltimore resident who’s among the organizers, said she’s worried the plans to reduce the number of traffic lanes near the Inner Harbor will backfire, complicating downtown access for residents, employees and visitors and ultimately hurting property values and quality of life.
With high office vacancies and what she believes is a regional oversupply of market-rate housing rentals becoming available, city officials need to spend more time reviewing the need for apartments and offices at Harborplace, she said.
“We want them to take a pause,” she said. “This is a seminal moment in Baltimore’s history whether this goes forward or not.”