The proposed Compass development will add 302 residences and 120 hotel rooms on the west side of downtown Baltimore, according to designers of a master plan unveiled on Thursday.
Westside Partners, the group chosen by the Baltimore Development Corporation to acquire and redevelop 18 city-owned properties near Howard and Lexington streets, presented plans and renderings during a two-hour review session with the city’s Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel (UDAAP).
The meeting came two months after the city’s preservation commission voted to allow the developer to demolish five buildings to make way for part of its project, even though they’re considered contributing structures to the city’s Five & Dime Historic District.
The development site is bounded roughly by Lexington, Howard and Fayette streets and Park Avenue. Once referred to as the “Superblock,” it’s actually two city blocks divided by Marion Street, which runs north-south. The development is designed to be constructed in phases and represents an investment of more than $150 million. The lead designers are Hanbury and SM+P Architects.
At the design review meeting, the development team members discussed six components of the project, four on the north side of Marion Street and two on the south side.
The components on the north side of Marion Street are:
Apartments: A five-level, 94-unit apartment building that would be L-shaped in plan and would rise above a “podium” formed by commercial buildings along the 200 block of West Lexington Street. Facades of existing buildings on Lexington Street and the 100 block of North Howard Street would be preserved as part of the new apartment structure.
Hotel: The former Brager-Gutman department store at 201-211 West Lexington Street would be converted to a 120-room boutique hotel whose main entrance would be on Lexington Street.
Club: Just west of the hotel and possibly connected to it would be a “club” for social gatherings. Its entrance would be on Lexington Street.
Assembly space: The former Read’s drug store at 123-127 North Howard Street would be preserved as a one-of-a-kind assembly space. This is the building where Helena Hicks and other former Morgan State students held an impromptu lunch counter sit-in in 1955 to protest the store’s policy of not providing counter service to African Americans. Shortly after the 1955 protest on Howard Street, the owner of the Read’s chain changed the company’s policy and agreed to serve African Americans at the lunch counters in all of its stores. The Baltimore protest predated the more publicized Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, South Carolina by five years. Architect Davin Hong of Hanbury said the four-story building is essentially one large volume that could accommodate public gatherings. Westside Partners principal Chris Janian said his team is in discussions with Morgan State University representatives about possible uses for the building. In the architect’s plans, the building was labeled “Venue.”
The components on the south side of Marion Street are:
Apartments: A 208-unit apartment building rising above a garage with 505 parking spaces. The apartments would be on 16 levels and the garage would have two levels underground and five levels above ground. This building would rise in the 200 block of West Fayette Street, roughly where the former Trailways bus station stood. The main lobby for the apartments would be on Fayette Street. The lobby to the garage would be on Park Avenue.
A building labeled “Future of Work”: The northeast corner of Howard and Fayette streets would be occupied by a mid-rise structure designed to contain office space and areas devoted to health, wellness and education, with retail space at street level. This structure would rise in place of five buildings where CHAP commissioners in August agreed to allow demolition, on the condition that the developers retain the front facades of 105 and 107 North Howard Street. Other historic buildings that would be demolished to create a footprint for this structure are 220, 222 and 224 West Fayette Street.
The architects said they are creating ground-level retail spaces throughout the development to activate Fayette, Howard and Lexington streets and Park Avenue. Their plans included locations for at least 11 stores and one café.
The master plan also calls for a series of landscaped terraces, several stories above street level, to provide outdoor space for the apartment residents and others.
The Compass is one of the first construction projects for which the city’s planning department has adopted a new design review policy that requires development teams to meet with both the preservation commission, which focuses on historic buildings, and UDAAP, which concentrates on new construction.
Previously, the city has required developers to meet with one panel or the other. But starting this year, the planning department is asking developers to meet with both panels in certain cases where they’re proposing major new construction in historic districts. Representatives from the preservation commission attended the UDAAP meeting on Thursday, which was conducted virtually.
Even though the different elements of the Compass project are being designed and carried out by one development team, Janian told the review panel that he hopes the end result is so diverse and multi-faceted that it won’t seem that way to the general public.
“Hopefully, nobody knows that this is one project,” he said.
I truly, truly hope that the developers incorporate below-market-rate housing, whether subsidized or not, as well as the use of rooftop terraces, solar panels and other environmentally conscious additions. Not only do we need more affordable workforce housing downtown, we need housing and new construction/renovations to include these green spaces and features if we want a habitable future. LEED-Gold rating or better would be a beautiful thing to have as well.