McKeldin Fountain catches Council President's Attention

The ongoing debate about the future of McKeldin Plaza has now sperad from UDARP to the council and motivated the Council President to possibly introduce a bill which closely tracks some key requests that AIA Baltimore has recently published, namely that no demolition of the existing fountain should occur before traffic is resolved and realization of a final phase assured.

According to the Baltimore Brew President young made these comments:

“We want to know how much it is going to cost, how long it’s going to take, who is going to pay for it,” 

“The Downtown Partnership is not a city agency, we are a city agency. They should be showing their stuff to us.” 

According to the designers, the demolition of the fountain is predicated by traffic considerations and the assumed need for additional lanes on the west side of the plaza should the spur on the east side be closed. However, a traffic study has not been finalized and the conclusion may be premature. Furthermore, one could question if traffic engineers should have the last word when it comes to the future of Mc Keldin Plaza since their past approaches around the Inner Harbor, no doubt, created the many of the problems that the Harbor 2.0 masterplan tries to alleviate.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

See Brew Article