Community Architect Baltimore: How Ken Ulman turned a stunning loss into a big win

College Park bears the fact that it has a big anchor institution in its name, but the anchor sometimes felt like a drag on the town when drunk college students set trash cans on fire in the town center. In a national hitlist of memorable college towns College Park would land in the lower half somewhere below Tempe and Chapel Hill when the metrics are hipness, amenities or character. Too close to DC, too much a suburb, too much a string along development along highway one.

The University campus in College Park

All that has changed with Governor Hogan's victory in the Maryland gubernatorial election in 2014. Not so much because of what the Governor did (except allowing the Purple Line transit project to survive on shoe-string budget) but because of what losing Democratic lieutenant governor candidate, former Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, did. He quickly found a new job as a consultant advising the University of Maryland at College Park.

“I have often said the future of this university is tied to the future of the surrounding community, and we must make investments that spark economic development in College Park and across Maryland. We are pleased Ken is bringing his expertise from smart economic growth in Howard County here to our university and community.” UMD President Wallace D. Loh when announcing Ulman's appointment

Ulman came onboard at the right moment. UM had a new President since 2010 who understood that flagship universities have to care about the community where they reside, the University's Foundation was willing to leverage its assets and College Park was about to have a new mayor who was willing to bury the war hatchet that had been out between the university and the town when UM had a different president. Ulman's task was formidable: Diversify revenue streams, foster investment by businesses, philanthropies and venture capital firms in start-ups, incubators and programs at the University, create jobs, spark growth and bring investment to the university research park while furthering the Route 1 corridor as a vibrant college and commercial community.

The Discovery District creating a link between Metro station and campus

Of course, the economy was humming along as well. As a result of this splendid constellation of forces Ulman today can look back at those last three years and see a fundamentally altered place.

US 1 is no longer a seedy strip but well on its way of becoming a main street named Baltimore Street (Ulman makes a point of not calling it any longer "US 1", he says "Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase isn't called MD 185 either"). There is a $170 million posh four star hotel on the north end and a mixed use development with a Whole Foods on the south, with smaller interventions such as a Milk Boy Art House in between.
the campus has a new face towards Baltimore Street with the 215,000 sf Iribe Center, a computer science and innovation center design by HDR, a multinational firm with locations in Baltimore and Washington
there is a new Discovery District (aka Innovation District) which is designed to straddle Baltimore Street near the hotel and Iribe Center
there will be five anticipated Purple Line stations on campus with a campus fare free zone
a TOD and research district near the Metro Station is taking shape which will be connected to the main campus via a new bridge

how it all fits together: Campus, innovation district and research park

Ulman, whose intellectual prowess hides behind the physique of a jock, set out to embed the previously isolated campus in the community. This gave the town a stronger identity and the university a new district for expansion and the accommodation of start-ups. Most universities now pride themselves of keeping young entrepreneurs around who like to not cut the umbilical chord to their alma mater entirely yet and prefer to hang out in incubator and co-working spaces benefiting form the glow of the academic setting. A typical win-win.

The fuel and glue for much of the action came from the university's Foundation which was willing and able to throw real estate assets and liquidity into the game to leverage pivotal properties change agents, such as the Milk Boy art house.

Ulman tells the story of a WMATA development site next to its College Park Metro station: The transit agency's real estate arm couldn't find a taker in spite of three rounds of requests for proposals. When they prepared for a fourth RFP, Ulman recounts, that he told them to wait until a joint developers conference showcasing the entire concept would be organized. The event took place in 2015 with a show-and-tell presented by UM and WMATA to which developers flocked to learn about the big masterplan for the college, the town and the innovation district. The event culminated in a bus tour with a stop at the Metro Station and the development site. In the bigger context the site didn't look quite so bleak and forlorn any longer. As Ulman tells it, WMATA's next RFP received eight proposals. Since then Gilbane has since been selected as the developer to build some 440 apartments next to the station.

The UM campus as everybody knows it (Photo: Philipsen)

Ulman delivers the anecdotes and stories in rapid fire, accompanied by a series of slides showing in diagrams, renderings and photos the dreams, the projected future, the pathways to it, and already realized plans. (Some of the images illustrate this article). For example when he says he insisted on keeping the first floor of the giant garage between the new hotel reserved for an active pedestrian friendly use. It is now a University co-working space. A utilitarian space behind the garage will be transformed in a gathering space with outdoor seating setting the area up to be more inviting for the discovery park to jump across Route 1. Those small interventions can be catalytic and they never happen on their own. They require someone who follows a bigger vision and can see which smaller action could leverage a bigger one, setting off the virtuous cycles or positive feedback loops which I keep writing about.

One can't help but believing that a convincing narrative produced by a person strategically placed in a net of power (in Ulman's case with direct access to the UM President, the town Mayor, the financial resources of a Foundation that trusts his instincts) and equipped with connections from the past (in Ulman's case his time as county exec) is the secret sauce to get things going. That such a person is needed even when the stars are perfectly aligned.

The Iribe Center in its final stages of completion (Photo: Philipsen)

Coming from Baltimore, one can't help but wish that someone could put the Baltimore story together in such an infectious manner. I am in awe about the sheer level of optimism that Ulman exudes. How could his vision not come to pass with the exploding District so close by, a flagship university, the succesful Hyattsville arts district, with a Metro station just waiting for being kissed awake and a light rail line which is already under construction?

When I joked, "you seem to have achieved what you had set out to do, there may be other things waiting for you next", he gave me a look as if this had occurred to him as well. Then turned to rush to his next appointment.

People from Baltimore know that all kinds of things can go wrong. Even wunderkind and Ulman class mate Kevin Plank and his "rocky year 2017" is proof of it. Yet, Baltimore has all the ingredients of College Park, and more. So many anchors, only so few who really have given it a go here as well.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA