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| Demolition is the wrong answer (Current Eutaw Street facade) |
The strategy of declaring the current Market obsolete worth complete demolition instead of seeing it as a jewel to be cherished and kept in ship-shape is now hitting home. The SUN reports that sales dropped 50% after a video showing a rat gnawing on cake in a bakery display case was widely shared. (Lexington Market sees business plunge since rat video).
Just like the Porsche wouldn't accommodate the family, the envisioned modern new 97,000 sf market building wouldn't accommodate all current merchants and likely not serve the current clientele. (The current east and west markets plus arcade represent 178,500 sf.) $17 million have been socked away to date Market Executive Director Robert Thomas told me during a promotional event earlier this year, money that is urgently needed to upgrade the current market. The SUN quotes Council President Young's spokesman Lester Davis describing the effort to maintain the facility while planning for its replacement as “a tricky balance.”
This high wire act is not only tricky, it is foolish. While it sounds reasonable and logical to pursue a rebuild option that leaves the current market in place until the replacement is ready for move-in, the strategy is deadly for the market if years go by to collect the money for a new market . Almost two years later there is still no firm design or timeline when to begin the $40 million new project first presented in 2016.
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| Fresh fish and fresh fruit: Serving the food desert |
The demolition and rebuild plans hover like vultures over the current market which already suffers from a bad image, mostly based on perception and not on reality. If anything, it is the general environment and poor management and merchandising that plagues the market, not the building. The somewhat dumpy building had been visually upgraded some 15 years ago with new signage, additional windows and steel applications on the two sides facing Eutaw and Paca Streets. A 2015 report prepared by the Portland ME firm Market Ventures finds "not feeling safe" as the top reason for not visiting the market, followed by "unclean". True or not, the rat incident and the unrest of 2015 have boosted those perceptions.
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| A multi story market won't work: Generic glass box proposed in 2016 |
The 2015 masterplan envisioned reconstruction of the east market and abandoning the west market for a total cost of then estimated as $26.7 million.
However, in 2016 the City departed from the masterplan in a dramatic way with the suggestion that an all new market building erected to the south of the current arcade and east market would be the way to go.
In February this year the City allocated $250,000 in design funds for the preparation of the design documents needed to build the new market. The initial two story design concept prepared by Murphy Dittenhafer Architects had been sharply criticized by the Baltimore design review panel UDARP for poor circulation and access, especially from Eutaw Street. Most UDARP members have since been replaced. No revised design has been presented since then. While the City has taken the path of private redevelopment on almost all other public Baltimore Markets, Lexington Market is supposed to remain a public market managed and operated by the City.
There is still time to put the plans for a new two story glass-box on hold and focus all efforts on getting the current market to work on par with its brethren around the country.
Even while the building itself isn't terribly charming, there isn't anything that couldn't be fixed for less money than an all new building. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. More importantly than cost, the current building deals with the 20' drop from Paca to Eutaw Street in a way that allows equal access from both sides. The sloped floor may not be ideal, but it is by far superior to the escalators, stairways and the two-story configuration proposed for the glass box.
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| The current East Market as seen from the gallery |
Necessary HVAC and electric upgrades in the current east building don't justify its demolition, nor does the lack of daylight. System upgrades, a set of skylights, better lighting, and new paint would solve those problems.
Beyond basic functions, most needed is a convincing merchandising concept that would ensure a good mix of market specific offerings. The West Market could initially be used as the area where merchants would be relocated during construction and later converted to an open space as a downtown green plan by Mahan Rykiel once suggested, or it could be opened to become a covered outdoor market similar to the one in Rochester. If the West Market would become a park, the parking lot next to the east market could become an outdoor event space. Ideally, though, it should be a high density redevelopment conceived as transit oritented development right where Metro, Light Rail and buses connect.
Meanwhile go to the Market, buy stuff, help end the loop of self fulfilling prophecy. You will be pleasantly surprised.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
Related on this blog:
Demolish the Lexington Market? (Dec. 2016)
"The approach is costly and the money for such a radical project is just not there right now. Which doesn't mean it could be there in the future, but in the meantime nobody will invest a thing in the existing market, nobody will fill a vacant stall and those who are there will live in fear whether the new market would be affordable for them or would even have space for them. (It is smaller). How treacherous years of limbo can be to a market could be observed at the Cross Street Market which sits in an affluent area but began to be just a shadow of itself because its future was so unclear. For the approach to be effective it has to happen really soon."
"It would be awfully hard to brand a modern glass structure such as the one shown on the renderings as the oldest market in America. It will also be hard to convey the fondness that many people still have for the current market. Just in October market CEO Thomas wrote me that "we are actually developing our first phase plan to “transform in place” because many DO like the market as it is".
Is the proposed Lexington Market "divorced from the street level?" (July 2017)
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