Before passing the three bills that lift all existing zoning restrictions and before handing the key for HarborPlace to a private for-profit developer, these false narratives need to be set straight:
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| MCB Rendering with new high-rises to the right and "sail" building to the left |
Myth: Malls are dead and the pavilions are obsolete
This narrative tries to establish as a fact that the Rouse pavilions can't be saved because they constitute an obsolete retail model that has now run its course.
What is true is that the pavilions never were designed as malls in the first place, but as 'festival markets". Unlike malls they weren't large, nor surrounded by parking lots, nor were they inward looking.There were no anchor stores or national chains stores that make actual malls look like they were cloned. Instead Jim Rouse's pavilions were filled with local retail establishments, were carefully managed and included an ongoing series of entertaining activities to draw people. Several restaurants were directly oriented towards the water with outdoor terraces. Second floor food vendors shared outdoor eating terraces as well. The failure of the pavilions came when the Rouse company sold them to successors who paid no attention to carefully curated retail activities or upkeep.
In fact, the original concept of the pavilions closely resembles the currently en-vogue food halls and markets that MCB also envisions for the first floor of their highrises. In other words, MCB wants to replicate what the original the pavilions did so well. Meanwhile MCB begun to bring local retail back into the pavilions and has already succeeded in partly reviving them from their previous slumber. The arrangement of the pavilions with their terraces towards the promenade is architecturally so successful that it has been replicated many times, most recently with almost the same exact details and dimensions in DC latest waterfront development, the Wharf. In fact Baltimore's HarborPlace served for decades as a global model for waterfront revitalization. (See this PBS documentary).
Myth : Only old people nostalgia stands in the way of reinventing HarborPlace
This narrative suggests that only some old people who remember HarborPlace's heyday cling nostalgically to their memories of Rouse and Schaefer and can't tolerate change specially change towards more equity. This, too misses the mark. In fact, both the much revered former HarborPlace developer, the late Jim Rouse, and the late Mayor Donald Schafer preached all along that the Inner Harbor to stay successful it has to continually change and evolve. To that end the Aquarium was extended, the Science Center added and the Power Plant converted into restaurants and entertainment. The visitor center was added, the Constellation received a brand-new museum and access building and Rash Field was redesigned with a second phase still to come. The Christmas Village was added to the seasonal attractions, as was the much loved ice rink. Various events such as the book fair and light city came an went. The promenade received new lighting and for a while we even had a fancy water taxi. The Aquarium has additional attractions planned for this year. In other words, the City and the Waterfront Partnership made wise investments, especially the very popular skate park and playground.
All that was done with the mindset of the Inner Harbor as Baltimore's Commons, open to all and all happened without violating the zoning rules or the Harbor masterplan that conceived the Inner Harbor as a large public space with some generally low height attractions sprinkled within.
Would a new attraction hurt? Certainly not, especially one that would serve a public purpose such as the pedestrian bridge from Federal Hill to Harbor East once proposed as part of the Harbor 2.0 plan. Much less clear is that an eye catching office building such as the stepped "Sail" building on MCB's renderings would serve a public purpose or whether walking up in front of those terraced commercial uses would truly be an attraction that lasts. The failed Columbus Center on Pier 5 should be a warning. Offices and event venues don't make an attraction, no matter how dressed up they come. It seems that the Aquarium still serves the purpose of architectural landmark quite well.
The reality is that nobody ever clamored for high-rise apartments or an office building at HarborPlace in any of MCB's public listening sessions or "dinners with a developer" and that the proposed developments will do nothing to increase equal access. Opposition to the proposed plans cuts across age, gender and race.
Myth: MCB came in as a savior and we should be glad for it
True, the pavilions were neglected and languished for too long, first under bad management and then in receivership, burdened by significant debt and produced ongoing deficits. Buyers were not exactly lining up to buy them. To his credit the Mayor as owner of the land under the pavilions paid attention to the situation. But in the excitement he may have skirted proper procedure.
“I’ve been known to keep secrets, but the hardest one that I had to keep is the work that my law department and BDC and others were doing from the first day I got in office to make sure that we didn’t let Harborplace stay or get into other out-of-town hands. We made sure that Harborplace got into the hands of a West Baltimore boy who understands and knows Baltimore like no one else.” (Mayor Brandon Scott, 10/30/23 as quoted by Ed Gunts in the Fishbowl)
The details here remain murky, but from what we know now, one can safely say that interest in the pavilions would have been sky high if they would have been publicly offered with all the promises MCB apparently received:
- the City would lift all height restrictions,
- open this prime waterfront real estate for apartments, offices and parking
- offer a footprint that can exceed that of the pavilions by 40%.
- plus, as the cherry on the cake, one million of City dollars towards a privately conducted public engagement process.
In a true competitive setting MCB may not have been the obvious choice for unfettered rights to one of the most prominent waterfront locations in the entire country. Yes, MCB is a successful minority developer, born and raised in Baltimore. The owner, David Bramble still lives near North Avenue and has moved along several other difficult redevelopment sites in the City. Yes, everybody likes David Bramble, as become obvious at the Planning Commission hearing, and Baltimore surely needs to support minority led businesses. Bramble also assembled an A-team of consultants. Still, MCB never did a development of the proposed size and complexity before, and David Bramble is a self proclaimed "spreadsheet guy" and not a visionary planner who routinely reimagines strategic downtown areas. Given Baltimore's rich history of broken developer promises, leaders should be wise enough to follow a proper process, do all due diligence, install backstops, insurances and alternatives.
Myth: The apartments are needed to pay for the project and to bring people to HarborPlace
MCB is proposing 900 apartments in two towers plus two more large structures that would contain offices and states that these many additional uses are necessary to bring life to HarborPlace and downtown and to sustain the restaurants and markets. The overall notion that more people living downtown would result in more people walking the streets and the promenade adding demand sounds convincing on first blush. But at least three arguments speak against this reasoning:
- considering how many thousand people have already moved to downtown in recent years without stemming the ongoing departure of retail and restaurants, one has to wonder if the effect is that straight forward.
- And as the fellow developer David Tufaro remarked on WBAL radio, Baltimore's Inner Harbor creates a perfect three sided space that in many ways acts like Baltimore's Central Park. Central gathering spaces bestow value on all surrounding uses. Putting apartments into the valued space itself diminishes its value
Over the history of New York City’s mayors — whether corrupt, decent, inept or quite capable — not one conspired with a private developer to permit residential development in {Central] park itself. Not one would dare. (Rebecca Hoffberger, founder of the Visionary Art Museum in a letter to the SUN)
- Lastly, what exactly are these apartments supposed to pay for? MCB stated that the repairs to the promenade, the connection of McKeldin Plaza and the street reconfiguration would have to be paid from public resources and won't be funded by him. So is he saying that those 900 units and the offices are needed to pay for the new market spaces and restaurants? That appears not very plausible if one looks at Cross Street Market, Broadway Market and R-House as operations that are not funded by apartments. At least not by apartments directly above them. If MCB wants to fund the new HarborPlace markets with apartments, he could do this with his other Inner Harbor properties across Pratt Street.
Myth: Unprecedented public input and an international design competition
Councilman Costello praises MCB for "unprecedented" public outreach that included even advertisements on the side of buses, "listening sessions" and exclusive "dinners with the developer". What he didn't mention was that the City promises to pay for all this. When recently retired Morgan architecture professor Leon Bridges testified against the project at the Planning Commission asking for a public international design competition as a way to get the best professional design for a HarborPlace revival Councilman Costello assured him that MCB had conducted just such a competition. Indeed, MCB had secretly invited three international firms to produce designs for one building and selected the Danish firm 3XN that had sketched out what is now known as the "Sail" building. However this process is a far cry from the highly regulated international design competitions Bridges referred to. All MCB's competition proved was that he proceeded with his designs long before the listening sessions ended and that those sessions hardly informed the designs he presented.
Conclusion
Whether one likes the bold design depicted on MCB's renderings or not, the project should not be promoted on the basis of deceptive or even false narratives.
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| Politicians lining up in support of MCB plans at the unveiling of the plans in 2023. |
Neither the Mayor, nor the Planning Commission, or the City Council should be willing to hand over HarborPlace before a proper professional vetting of the financial conditions, the urban design, the market conditions, the practicality of the towers, and the long-term fit for downtown. It should not simply be left to the voters to put some reason into the process via a November referendum. Full and accurate information and a masterplan are needed now.
The custodians of this premier piece of real estate should not be so rash with expressing their full support for a plan that almost all of them saw only hours before the developer revealed it to a flabbergasted public. They should wonder why there is hardly any design or planning professional who shares their excitement and consider the possibility that they may come to regret their haste and willingness to be pushed over by narratives that don't hold the water.
Klaus Philipsen, FAIA
1-16-24: A correction was made relative to the uses in the "Sail" building. According to MCB the uses in that building include "a marketplace on the first two floors and [..]restaurant, venue and commercial opportunities on the upper levels".
See also Dan Rodricks SUN column of Sunday Jan 14,24
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