Next steps for Harborplace: Soil boring, divers and ground lease negotiations

Visitors to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will soon see soil boring activity underway around the Harborplace pavilions, as engineers test the ground along the shoreline in preparation for major construction in the years ahead.

They may also see divers at work, looking at the condition of the Inner Harbor promenade from below the water.

Those are some of the next steps that a team led by MCB Real Estate of Baltimore will undertake as it moves ahead with its $500 million plan to replace the two Harborplace pavilions with a mixed-use development containing offices, shops, restaurants and two towers with 900 apartments.

As designed by Gensler and others, the redevelopment plan calls for five buildings to replace the two retail pavilions that opened in 1980 near the intersection of Pratt and Light streets, plus new public spaces and a two-tiered waterfront promenade.

Colin Tarbert, president and CEO of the Baltimore Development Corp., on Thursday outlined the next steps he expects the developers to take now that city voters approved Question F, a ballot issue drafted to give them control of more land near the intersection of Pratt and Light streets.

The developers said they needed to increase the amount of city-owned land they lease, from 3.2 acres to 4.5 acres, so they can move ahead with the multi-phase project they unveiled in 2023. They also wanted to add multi-family residential development and off-street parking to the list of uses permitted on the land they lease from the city.

As presented to city residents, a ‘yes’ vote supported amending the City Charter to use public park land for multifamily development and off-street parking, among other uses. A ‘no’ vote opposed amending the City Charter.

The final tally was 127,113 votes (60.15 percent) in support of the charter amendment, and 84,204 votes (39.74 percent) against the amendment.

“It passed with what I would say was overwhelming approval,” Tarbert said during the annual meeting of the BDC’s Board of Directors. “I know there was some noise here and there, but by and large I think Baltimore residents really want to see the city move forward. They’re excited about this project.”

During the meeting, Tarbert outlined a series of activities that the developers will need to follow before they can begin construction on their project. He broke the activities into two phases, those taking place “Over the next 12 months” and “Beyond 12 months.”

He said he did not believe ground would be broken for the project for at least two years.

In activities expected over the next 12 months, Tarbert listed three items: Design Development, Traffic and Public Right of Way Assessment, and Ground Lease Negotiations.

In activities expected ‘beyond 12 months,’ he listed three more items: Final Masterplan Design, Financing, and Groundbreaking and Construction.

The first signs of site work, he said, will be apparent in the new year.

“I don’t know if we’ve put out an announcement, but there will be some work…beginning in terms of soil boring,” he said. “The development team is very much moving forward, not wasting any time…You will see essentially some work being done both in terms of soil boring to…see what the soil capacity is as well as divers going under” the water “to test the condition of the promenade in certain areas.”

In addition to soil boring and underwater tests, he said, traffic engineers will look at the roads that provide access to the development site, Pratt and Light streets.

One area they’ll focus on, Tarbert said, is the area around McKeldin Square, “where the Calvert Street spur is proposed to be removed” and the intersection squared off to create “a more typical intersection which allows for more public open space. That’s going to be a pretty intensive process, working with the city to make those changes to allow [the project] to move forward.”

The developer’s ground lease with the city also must be renegotiated to reflect the changes approved by city voters, Tarbert told the board.

Although MCB Real Estate owns the pavilions, he said, “the ground is city-owned, so to allow for the development, [the lease] will need to be essentially completely renegotiated under this proposal, so we’ll be having those conversations.”

BDC board member and former chair Arnold Williams asked about the length of the new lease. He said developers today want leases for as long as 99 years.

Tarbert said the Harborplace ground lease has always been a long-term contract and the new one will be as well. He said it could be as long as 99 years.

“I think the current ground lease goes out almost 75 years, so it will be a long-term ground lease in order to finance something like this,” he said.

Tarbert said BDC, the city’s economic development agency, will negotiate the new lease on behalf of the city, and then it will go to the Board of Estimates for final approval.

The next steps, he said, will be for the developer to finalize the master plan for the project, line up financing and begin construction.

“It’s probably at least 24 months before we get to a groundbreaking,” he said. “That’s probably even aggressive but we should be aggressive. And then from there the project will likely happen in different phases but of course that will all depend on financing.”

Tarbert said he’s glad that voters approved the ballot question.

“It’s exciting to see that project move forward,” he told the board. “I was not necessarily concerned that it wasn’t going to happen…but still nervous that if it didn’t happen there really wasn’t a lot of answers for really how to rejuvenate downtown…I think [Downtown Partnership of Baltimore President Shelonda Stokes] and I are breathing a sigh of relief, but there’s a lot more work to be done before we can celebrate.”

After attending Mayor Brandon Scott’s inauguration for a second term last week, and a second ceremony for the new City Council, Tarbert said, he senses that Baltimore residents are optimistic about the city right now.

“There really does feel to be like a lot of optimism,” he told his board. “I think one of the things that kept getting repeated was that he was the first mayor in whatever it was, 20 years, to have two terms, two full terms. And while that doesn’t seem like a lot, I think so many people are appreciative of the fact that we have consistency…I think that a lot of the momentum that he’s built in the first term, people are really excited about, you know, seeing more come to fruition…Just kind of the excitement that we’ve got four years to look forward to it.”