Downtown Baltimore’s newest green space took more than a year to create, but a new video may make viewers think otherwise.
Maryland’s Department of General Services (DGS) this week posted a video on social media showing the creation of a 1.1 acre green space that’s now open where the five-story Bard Building once stood.
The new green space is bounded by Lombard Street on the south, Market Place on the east, Water Street on the north and the grounds of Baltimore’s Holocaust Memorial on the west. The Bard Building was owned by Baltimore City Community College (BCCC), which razed it to make way for a new campus development.
Built in the mid-1970s to contain classrooms, faculty offices, a library and other spaces, the Bard Building had been closed since 2009 and was in poor condition and considered by many to be an eyesore and safety hazard that should come down. The land is being used as a temporary green space while college leaders firm up plans for a replacement building.
In the summer of 2023, the state’s Board of Public Works allocated $4.2 million to raze the 172,642-square-foot building and create the green space. Former Gov. Larry Hogan had supported a plan that called for the building to be replaced with a parking lot, but Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson lobbied for the land to become a green space instead and the plans were changed.
The DGS Office of Design, Construction and Energy led the project, with Berg Corporation as the demolition contractor and Floura Teeter as the landscape architect. Demolition work began in late 2023 and took more than half a year. Now the construction fencing is down and new sidewalks, landscaping and lights are in place.
The DGS captured the months-long deconstruction process with a camera mounted atop the Candler Building across Lombard Street from the Bard site. The result is a 32-second time-lapse video that shows the area’s transformation, which the DGS calls “a major milestone in the BCCC campus redevelopment.”
That lot should be kept a greenspace forever. BCC does not need a campus downtown. If they want to build more buildings, build them at their campus on Liberty Heights Avenue.