Opponents of Harborplace redevelopment in Baltimore form coalition to block plan

A coalition opposing a developer’s plans to revitalize Harborplace hopes to block high-rise apartments and offices at the waterfront attraction, possibly by putting a ballot question to city voters this fall.

Calling Baltimore’s Inner Harbor more important to the city than Central Park is to New York, an organizer said members of the newly formed Inner Harbor Coalition will first urge city and state officials to reverse course on the proposed project. The group says officials are fast-tracking a process to replace the site’s aging retail pavilions with a mixed-use development, including a housing tower, without adequate public scrutiny or consideration of alternate proposals.

Coalition members are expected to come out in force Feb. 13 for a public hearing before the City Council’s Economic and Community Development Committee.

“We’re all strenuously opposed to these plans that were sprung on the public without any public vetting,” said organizer David F. Tufaro, a city developer and founder of Terra Nova Ventures, which specializes in adaptive reuse of historic structures. “All the vetting that occurred prior to it never revealed these plans of the high rises in our park.”

Baltimore-based MCB Real Estate has proposed demolishing the twin 43-year-old waterfront shopping and dining pavilions that for decades have symbolized the Inner Harbor attraction and replacing them with four taller, mixed-use buildings, including a conjoined tower with around 900 apartments, one smaller structure in a large new park, a two-tier promenade and realigned roadways.

Opponents object to a plan that many say essentially would privatize the public Inner Harbor shoreline, a city park where charter amendments in the late 1970s locked in 26 acres of open space but paved the way for shops and restaurants in the pavilions. During two Baltimore Planning Commission hearings in November and December, many spoke out or wrote letters against the proposed land use changes, including a charter amendment that would go before voters this November. The changes would allow for the removal of height limits and the addition of hundreds of apartments in tall towers and make the waterfront less accessible, in opponents’ view, to the public.

Now, coalition members are exploring whether to push for an additional Harborplace ballot question. It likely would ask voters to preserve the original amendments permitting Harborplace, bar office and apartment uses, and leave height limits intact. Besides reinforcing the current charter, it likely would require that any changes go through a public master planning process and look at alternative approaches.

“It would be two battling referendums,” said Tufaro, adding that “everyone is clamoring for a master plan process, one in which the public is involved, and a commission or the like, to generate a master plan, hire professionals then vet that plan with the public.”

Instead, he said, “we’re turning over the master plan process to a private developer whose intention it is to make a profit.”

MCB acquired the mostly vacant pavilions out of receivership in April 2022, though the land is city-owned. The pavilions have lost tenants and fallen into disrepair over the past decade, with many attributing the problems to what they saw as mismanagement by the previous, New York-based owner.

P. David Bramble, MCB’s managing partner, who grew up, lives and runs his development firm in Baltimore, argues that only a densely populated project that mixes expanded park space with expanded commercial uses and housing is economically viable and will spark further growth downtown.

“MCB made a big bet on Baltimore by purchasing Harborplace,” Bramble said Thursday in an email to The Baltimore Sun. “We did it because we believe in what is possible — not what used to be. Ultimately, the people of Baltimore will have a vote in November on whether they agree with our vision or not. Competing ballot questions doesn’t change that fact.”

After what it described as months of meeting with community groups and residents in neighborhoods across the city, MCB unveiled detailed plans at the end of October, surrounded by state and local officials in a show of support, including Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. To build the project as proposed, MCB is seeking land use changes through a set of companion council bills introduced by City Councilman Eric Costello and Council President Nick Mosby.

Scott said then that while the pavilions helped make the Inner Harbor a national destination four decades ago, he backs the developer’s new vision.

The mayor said Thursday that MCB prioritized community input even before starting the design process and has sustained that focus.

“However, we must note, that this specific group’s opposition to MCB’s proposal is being led by people who had the power to effect change at Harborplace as it deteriorated for decades, but who did nothing,” Scott said in an emailed statement. “Now that there is a developer from West Baltimore proposing a plan, they suddenly want to get involved without offering any viable alternative. They just want to say ‘no.’”

Scott said the city can’t afford “such lack of vision. We have the opportunity now to do something that should’ve been done decades ago: move Harborplace into the 21st century and refresh our public face to [the] world in a way that benefits all Baltimoreans.”

Costello said Thursday that the Harborplace redevelopment public process has been extensive and transparent so far, and that that will continue.

“It’s important to note, again, that the property we’re talking about rezoning is private property,” Costello said. “It’s privately owned. If someone else has a different plan for what to do there, there was an opportunity to acquire this property and take on the extensive debt associated with it.”

The storm that brought flooding to the Baltimore area this week only reinforced “the need for something to happen there, and for it to be built sustainably,” he said. “That’s what’s being proposed here.”

The council bills, recommended for passage by a unanimous Planning Commission vote Dec. 21, would allow the residential development and other new uses, remove height restrictions, and expand both private and public space along the Inner Harbor arc from the Baltimore Visitor Center to the World Trade Center. The bills include rezoning requests and amendments to the city’s urban renewal plan governing the Inner Harbor. Another bill would put the question of amending the charter to voters. The amendment would expand the area of the city’s ground lease with the developer to 4.5 acres from the current 3.2 acres.

“The residents and the voters are going to have the final say on this,” said Eric Stephenson, the planning commission’s vice chair, before voting to recommend the council approve the bills last month. “And that’s really important, and this year being a presidential and mayoral election year means we’re going to have the most voters out at the polling locations. That’s another reason to push this forward.”

The proposal involves about $500 million of private investment and would need an estimated $400 million in public funds — about $300 million for parks and public spaces and $100 million for the roadwork — the developer has said. Representatives of MCB and Costello, who sits on the Planning Commission, have said all public funds are expected to come from the federal government and state, not from the city.

“I think we all remember what Harborplace meant to us, but it hasn’t been that way for a really long time,” Bramble said during the December planning commission hearing on the project.  “It is a project that we want to do because it’s extremely important for the future of our city.”

Rebecca Hoffberger, founder of the American Visionary Art Museum at the harbor, argued Tuesday in a letter to The Sun that nearly all of Baltimore’s waterfront already has been dedicated to housing or offices.

“Surely not very welcoming to middle class, let alone poor people,” said Hoffberger, calling for an Inner Harbor master plan designed to “enhance” and “delight,” one that would include communal play and respect height restrictions appropriate for a park.

Baltimore architect David Benn, a member of the coalition, has been asking for further studies on traffic issues and housing needs.

“Questions should be answered such as how much housing makes sense with nearby vacant buildings and empty lots that could be developed, and if high-rise development makes sense, where should it be to frame a gateway or connect with downtown,” Benn said in Planning Commission testimony.

Tufaro said he believes Harborplace’s decline came about in part because of the city’s backing of waterfront redevelopment in Harbor East, Harbor Point and Baltimore Peninsula, formerly known as Port Covington, which shifted offices, apartments and shops outside the central business district.

The coalition is steering clear of backing specific Harborplace uses or site designs, arguing such decisions should be developed as part of a public process, Tufaro said. Some coalition members envision reusing the existing pavilions, while others believe one or both should be razed.

Barring introduction of a bill by a City Council member to place such a referendum question on the ballot, the coalition would need to gather 10,000 signatures in support from registered voters. Before beginning such a push, coalition members are expected to make their case during the council committee hearing next month.

“The real hope is we convince the City Council and the citizens to stop, slow down this process, and regather our thoughts,” Tufaro said.