Baltimore’s Planning Commission postpones Harborplace vote, but still has wide-ranging discussion

Baltimore’s Planning Commission on Thursday postponed taking any votes about developer P. David Bramble’s $500 million proposal to redevelop Harborplace after a computer glitch prevented citizens from participating in the meeting virtually.

The meeting had been billed as a “hybrid” hearing in which citizens would have a chance to testify on three City Council bills that have been introduced to make it possible for Bramble’s MCB Real Estate to move ahead with a mixed-use development in place of the two mostly-vacant Harborplace shopping pavilions at Pratt and Light streets. It was the first Planning Commission hearing on the project since MCB unveiled preliminary plans on Oct. 30, and the hybrid hearing format was designed to give citizens an opportunity to testify either in person or virtually.

But shortly after the hearing began, the planning commissioners were told that people weren’t able to access the proceedings online, via the city’s Webex system. In response, chair Sean Davis and City Council member Eric Costello stated that the commission would not vote on the pending City Council legislation on Thursday and that the hearing about Harborplace would be continued as an in-person-only hearing at the commission’s next scheduled meeting on Dec. 21.

Because of the “technical difficulties” with Webex, Costello said, “I have some concerns with voting on these matters today.” Even though the commission’s hearing is in compliance with the city’s public meetings law, he said, “I want to err on the side of caution because of the high-profile nature of the proposal that’s associated with these three bills.”

Davis and Costello said the commission would still hear the planning staff’s recommendations and testimony from people who came in person to testify about the development on Thursday, including Bramble and his attorney Caroline Hecker.

Davis also told the audience that the planning commission would focus on land use and would not permit testimony about the architectural design of the proposed buildings. “We’re not going to be discussing the design,” he said. “This is about the land use control.”  

Davis promised that people would have a chance to testify when the meeting resumes in December, before the commission votes on the bills. Costello said he would recommend that the commission not take testimony from the same person at both meetings. 

Bramble said he agreed with the decision to postpone a vote.

“I’m glad they did,” he said. “We want people to have a chance to comment. We don’t want anybody to be excluded…Another few weeks isn’t going to kill anybody.”

Five new buildings

Of about 50 people who came to the hearing, many said they would wait until December to testify, including Ted Rouse, a son of Harborplace developer James Rouse, and Bob Merbler, a Federal Hill resident and real estate broker. Others expressed their views on Thursday, both pro and con. Planning commissioners weighed in as well, asking questions about the height of MCB‘s proposed buildings and provisions for parking, traffic, flood mitigation and other issues. The Harborplace portion of the commission’s Thursday hearing lasted about three hours.

The plans unveiled on Oct. 30 call for Harborplace to be demolished and for the city-owned land that is currently occupied by Harborplace to be redeveloped with two residential towers along Light Street, one 32 stories high and one 25 stories high, as well as offices, shops, restaurants and public space, including a 2,000-seat amphitheater, a two-tier waterfront promenade and a green space called The Park at Freedom’s Port.

In all, the amount of city-owned land leased to and controlled by MCB Real Estate would increase from 3.2 acres to 4.5 acres. The land now known as McKeldin Plaza would be part of the expanded development footprint. There would be three other new buildings in addition to the residential towers, a 10-story structure at 303 East Pratt Street that would contain mostly offices; a 10-story structure at 301 East Pratt Street mostly containing food- and beverage-oriented businesses with a rooftop park accessible to the public, and an 8,500-square-foot retail pavilion near the amphitheater.

Council bills 23-0446 and 23-0448 would waive certain design controls on the land, such as the current 100-foot height limit, and change zoning to permit uses not currently allowed on the land, including residences and parking. Council bill 23-0444 would authorize a public referendum in November 2024, in which city voters would be asked to approve an amendment to the City Charter, allowing for the expanded development footprint and proposed land use changes.

According to Davis, the commission received 15 letters in opposition to the development and one in support of the development, as of Thursday morning.

One theme of the public testimony was a call for the planning commission and City Council not to move too quickly in reviewing a project as significant and multifaceted as the redevelopment of Harborplace.

David Tufaro, a Baltimore resident and developer who founded Terra Nova Ventures LLC, said he doesn’t question the need to reimagine the Inner Harbor, but he does question the way it is being reimagined.

“It is time for a re-envisioning of the Inner Harbor in its totality to make it a world class location,” he told the commission. “There is no reason why it cannot become so. But it needs to be done through a public process as was done in the past, not delegated to a private developer. Many wonderful visions of how the Inner Harbor can be reinvented have been presented over the past few years. Our Planning Department and this Planning Commission is engaged in a dereliction of duty for not performing this role for the citizens of Baltimore. You should not even be holding this hearing unless it is to reject the entire plan and this process. The Bramble Plan is a classic case of the-cart-before-the-horse.”  

Tufaro said he believes the city should form a commission to create a master plan to guide development around the Inner Harbor, before it responds to any developer’s proposal for a particular parcel. He pointed to the work of Charles Center-Inner Harbor Development Corp., the quasi-public agency that oversaw planning for the Inner Harbor when Harborplace and the National Aquarium were constructed.  

“I would urge this commission to reject these council bills and return the process to the Planning Department,” he said. “We should have a commission to oversee the creation of a new master plan for the re-invention of the Inner Harbor that will serve the citizens of Baltimore for the next 100 years. We should gather the best urban waterfront ideas from around the country and the world. We should get the best and brightest to participate in this process in order to create the new world-class Baltimore Inner Harbor.” 

In an online comment, an East Baltimore resident questioned the city’s ability to review and manage a project as complex as the redevelopment of Harborplace when it can’t put on a hybrid hearing. “The city can’t even sustain a video stream for a meeting,” he said. “This, after 3 years of pandemic video conferencing.”

Donna Beth Joy Shapiro, a resident of Scarlett Place, warned that Bramble’s proposal would contradict years of planning that drew people to the harbor. She expressed concern that today’s city planners would be willing to waive height limits and other land use controls that their predecessors put in place.

“Our Inner Harbor is the result of decades of intensively careful, truly obsessive planning,” she told the commission. “What is being proposed here today would wipe away that legacy…I’m imploring you to slow down.”  

The loss of merchants and decrease in the number of visitors to the Inner Harbor are largely the result of decisions made by Bramble’s predecessor as owner of Harborplace, the Ashkenasy Acquisition Corporation, and its “bottom feeder management approach,” not any major flaw with the buildings themselves, she said.

“We would not be here today if Harborplace had not fallen into its current state” due to the way it was managed, she said. “We have a problem that is solvable without the nuclear option of losing so many of the guard rails and guidelines that have served us so well.”

Charles Kuning, a retired digital systems engineer who lives in Otterbein, showed the commissioners a framed copy of the 1983 Metro Center master plan that guided downtown development for many years, to make the point that Baltimore has successfully developed and followed master plans in the past. He said the master plans deliberately called for lower buildings at the water’s edge so occupants of taller buildings several blocks back from the water would have views of the harbor too. He recalled the days when visitors came from out of town and bought souvenirs at Harborplace.

“Harborplace opened and a magic thing happened,” he said. “People from Carroll County, people from Harford County, came down because they heard about this thing at the Harbor. A lot of people don’t know how to ‘science.’ And some don’t know how to ‘aquarium.’ But everyone knew how to shop. I think everybody in this room agrees that what we are missing are those crowds of people. We want people from the suburbs to get to know the city so that they stop paying attention to the toxic narrative that they get on a certain TV station.”

The crowds that came to Harborplace in the 1980s and 1990s helped spread the word about Baltimore’s urban renaissance and what’s good about the city, he said.

“When little Suzie says, ‘Mommy, what did you bring me from your trip to Baltimore?’ They went to Arthur Watson’s Embraceable Zoo and bought a stuffed animal. They didn’t know they were going to buy a stuffed animal, but they went in there because they were curious and they bought a stuffed animal, and they went back to Des Moines and they said ‘Baltimore is a really cool place.’ That’s what we’ve lost.”

The buildings proposed by MCB Real Estate “are beautiful,” Kuning said. “I disagree with people who say they are a monstrosity. I think they are beautiful. They are in the wrong place. The land use — it’s Harbor East brought over…It’s not what we had from 1980ish to about 2001.”

Kuning said he believes there are other locations where residential towers could be constructed, including the former News American site on Pratt Street and the air rights above the Hyatt Regency Baltimore garage on Light Street. He suggested that the current land uses be retained and the existing Harborplace buildings be returned to “Jim Rouse’s festival retail” concept.

“The point is, don’t kill the buildings,” he said. “Those buildings were not the fault of what’s going on. The utter mismanagement of those buildings has been the thing that killed the golden egg.”

‘Can’t happen fast enough’

But others warned that the city and its planners shouldn’t be swayed by nostalgia for the past. They warned that malls, even festival markets, aren’t as popular as they were in 1980s. They said it’s appropriate to take a fresh look at ways to reinvigorate Baltimore’s harborfront.

Davis, the commission chair, warned that it’s unfair to assume that MCB won’t try to bring the spirit of Rouse’s festival marketplace back as one element of their project.

“I really, really appreciate what you had to say, the story that you wove, because it’s the story that I experienced when I moved here in 1986. And you’re 100 percent correct,” he said to Kuning. But “I really have no idea” what sort of retail tenants they plan to bring in, he said. “I don’t think they know what they’re going to propose down there…I think it would be unfair to categorize it as, oh, they’re going to bring mall-type, national chains back.”

“We need to be thoughtful. We need to get it right, and I hope it continues,” said developer and city resident Chris Mfume. “We are at an inflection point with the future of our city. Downtown faces many headwinds, including the large shortfall in tax revenue. I am here to talk about the need for bold, new ideas and advocate for keeping an open mind…Everyone has their own idea about how this site should be developed, and I challenge us to not let any of our individual thoughts or nostalgia stand in the way of the greater good and progress of the city…We need something that is executable and we need a team that can execute it. I hope the commission will allow the project to move forward.” 

Amir Yazdi, the owner of UNO Pizzeria & Grill at Harborplace, which has been “temporarily closed” in the Pratt Street pavilion for more than a year, said he can’t wait for Bramble to move ahead with his redevelopment.

“This can’t happen fast enough,” he told the commission. “I am wholly supportive of it.”

Bramble, a Baltimore native, told the commission that he and MCB colleague Peter Pinkard have plenty of other work around the country and didn’t need to take on the redevelopment of Harborplace. He said he decided to pursue the project because he believes what happens at Harborplace will affect the rest of the city and he wants it to be successful.

“I know what it feels like to be excited about going to Harborplace. My family celebrated important milestones there,” he told the commission. “But the Harborplace that we all remember hadn’t been around for many years and that’s why MCB decided to take on this work. I have to say this isn’t a project that Peter and I have to do, but it’s a project that we want to do because it’s important for the future of the city.”  

City design planner Caitlin Audette said the planning department staff recommends that the commission approve the three bills, with amendments. After the Planning Commission votes on the three council bills in December, they will move on to the City Council for consideration.

Costello, who introduced the three bills along with Council President Nick Mosby, said the council likely won’t begin to hold public hearings on the legislation until February 2024. He said the bill that would authorize a public referendum on the project would need to be passed by early August, in order for the city’s Board of Elections to have appropriate “language” to put on the Baltimore City ballot in November 2024.