Commission votes to protect buildings
Developer to seek 2nd hearing, says it won’t affect Superblock plans
Developers behind a proposed $155 million redevelopment of Baltimore’s Superblock remain optimistic after the city’s historic preservation board signaled it would not let them demolish five buildings that date to the 19th century.
The Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation voted unanimously Tuesday to protect the buildings, which are located near the corner of Fayette and Howard streets in the city’s Five & Dime historic district just west of downtown.
Chris Janian, a member of the development team, said he was not surprised by the decision Tuesday, which was the first hearing in a two-step process for demolition approval. Janian said the development team plans to forge ahead and request a second hearing, where commissioners could give a final decision, and that most of the project was unaffected by the vote.
“This is just a small piece of the overall project,” Janian said.
For decades, city leaders have wanted to redevelop the corridor along Howard Street, which was once a thriving retail area anchored by large department stores.
Over time, the city acquired the properties in an area bounded by Park Avenue, Howard, Fayette and Lexington streets and dubbed the “Superblock.” Those properties have now sat vacant for years.
Following a competitive bidding process, Westside Partners LLC — a partnership among the development firms Vitruvius, Mayson-Dixon and Partnered — agreed in 2020 to pay $4.5 million for more than a dozen Superblock properties. Westside Partners is proposing a mixed-use development called The Compass, which could include apartments, parking, a hotel and an entertainment venue.
Their plan calls for the demolition of seven buildings in the historic district. City staff determined that five of them were historically significant. They were rowhomes built in the mid-to-late 1800s and later turned into stores and commercial buildings, featuring Federal and Italianate styles of architecture.
Johns Hopkins, executive director of Baltimore Heritage, said
advocates have pushed for years to secure the future of buildings on the Superblock and encouraged commissioners to protect them.
“These buildings are critical to having a revitalization effort that
is authentic and that is vibrant,” Hopkins said.
Jayson Williams, of MaysonDixon, said the buildings have decayed and no longer “contribute to the greater historic fabric of the
neighborhood.”
“We don’t take demolishing buildings lightly,” Williams told commissioners.
“But we know that due to the physical constraints of these
current buildings, the state of the buildings, we’re asking you to demolish them so we can move our project forward, create density, create a lasting impact, and truly tell the story of Howard and Lexington streets.”
On the other side of the Superblock, Westside Partners plans to incorporate several existing structures into The Compass, including a former Read’s, a Maryland drugstore chain that Rite Aid acquired in the 1980s.
The drugstore occupied a building at the corner of Lexington and Howard streets and its lunch counter was a flashpoint for early anti-segregation sit-in demonstrations during the civil rights era.
“We are looking at not demoing those buildings, incorporating them into the larger projects and creating this amazing, mixeduse, fun development that jumpstarts the renaissance of the arts district,” said Janian, referring to the Bromo Arts District, named for the nearby Bromo Seltzer Tower. “We see downtown as this amazing neighborhood that just needs a little bit more.”