Taking risk, far away from the waterfront

For what seems eternity, the downtown sections of Franklin and Mulberry Streets were depressing traffic sewers with not much to look at except vacant buildings. Not entirely true, of course, there is the glorious pair of the Enoch Pratt Library and the Basilica of the Assumption as a stark exception, the Unitarian Church, the new Unity Church, there is the Congress/Kernan Hotel struggling along as an apartment building, there is for some years Wendy Blair's St James Place, there is the fabled H&H camping store with an artist hub above it, and then there is, of course the French Companies headquarters at the corner of Franklin and Eutaw where I have my offices, a building that started as the University of Maryland's Dental School. In between there are a thriving tiny bar, the The Place Lounge, a few hair-salons a cluster of small gallery spaces which occupy most of the 500 block of West Franklin.

Refreshed, cleaned up and aiming for
upward mobile travelers: Hotel Indigo
on 24 W. Franklin Street

On Mulberry, less happened, the biggest change in decades was the demise of Marticks, a building anybody could easily miss anyway, so tiny and sad it always looked, even when Marticks was still serving lunch and dinner behind the windows that were boarded for use as a speak easy in the prohibition period. And yes, in the old YMCA building, there opened a small hotel "Hi".

The glacial pace of change has shifted into what can only be considered high gear based on that almost stagnant past:

It began with the 171 apartments at 520 Park Avenue (they do overlook Franklin Street thanks to a vacant lot in front, now also slated for development) with rents above $3 dollars a foot (developer lingo, but a far cry from the $1 which seemed to be the ceiling around here). It continued with 501 Franklin, former nursing home rooms converted to 138 student apartments (still under construction). Even on Mulberry Street, across from Marticks a big hole is dug for 68 new affordable apartments developed by Enterprise Homes. The entire block where Marticks sits is advertised for redevelopment by BDC.

501 West Franklin: nursing home to student apartments

Last month the Hotel Indigo opened its doors luring more guests to its 162 room quarters that are targeted to be way more affluent than the market of previous very budget hotel incarnations here. Located diagonally across from the Pratt Library and across from a now defunct soup-kitchen the hotel is quite far away from its competiors who more or less all cluster within a short walk of the Inner Harbor.

Add caption

The hotel's "philosophy" is interesting in that it explains to some degree why the chain is trying to make it work in a location that not many people venture to, even though it is but a stone-throw from the famous cathedral.

No two neighborhoods are alike. Neither are any two Hotel Indigo® properties. When you stay with us, you’re not just staying anywhere, you’re staying somewhere—within a vibrant community, in a unique boutique hotel that combines authentic local experiences, modern design and intimate service with the peace of mind and consistency of staying with one of the world’s largest hotel groups.

Clearly, in an attempt to reach various segments of the travelling population, the hotels have embarked on niche branding away from the bland sameness, towards local, authentic, and unique. How does such a "from farm to table" approach translate into actual design in the hospitality industry? Randy Sovich, the architect, designed with this project his first hotel.

That the developer, Focus Development picked his

Wallpaper sketches behind the headboard

small East Baltimore practice speaks for a serious search for authentic design. Sovich reports that he had to study the area five blocks around, to reflect it in his approach and says that the colors and the furniture selection were influenced by this research. Not having had the benefit of having himself explain the veracity of this claim in the guestrooms, I found the local references rather shallow: Custom wallpaper sketches depicting Baltimore scenes on the wall behind the headboards were the most unusual perhaps, otherwise there were framed old photos of Baltimore and some murals decorating hallway walls and meeting rooms predictably named after Mencken and Poe.

This hotel sits smack in the historic Cathedral Hill District, once Baltimore's most fashionable address with an largely intact set of historic structures all around, not last a set of grand churches. For this to find, the folks have to leave the hotel.

The Poet bar and restaurant with ceiling painting

Regardless of these branding exercises, or instead of quibbling with the fact that roof skylights were closed for ventilation instead of illuminating the top level meeting rooms, the lobby the adjacent restaurant bar "Poet" and the "library" deserve undivided praise: They are very welcoming and a well designed blend of old architecture with contemporary sensibilities for decor, offering a new happy hour or business lunch joint west of Charles Street where selection was extremely slim.

The fact that Focus, Shaffin Jetha and Indigo gave a go to this $23 million investment, including acquisition of the historic gem from 1907 built by the YMCA, and serious upgrade of the 1982 hotel conversion  can only be commended and hoped to have success. Guests that venture out of its front door will, indeed, have much more to discover than Bubba Gump or the Cheesecake Factory.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA


I toured the hotel on Thursday as part of a ULI gathering. 

SUN article

Reception desk across from the front door

Guest room

Neighborhood views from the guest rooms

Why new design guidelines are not the path to a vibrant Towson

Today at 5pm the Baltimore County Planning Board will conduct a public hearing about Towson again, this time about the Towson Urban Center Overlay District.

Towson's "main street": York Road

Without a doubt Towson is the county's most important place, it is the seat of the County government with a court house and all, and it has been booming lately. With the whole county now having more residents than Baltimore City, it is certainly worth getting the future of Towson right. That is not an easy matter for many reasons, one of them a very convoluted and outdated set of development and zoning regulations that for decades defied every attempt of a comprehensive update.

The proposed Towson Urban Center Overlay District

Consequently, what one gets is tinkering on the edges. Or new patches over so many layers of old patches. A bit like a bucket of roofing cement over top of too many layers of leaky roofing membrane on top of decking that has begun rotting in many places.

So what's the deal with this proposed new patch? Prepared by the County's Planning Department which operates on a shoestring like so many planning offices across the country, the reason for the overlay is noted right in the intro:

County Council Resolution 113-14 requests creation of two new zoning classifi-
cations for Towson and this report focuses on the first such zone that is to
be solely for the downtown Towson area. The resolution cites the Master Plan goals for Towson and recognizes the failings of achieving them through piecemeal amendments to the existing CT District of Towson.

The thankfully slim report goes on to recite five past planning efforts going back to 1992, none of which resulted in an actionable and adopted masterplan that would clearly spell out what goes where, none that brought about an open space network plan, a transpiration element, transit, parking, height and massing regulations or any of those controls that were successfully implemented by many communities around the nation in what is often called "form based code". Instead, there is a patchwork of ten zoning designations and overlays that this latest overlay is supposed to consolidate. The Planning Office aptly and accurately describes the problem thus:

In Towson "compatibility" with existing
buildings means little since scale, material
and styles vary extremely and are very
ecclectic

While each of these districts/zones addresses a specific Towson development goal, they do not build on one another, and their fragmented nature hinders the comprehensive redevelopment of Towson. Problems with the multiple, overlapping districts are numerous: some laws are grandfathered while others are retroactive resulting in different standards for different land parcels. Some are difficult to understand and apply and therefore have not been used by the development community since their inception. There are also multiple approval procedures with different levels of review. County wide regulations originally drafted to address greenfield suburban development are often awkwardly amended to try to fit” Towson. Finally, many of the districts have slightly different boundaries, creating additional disconnection in an area that should be addressed comprehensively.

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. The analysis is good; the problem is the suggested solution!

The Planning Office wants to solve these issues through design review and design guidelines. Essentially by telling their Design Review Panel, here you have a newly defined outline of downtown Towson and with it a different set of design guidelines than for the surrounding communities. Or telling the development community: We suspend major requirements of our standard zoning because they don't work anyway, particularly not in an area we want to urbanize.

So, we don't tell you what we want but we give you a thorough design review and that will give the desired result. Like the famous saying about pornography, I can't define it but show me pictures and I can tell you what it is. And who decides? Well, not just that advisory design review panel, decisions will be made chiefly an administrative law judge! This process would replace public debate with verdicts.

To provide at least some idea of what is expected, the document that is subject of today's hearing, finishes off with a set of design guidelines. They read like this:

Block configuration should respect adjacent buildings and shall result in a cohesive pedestrian realm along streets and alleys. 

Primary building facades should be oriented toward the street and the pedestrian realm. 

Buildings should line the sidewalk and frame the public realm.

Parking areas should be screened by architectural and landscape treatments. 

Pathways from parking areas to the street should have purpose, be safe and be visually interesting. 

Facades on parking structures should be compatible in character and quality with adjoining buildings 

Open spaces such as plazas and courtyards should be provided to give relief and interest to the streetscape. 

The use of trees for shading and cooling is encouraged. 

A wide variety of appropriate architectural styles, materials and details throughout the district are encouraged to create a thriving, attractive district. 

New buildings should fit within the context in terms of mass and scale to enhance the character of a block or street. 

Innovative use of high quality materials should be encouraged. 

Lighting as a nighttime amenity should be considered.

 These are only a few samples of the precious guidelines but you get the picture: Towson should look nice and there should be light when it is dark!

As someone who has served for 10 years on the County Design Review Panel I know that this type of guideline is not what panelists need to enforce good design and make developers and architects provide it. If the panelists don't have enough professionals skills to already apply any and all of the above "rules", they shouldn't be on the panel in the first place.

What panelists need are enforceable must-do specifics. Such as: "sidewalks must have [provide species] street-trees every [xx] feet on center unless underground utilities make this absolutely impossible". Everything in the public area should be extremely well defined in a masterplan with the private developer as the entity that implements and pays.

And for the private lots, for the guidelines not to be random or fraught with unintended consequences, they need to be only the words that refine the elements of that form based masterplan that is missing and that would mandate heights, relationships, open spaces and primary pedestrian connections, to just name a few items.

There isn't any real meat in those guidelines but even if there were, the real action is postponed to the quadrennial re-zoning process coming up next year. That is when the consequential legally binding adjustments would have to be made to the zoning code such as the elimination of the current CT zoning, the elimination of the never used "alternative process" and the amendment of the town center boundary.

As noted, design guidelines make only sense if they are based on a clear masterplan. The Towson portion of the County masterplan is not nearly specific enough to serve as a blueprint. This is why large developers like Caves Valley (Towson Row) have to develop their own guidelines to orchestrate the parcels within their development area.

Chances that this new overlay would make the new vibrant and attractive Towson that most want to see, any more likely are extremely dim. Most importantly, the proposed process won't make the path to there more transparent, predictable and enforceable.

Towson communities have been on high alert for some time. One can expect a lively hearing tonight.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA  updated for language and clarity 14:20h

The author is co-chair of the AIA Urban Design Committee on the local and national level and has advised communities on zoning and masterplanning for 40 years. He has been a member of the Baltimore County Design Review for 10 years and participated in several attempts of reforming the County development regulations. He is also President of the Board of Neighborspace, a Baltimore County land trust. The opinions expressed here are only those of the author and  not supposed to express the positions of AIA or NeighborSpace. 

The author has spoken with the Planning department about Towson and has used Cherry Creek in Denver as a good example of a town that has urbanized a former mall and open air shopping center strip landscape into a vibrant  mixed use community. The Cherry Creek North Design Guidelines were obviously consulted for this overlay proposal as various graphics indicate. However, the Colorado guidelines distinguish between "Intent", "Guideline" and "Standard" whereby standards say what must be done ("shall"). In other words, the Cherry Creek guidelines are enforceable. The suggested Towson guidelines ("should") are not. More importantly, the Cherry Creek guidelines followed a very specific Cherry Creek Area Plan that had been part of "Blueprint Denver", a regional comprehensive plan. Cherry Creek also developed a separate greenway masterplan, another element Towson would desperately need.

 You may be interested in this longer essay about Towson on Community Architect.

Links:

A Complete Guide to Form Based Zoning
Cherry Creek Area Masterplan

  

The city convention hotel, failing to deliver in several respects

Ten years after its design was in dispute the Baltimore Hilton is back in the headlines. This time for its failure to provide the revenues that the city had hoped for when it funded this venue. Less noted is the additional failure to prop up the underutilized convention center. Council President Jack Young wants to sell the hotel not only to stem the bleeding but also to gain some proceeds to pay recreations centers, an item back in focus after the Baltimore unrest. Given this situation, the Baltimore Business Journal asked me to revisit the hotel's design. I wrote the following review for them, adding another metric to the list of the hotel's failures: urban design. 

Just how ugly is the Baltimore Hilton, part of public controversy since conception? The design experts on the City Design Review Panel in 2005 scolded RTKL, the architect, for an “almost prison-like structure” and bemoaned the cold shades of grey emaniting from the metal, they criticized boxiness and irregular window patterns.  Ten years later the hotel has become part of the local Fox evening news opening shot but has otherwise faded into the assembly of mediocre architecture along Pratt Street. People wouldn’t think about it much , were it not for its continued red balance sheet and for its hulking presence blocking the views for generations of baseball fans in Oriole Park. That is particularly irksome because the ballpark turned out to be one of Baltimore’s best examples of good architecture and urban design.

The view from home plate with the hotel

The Hilton cannot compete on either count. “Boxy”, “prison” and “too cold” are popular cliches to denigrate clear simple architecture which the current more qualified UDARP panel likely would not use. There are standards in design beyond just taste and fashion. Massing, proportions, colors, materials , light and shade etc. can be evaluated with more than just opinions. The Hilton fails on the more broadly understood field of urban design.  It was simply a mistake to plug up major views and corridors to and from Oriole Park, a place originating from the desire of invigorating downtown.  The ballpark designers went at great lengths to ensure that Eutaw Street would be extended through the ballpark with an open view all up and down that major spine of the Baltimore westside and, most famously, they allowed glorious views from home plate towards the Bromo tower and downtown. The hotel plugged Eutaw Street up with a bridge across the street and shut half of downtown out with a giant slab of bedroom windows. Not following the ballpark logic of luring visitors into downtown, the convention planners opted for a hotel that nobody has to leave.

The view before the hotel was built. Note the Bromo Tower

Then there is the issue of a good public space where game visitors could congregate and decompress when leaving the park. The city owned area in front of historic Camden Station would have been a perfect space for such an urban plaza that could have highlighted the historic station, the ballpark and the convention center. The hotel provided a small nod to the plaza idea by leaving a triangular swath of land open, but the blob of ballrooms blocks the space to a point where Camden Station is now hidden and the remaining area is simply a leftover space.

The main guest room tracts of the hotel form an L at the corner of Russel and Pratt Street and constitute, together with the much more elegant Zenith across the street, a gateway for the terminus of the BW-Parkway. The high visibility of the Hilton, prominently in view from all sides, gets us back to architecture:

There could hardly be a stronger visual barrier

Could a hotel in this place be a visual attraction instead of a well decorated nuisance? Looking at chain hotels around the world, the odds for this are minuscule, Dubai’s instant architectural icon, the hotel Burj Al Arab, notwithstanding. So we have to be content with the fact that the simple slender boxes with their irregular windows that turn some corners sit on a well detailed brick clad base that tie across to the hard to tame huge ballrooms. The problem of this hotel is deeper than its architecture. It is the result of a too conventional convention strategy that has since run proven unsuccessful. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

As co-chair of the AIA Urban Design Committee I advocated in 1993 for an open space in lieu of the surface parking lot between Howard and Eutaw and Camden and Pratt Streets. This was part of the AIA towncenter meetings which took place for six downtown areas then. The idea was resubmitted in 2000. The AIA in conjunction with the Baltimore Architecture Foundation held a public event in which alternative hotel locations were discussed and a simulation of the Hilton was shown blocking the skyline. The result was the small triangular sliver of open space provided today east of the ballrooms. 

Link to the BBJ article published online 8/1/8/15

Baltimore SUN, Ed Gunts about hotel development in 2002

BBJ reporting about the AIA Oriole Victory Plaza in 2000

Eutaw Street is visually cut off by the bridge between the
main hotel and the ball rooms to the left. 

The Daily Record reported in June 2010 about the AIA initiative
for an urban plaza in front of Camden Station called "Oriole Victory Park"

the view north towards Eutaw Street shows that the corridor, while technically
still there, is visually obliterated

What is so offensive about Holt's lead remarks?

So Secretary Ken Holt got a reprimand from the big boss.

"The secretary met with the governor earlier today at which time the governor expressed his disappointment with the secretary's comments." (State Housing statement) 

By then the secretary of housing already felt the need to make up to lead paint and housing advocates for his remarks that stupefied anyone who has any idea about the issue of lead poisoning, housing and landlord liabilities regarding lead.

Ken Holt, looks and talks like Reagan. His main experience
is 25 years with Morgan Stanley as a portfolio manager. 

A high ranking official that sits on a conference panel of other municipal officials to speak about a topic with a gazillion complications and issues, who when his turn comes to speak, has nothing better to offer than spouting off some urban legend nonsense that a developer friend once told him, such a secretary is a problem.

But worse than this, the story that was ruminating on his mind and made it unfiltered out his mouth, provides a deep view into his own thinking and value system.

A "value" system in which the impediments posed by regulations are a bigger issue than the health of children, a thinking in which poor mothers are "welfare queens" that have nothing else in mind than to defraud the system, a thinking in which mothers are more cynical than developers and landlords, in which victims are perpetrators and in which a good story counts more than evidence. So, that thinking goes, what needs to be done is to help the developers and not those who really need the help.

How flawed this thinking is, aside from the absolutely ridiculous and shameful "example" that Holt gave,  was further highlighted by Kathy Howard, who chairs the legislative committee of the Maryland Multi-Housing Association, which represents landlords. She said:

"What is motivating him to discuss this issue is right on point. He's concerned, and I think many people are concerned, about the need for affordable housing in this state." 

Ah, yes! Indeed, there is a hug affordable housing crisis in this state and all across America. Indeed, a matter of grave concern. But the issue is the lack of quality affordable housing. Not the lack of lead infested dumps for which landlords don't want to spend the money to make them safe for habitation.


Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Links:

WBAL
SUN

You may be interested in my longer blog article about the affordable housing crisis here

Based on what analysis was the Red Line canceled?

The 1000 Friends of Maryland a a coalition of transit proponents had asked MDOT to share the analysis on which the cancellation of the Red Line was based. Some 40 days later the answer is still silence.

Here is what the transit friends have to say about that in a press release issued this afternoon:

BALTIMORE, MD –Maryland organizations supporting the Baltimore Red Line asked the Hogan Administration on July 7^thto release the “thorough analysis” that informed the Governor’s decision to cancel the Red Line [PIA request letter].  No documents have been received and MDOT is now in violation of the Public Information Act.“The Governor announcing his cancelation of the Red Line on June 25^th spoke of the administration’s assessment faulting the project.  We have asked to see that analysis and expected it to be provided right away or at least with in the 30 days the law allows for complicated matters”, said Dru Schmidt-Perkins, President, 1000 Friends of Maryland.  “Either they have this thorough analysis or they don’t.”The Maryland Department of Transportation is required to respond to information requests “immediately” according to Maryland Law.  “An additional reasonable period not to exceed 30 days is available only where the additional period of time is needed to retrieve their record and assess their status under the PIA,” according to the Attorney General’s website.

The 30 day clock ran out on Thursday, August 6^th.  A MDOT assistant Attorney General promised some documents on Tuesday, August 11^th and none have been provided and MDOT is now asking for more time until August 26^th.“The Red Line project was the result of over a decade of assessing the transit needs of Baltimore that resulted in this east-west light rail.  Over the years this went through many levels of tough analysis, finally having to compete against transit projects across the country before winning federal funding.  Maryland taxpayers deserve to know what evidence the administration had that was more compelling than a decade of tough work,” said Richard Hall, Executive Director of Citizens Planning and Housing Association.Secretary of Transportation Pete Rahn repeatedly promised legislative committees that he would conduct comprehensive reviews of both the Red Line and Purple Line projects. On January 28^th, Secretary Rahn’s first public mention of these reviews occurred before a Senate Budget & Taxation Committee hearing about the Red and Purple lines. At that hearing he testified that “the Governor has requested a thorough analysis and report to him.” On May 20^th Secretary Rahn stated that he has not begun his review of the Red Line.   A timeline of Rahn’s statements about the reviews show that the Secretary consistently promised to review the project, but that the Red Line’s review was repeatedly delayed until after the review of the Purple Line was completed.“The simple fact is I can read through reams of technical analysis done for the Red Line that show it was a cost-effective way to serve regional transportation needs while integrating with our existing network,” said Brian O’Malley, President & CEO of the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance.  “Where is the equivalent analysis done by MDOT that helps me understand how the Governor came to the opposite conclusion? Dragging their feet on this request leads me to believe that they didn’t really do their homework.”Next steps for the Baltimore regionMoving forward, a coalition supporting equitable transportation in the Baltimore Region is developing a strategy for next steps.  This coalition led by 1000 Friends of Maryland, Central Maryland Transportation Alliance and Citizens Planning & Housing Association.  

1. We support efforts of Baltimore’s elected officials to seek ways to save the Red Line as the most effective means to meet urgent transit needs.
2. If the Red Line is not built then these funds should be redeployed to support other urgently needed transit improvements.
3. Support legislation that will improve the transparency, accountability and performance of major transportation spending.
4. Improve the performance of the Maryland Transit Administration and increase the oversite of this agency.
5. Meet the goals of the regional effort known as the Opportunity Collaborative to increase access to jobs, housing, education and health care. This was the result of three years of work and many stakeholders.  They released their plan this past June. 

• Create more opportunity for mid-skill workers to commute to family-supporting jobs via public transportation.

• Shorten commute times and improve transit reliability to reduce the burden on working families.

• Make the region a more attractive place for employers by expanding transit access to more of the region’s mid-skill labor pool.

• Increase non-car commuting options to reduce our impact on the Chesapeake Bay and reduce carbon emissions.

These issues will be discussed at a September 15 workshop that Citizens Planning & Housing Association is hosting.   Their website will soon have more details (cphabaltimore.org).

A small sample of the studies that were prepared during 12 years of Red Line planning and design.

It seems pretty obvious that the administration simply studied the Purple Line and never got around looking at the Red Line in similar detail. Politically it was clear that they wouldn't fund both transit projects.

Once the Purple Line kind of survived (on $163 million instead of $730 million state funds), and been found politically and budget wise less risky, the death of the Red Line simply followed automatically. To make it plausible the project was called "flawed", a "boondoggle" and the like in what one can only call a preemptive strike. The adjectives are less the result of a transportation analysis and more part of a political strategy.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Transform Baltimore zoning reform bogged down with no end in sight

It was back in the last century when the AIA and the Baltimore Urban Design Committee hosted a zoning conference in Baltimore with Milwaukee's Mayor Norquist as the keynote speaker. He explained how urgent the reform of age old zoning codes is for cities. Main reason: Most zoning codes are based on suburban models and make rebuilding cities that cherish urbanity all but impossible. At that time Norquist was either still Mayor or had just assumed his role at the Congress for New Urbanism and "form based code" was still a nascent concept.

When "rewrite" was still called "transform"

Since then lots of water has flowed down the Patapsco and cities across the country have revamped their zoning codes. Baltimore City still has the same 1971 code in place.

It is not for a lack of trying. In fact, the city embarked on a major overhaul of its code in 2008, a full seven years ago, first under the title Transform Baltimore and then the less fascinating moniker Rewrite Baltimore. They eyed Denver as a precedent and even hired the same consultants. In June 2010 the city released the first draft of a new Zoning Code and in November 2010 draft maps followed accompanied by 12 city-wide meetings and hundreds of neighborhood meetings to discuss the proposed text and map.  A version 2 followed.

Then ever so slowly the whole process started to bog down in the quick sands of politics. The last "News" entry on the city website dates back to 2014. Since then the codes rests in the hands of the city council which began a page by page review and eventually lost all energy to continue. A recent effort of getting the puppy moving again resulted in some new draft with comments that staff re-submitted to the council. As the BBJ reported last week, this latest attempt once again overwhelmed our the city council and a request for more review time was submitted.

Model: Denver's rezoning approach

I have written about the systemic flaws in Baltimore's approach on my main blog and bemoaned particularly the fact that Baltimore did not develop a physical vision before trying to codify a form. I consider the new code still deeply flawed in many respects (for example in its definitions of Transit Oriented Development) but agree with my colleagues of the AIA zoning work-group that the new flawed code would be vastly better than the convoluted old code.

“Comprehensive rezoning hasn’t been done in my lifetime,” said Cole, 42, a former city council member. “This is perhaps the most complicated piece of legislation that the council has had to take up in decades. … I don’t question at all the commitment of the council. They are all committed to seeing this through.”
Still, he said, the delays are creating a quandary for some developers whose projects would be permissible under the new code, but require a laborious rezoning process under the current code. Some are unsure whether to go through a costly rezoning or hold out hope for the new code to pass soon.
“We’re getting to the point now where it is creating a little uncertainty in the economic development world and we need to try to get this done as soon possible,” Cole said.(Baltimore Business Journal) 

Stay posted. Or even better, get involved so the council moves this before it will be entirely consumed by the upcoming elections.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Baltimore Business Journal about yet another zoning delay
Indianapolis "Indy Rezone"

Experience Replacing Consumption?

That is what the New York Times concluded in light of anemic gains in U.S. retail spending. 

 “It’s becoming more and more about the experience — whether it’s going to a festival or sharing a car ride or going to a new city,” said Richard E. Jaffe, a retailing analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, the investment firm.

“The religion of consumption has proven to be unfulfilling,” he said. “The ‘pile it high and watch it fly’ mentality at department stores no longer works.”

If experience outdoes consumption the trend should do well for cities like Baltimore where shopping hasn't been an attraction for decades but experience is. The Aquarium and the Science Center, water taxis and Fort McHenry, Pirate boats and the bars of Fells Point are all selling experiences. 

That is why some of the recent trends of Ricky tacky retail at the Inner Harbor are so alarming. There is no experience, no adventure and no authenticity in them. 

For those to whom all of Baltimore is just too much of an adventure, we have a potential there we can still tap. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

New York Times: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/business/economy/stores-suffer-from-a-shift-of-behavior-in-buyers.html?_r=0&referrer=

One Maryland.

Supposedly former Speaker of the House Casper Taylor coined the phrase. We sure heard the previous governor use it a lot. It didn't prevent folks from far outside the beltways from feeling that he waged "a war on rural Maryland"; presumably because they didn't like smart growth and its notion of planning, gun restrictions, the control of farm run off into streams or the increase of transportation money designated for transit. 

Now rural and suburban Maryland is in power, and Baltimore city feels that the new governor wages a war on on the city, taking nearly three billion dollars off the table for transit that was also to leverage community reconstruction and economic development. 

Now the federal portion of that transit money won't go anywhere in Maryland and the State dollars will pave a bunch of roads in the far corners of Maryland. Poverty certainly doesn't exist only in Baltimore but also in Salisbury, Cumberland and anywhere in between, but it is entirely unproved that those rural road projects can leverage community reconstruction or economic development. 

"One Maryland" has always been more an aspiration than a reality and it is a fact that there are diverging interests between  farmers and environmentalists, unions and entrepreneurs, urban transit users and rural diesel drivers. When it comes to transit dollars, though, one must realize that it is certainly not limited to big cities anymore and that transit now exists in various forms almost statewide. 

The "One Maryland" slogan should remind us though, that beyond our differences we have common interests, and that to solve any of the major challenges we need each other. The small towns and rural areas may represent the by far larger geographical area of our state, but the largest chunk of our state economic product comes from the majority of the people and jobs which happen to be concentrated in the Baltimore metro region. 

Conversely, even though far too many  Baltimoreans never get to enjoy the state's beaches and mountains due to extreme poverty, all metro residents depend in some way on the history, the farms, the forests and the resources of towns and villages all across this state. 

While an occasional shift of emphasis from government to private industry, from the common good to individual freedom, from environmental protection to innovation and then back again is healthy for a democracy, those shifts should never be accompanied by spite, vindictiveness, self-righteousness or "absolute" principles that see those of different convictions as enemies. 

"One Maryland" should mean that, together, we should find enough common ground to move forward in making our State better and more competitive. We don't have enough time and resources to waste on undoing achievements of the past, even if they may not reflect our own priorities. 

As someone not born and raised here and as someone who selected Maryland and the Baltimore area as a home of choice, I have little patience with anything that makes any part of this state slide backwards. 

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Red Line: Follow the money!

The latest ruse about the Red Line and the loss of all funds is about if really all funds have to be lost.

This issue came first up on Monday's infamous meeting in which the new MDOT Secretary took the top tier representation of about 40 high ranking officials and representatives (including Senator Mikaulski, Congreemen Cummings and Sarbanes, Mayor Rawlings Blake, GBC CEO Fry) as an opportunity to present them a polling sheet ("Please rank your top 5 priorities"?). There the question was if one couldn't wait to the end of the federal budget year before relinquishing the $100 million federal money set aside for the current fiscal year (and with it also the remaining $800 million for the coming years). Predictably, the answer was no.

Now the SUN reported that the State portion of the Red line funds also begs a question: Did really every last dollar of the $730 million State funding portion for the Red Line disappear or are there not at least $300 million still around as the Department of Legislative Services (DLS) maintains.

After Monday's meeting between state and city officials, Del. Samuel I. "Sandy" Rosenberg asked General Assembly analysts how much mass transit money was now available based on the governor's moves. Deschenaux replied that $339 million in "loose change" was now freed up.
"That Sec. Rahn did not know at today's meeting that there is $339 million available in the [capital budget for transportation] for improvements to the metropolitan Baltimore mass transit system raises grave doubt about the seriousness of the Hogan Administration's approach to this issue," Rosenberg wrote in an email to The Sun. "I hope I am proven wrong."

$300 million would represent a nice down-payment for transit improvements that Secretary Rahn is talking about being on his mind for the Baltimore region (he really didn't share any, though). We are not talking about other budget line items such as MARC engines or potholes on City streets (which there are plenty). With $300 million or so one could really improve the entire bus system AND implement a first class priority bus system (a real QB system).

Governor Hogan at the announcement that the Red Line will
not be further pursued 

However, the Hogan administration quickly went into full blown attack mode against DLS and insisted that every dollar for the transit in this region had really been taken off the table.

Why they think that this is a prudent thing to repeat, even if it may have inadvertently not true, is beyond comprehension.

Erin Henson, spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Transportation, said there simply is no money left over after Hogan dedicated $1.35 billion in new projects for highways, bridges and system preservation to be undertaken in other parts of the state by 2018. "There is no additional funding available," she said.

Someone apparently thinks that continued poking of the finger into the eye of Baltimore's residents, representatives and supporters is the right thing to do. Giving the heart of the region the finger which represents over 60% of the state's GDP and in terms of transportation contributes  

·         More than 20% of registered vehicles in Maryland  registered to households in Baltimore City or Baltimore County alone.·         More than 20% of Vehicle Miles Traveled in Maryland in 2013 traveled in Baltimore City or Baltimore County.·         Roughly 25% of the population of Maryland residing in Baltimore City or Baltimore County.·         Roughly 26% of the jobs in Maryland located in Baltimore City or Baltimore County.·         Roughly 23% of the total income in Maryland coming from residents of Baltimore City and Baltimore County.  (CMTA)

doesn't seem a sustainable or viable strategy. Not to mention equity or environmental or social justice.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

SUN article about the DLS dollars

Here the latest SUN math research:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-transportation-funds-20150812-story.html

Better Bus service through efficiency - Is there a free lunch after all?

It seems like a Republican dream come true: Revamp an entire bus system of more than 1200 buses serving about 4 million people and dozens of lines in one fell swoop. Wake up on August 17 and voila: Better service all around and no added cost.

We are talking about Houston here which has already become famous for this planned swift government action before it actually happened. This recipe, efficiency by squeezing the lemon some more, attracts all those who really don't believe government should play an important role or spend more money on transit.

Harris County Metro  bus (Next City)

In Maryland MDOT Secretary Rahn has drunk the kool-aid and is happily returning $900 million of federal aid, seemingly saying: hey, we do system efficiency, you can keep your money!

Never mind that this has been already tried by his Republican predecessor Bob Flannigan in an attempt that carried the name GBBI (Greater Baltimore Bus Initiative) and went up in flames. Never mind that the previous MTA administrator lost his job because he put a large price tag on his own initiative BNIP (Bus Network Improvement Program). Never mind, that Houston located in the Republican heartland and seat of Harris County in which the transit agency Metro has engaged in a full fledged rail transit build out as well and operates a rainbow of red, green and purple light rail lines (sounds familiar?). None of this has stopped the latest saviors on a white horse to say that they will do a bus overhaul for free, and maybe overnight? 

Logic would say, if you can do this bus thing for free, why then scuttle the Red Line? Why not both? Rahn, the Secretary, repeated even yesterday that the problem with the Red Lime was that it took all the money. But it is hard to believe someone who says that money is really the core concern who is returning nearly a billion to the Feds without batting an eye. 

Baltimore buses, stuck in traffic on Eutaw Street

Meanwhile, if you care about the Baltimore area bus system with its over 800 buses serving 47 local lines, four local express and four shuttle lines, four Quick Bus lines, four regional express bus lines and 27 commuter bus routes, not to mention the mobility van service, then tune in at WYPR's Midday today.
Dan Rodricks will be exploring Houston in some more detail and I will try to help him to sort things out here at home.

Klaus Philipsen, FAIA

Houston: How one city will change its entire bus system overnight