Proposed Harborplace redevelopment faces criticism, call for more study in first city review – Beragampengetahuan

Plans to transform downtown Baltimore’s iconic yet faded Harborplace into a mixed-use project faced criticism Thursday from a city panel that asked the developer to step back from a fully formed proposal and analyze alternatives for the high-profile site.

MCB Real Estate has proposed demolishing the waterfront shopping anddining 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 building in a large new park, a two-tier promenade and realigned roadways.

The developer said 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.

After unveiling its vision two weeks ago, MCB began the city review process Thursday, presenting its master plan to the city’s Urban Design & Architecture Advisory Panel, a group of experts in urban design, architecture, and landscape design. While saying they appreciated that a team has taken on the difficult and significant project, panel members said it will require additional study and a clearer vision and design framework to succeed.

“I hope you understand that what we’re here for is to help it succeed, and to do so we feel like we’re the ones that have to tell you to slow down, think about it, let’s talk about it,” said Pavlina Ilieva, the panel’s chairwoman. “Let’s figure out what’s really the best solution here. This has to work. … And it’s a long road ahead when it comes to that.”

Panel members, who make recommendations to city planners and the Planning Commission, said MCB had arrived at a fully formed plan, complete with the quantity, placement and design of buildings, without explaining their reasoning or showing potential alternatives, which Ilieva called “alarming” and “arbitrary.”

She said many elements included in the presentation are overdue and should be part of the final project, including some that had been recommended in earlier plans.

A 2013 Inner Harbor plan, for instance, recommended the reconfiguration of Light Street that MCB is proposing at the intersection with Pratt Street, which would remove a spur and convert Light back into a boulevard.

“However, the approach to all of this seems to be pretty primitive,” Ilieva said.

The panel chair also said the proposed site appeared overbuilt. She questioned whether the developer had set clear goals and if the plans aimed to create something “inviting and new,” or “just a mixed-use project on the waterfront.”

“I really don’t think that the solution lies in five buildings positioned on this site in a way that aligns with one or two more of the streets in the grid,” Ilieva said. “There needs to be a pretty fundamental analysis on the site as it stands as it was and as it will be, a pretty extensive visioning exercise,” to determine what succeeded in the past and what will succeed now and longer-term.

Osborne Anthony, another panel member, commended the development team for its work to date.

But, he said, “the challenge for me is, when I’m presented with almost postcard-type images of a development, it says to me: ‘Whoa, is this really baked in stone? Is this what it is?’ … And there isn’t necessarily the supporting information to demonstrate to me that the process has been … truly robust in how you’ve arrived at these various decisions.”

Anthony said the plans left him without a clear idea of the “predominant element.”

“Is it more about a park, or is it more about commercial, retail, residential?” he said. “Even if it’s a mix of all of that, there should be some kind of hierarchy.”

Contents

The Evening Sun

Daily

Get your evening news in your e-mail inbox. Get all the top news and sports from the beragampengetahuan.com.

P. David Bramble, MCB’s managing partner and a West Baltimore resident, has said the new Harborplace will reflect a generational shift from indoor malls to more active, mixed-use space. The developers, who struck a deal to acquire the mostly vacant pavilions out of receivership in April 2022, believe the proposed new Harborplace would spark a downtown renaissance that would ripple across the city and beyond.

The proposed development is designed to open view corridors that are currently blocked by the 1980s-era pavilions with large footprints, expand park space, add shade through trees and canopies and increase connection to the water through a series of floating sun decks, Vaki Mawema, co-managing director of Gensler Baltimore, the project’s lead architect, told panel members.

MCB wants to build two 200,000-square-foot commercial buildings on Pratt Street, plus two connecting residential towers — 32 stories and 25 stories — with ground-level shops on Light Street.

One commercial building on Pratt Street would house food and beverage tenants and feature a tiered 50,000-square-foot, public rooftop park. A smaller retail building — 8,500 square feet — would be built in a 30,000-square-foot park with a 2,000-seat amphitheater, bounded by a redesigned intersection of Light and Pratt streets and replacing McKeldin Plaza.

The project encompasses McKeldin Plaza, absorbing that space into a larger park stretching all the way to the waterfront and squaring off the intersection of Pratt and Light streets.

The design panel is expected to scrutinize the project over several meetings. After reviewing the master plan, the panel will review each building on the site. Architects and developers often change their proposals’ scale and appearance to satisfy its members.

City planners will then undertake a site plan review. The Planning Commission is expected to hold a hearing Nov. 30 on city council bills enabling the project before forwarding its recommendations to the council.

Originally Published: Nov 16, 2023 at 2:18 pm