The Pratt Street Pavilion of Harborplace, home to a variety of shops and restaurants over the years, is taking on a new temporary role even as its owner is preparing to tear it down to make way for a new development.
For the next three days, the two-story pavilion at 201 E. Pratt St. will house the STEM Exploration Zone, the primary educational component of the Sail250 Maryland and Air Show Baltimore extravaganza that’s in town from June 24 to 30.
As part of the larger Sail250 Maryland event, which is expected to draw 250,000 people or more to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, the two-story pavilion will be occupied by representatives of nearly three dozen organizations that help educate students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They’ll present “hands-on, minds-on” activities and exhibits for young people and families during three days of the event, June 26, 27 and 28.
The STEM Exploration Zone grew out of a popular educational initiative called the “STEM Zone” that took place in a tent on Inner Harbor Pier One during Fleet Week in Baltimore in 2024.
It’s also something of a last hurrah for the Pratt Street Pavilion, which is targeted for demolition along with the Light Street Pavilion at 301 Light Street to make way for a mixed-use development that’s expected to take six to seven years to complete.
Besides providing a large, climate-controlled space where visitors can learn from STEM representatives about career paths and other opportunities in a wide range of fields, the Exploration Zone offers a chance for people who haven’t been to Harborplace in a while to see it one last time before it’s gone.
14 tall ships and four precision aerobatic teams
Sail250 Maryland and Air Show Baltimore is a free event that’s bringing 14 international tall ships to Baltimore to help celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary. In all, it will feature 40 vessels from Maryland, across the U. S. and around the globe, including U. S. and Canadian Navy ships; Coast Guard cutters; sea service vessels and other historic sailing ships.
In addition, four world-renowned military precision aerobatic teams are scheduled to perform together, an unprecedented gathering of elite demonstration teams. Three festivals are planned from June 26 to 28 — at the Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Baltimore Peninsula – along with an Open House on June 27 and 28 at Martin State Airport and the Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum in Baltimore County.
‘Learning by Doing’
Sail250 Maryland and Air Show Baltimore is being presented by Northrup Grumman and produced by the non-profit Living Classrooms Foundation, now in its 41st year of operation in Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The event’s taglines are: “Baltimore Welcomes the World!” and “Bringing the World to Baltimore!”
The foundation’s mission is to “strengthen communities and inspire children, youth and adults to achieve their potential through hands-on education, workforce development and community safety/wellness programs that use urban, natural and maritime resources as living classrooms.” Its motto is “Learning by Doing.”
“I’m really excited about how we’re going to be able to turn the Pratt Street Pavilion into a STEM Exploration Zone, to work with families and children,” said James Piper Bond, President and CEO of the Living Classrooms Foundation, during a recent press event held to announce the names of the participating tall ships.
The foundation has raised funds and worked with the Mayor’s Office and others to bring to the Inner Harbor families from communities around the city, “who might not normally have the opportunity to come and experience it,” Bond said. “That’s important to us, to make sure that we are building that into the experience.”
The Living Classrooms Foundation wants this event to make an impression on young people that lasts long after the tall ships leave town, he said.
“At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about – the next generation,” he said. “How are we passing on this heritage? How are we making sure that after June, this is something that lives on with our students, with our schools, with our communities?”
“When we think about the impact of events like this, we need to think about the importance of our young people being able to see events like this in their back yard,” said Faith Leach, Baltimore’s Administrative Officer. “This is so incredibly important for them, to be able to learn the history of Baltimore and to see our culture on full display. I for one am very excited about the partnership that we have with the school system and the opportunity to highlight STEM careers for our young people.”
32 Exhibitors
The STEM Exploration Zone, part of the three-day Inner Harbor Festival, is sponsored by the Baltimore Development Corporation and Constellation. MCB Real Estate, owner of the Harborplace pavilions, is a sponsor of the larger event and is providing approximately 3,000 square feet of space in the Pratt Street Pavilion at no charge. The Exploration Zone will be free and open to the public on Friday, June 26, Saturday, June 27, and Sunday, June 28, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In all, 32 exhibitors were selected by the Sail250 Education Committee, led by Nick Iannacone, director of maritime education, and Alexa Price, public programs manager, for the Living Classrooms Foundation and its Historic Ships in Baltimore division.
The exhibitors will occupy common areas on the first and second levels of the Pratt Street Pavilion, including the central atrium and the harbor-facing balconies. One of the exhibitors is expected to bring a 50-foot inflatable submarine. Another will build terrariums. An artist will paint a mural. All of them will leave the pavilion and the Exploration Zone will close after June 28. Existing retail tenants in the Pratt Street Pavilion will remain open throughout the event, as will tenants in the Light Street Pavilion.
Iannacone said the Pratt Street Pavilion has room for many more exhibitors than in 2024, when the first STEM Zone had about 14 exhibitors. He said Pier One wasn’t available for a STEM Zone this year because a visiting tall ship needed the space for people to line up. As it turned out, he said, the Pratt Street Pavilion is a central location with flexible space that gives exhibitors more options to share information with visitors.
“The Pratt Street Pavilion has inside air-conditioned space, but it also has outdoor space on the second floor, so we have both the outside and inside,” he said. “We have 32 confirmed exhibitors, which is twice the size of 2024. It’s going to be the ’24 tent, twice as big, twice as many exhibitors.”
The diversity of exhibitors has also increased from 2024, he said.
In addition to experts in areas such as biology, chemistry, environmental science and archaeology, he said, “we have people presenting on really diverse topics, like Medicine Now, with folks from the Navy who are bringing some mannequins and talking about medicine in the Navy now, and we have some folks talking about medicine in the Civil War era and then the 1812 era.”
Other speakers will talk about living history and job opportunities, in keeping with the foundation’s push “to get folks interested in marine trades that happen in and around Baltimore,” he said. “Those are our three fields – STEM science, living history and marine trades.”
The STEM education exhibitors include: Living Classrooms Maritime Education; Living Classrooms Historic Ships in Baltimore; Living Classrooms Masonville Cove Partnership; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; Naval History and Heritage Command; Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock; the Tall Ship Providence crew; Arundel Rivers Federation; the University System of Maryland’s Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), and the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Also, the USS DC Commissioning Committee; U. S. Naval Academy; Navy Bureau of Medicine; Maryland Center for History and Culture; Fort McHenry History Machine’ The Agora Co.; New South Associates; U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Maintenance Battalion; Explosive Ordinance Disposal Group 2; Port Discovery Children’s Museum; The Creative Representation Empire; Constellation Energy; Naval Research Lab and the National Park Service Washington Support Office.
Representing commercial and maritime trades will be exhibitors from the Port of Baltimore and the Baltimore Development Corporation.
Living History exhibitors include: Ship’s Company; Bradford Stone (Ship’s surgeon); Rappahannock Whalers; U.S. Naval Landing Party; the Maryland Dove and the USS Constitution cannon crew.
Development plans
MCB’s plans call for the Harborplace pavilions to be replaced with a four-building, $900 million development that includes two apartment towers, offices, shops, restaurants and open space.
MCB officials had originally said the development team would not tear down the Harborplace pavilions until it had financing for the replacement buildings. They said this month that the two pavilions will be torn down as part of the first phase of work, called the Inner Harbor Park and Promenade Project and largely funded by the State of Maryland. Work on the first phase is expected to get underway in the fourth quarter of 2026.
The developers say demolition of the Harborplace pavilions cannot wait because the buildings were constructed above utility lines, storm drains and other underground infrastructure components that are being rebuilt as part of the first phase. Also to be demolished are two pedestrian bridges connected to the pavilions, one that spans Light Street and one that spans Pratt Street.
Another reason for tearing down the pavilions as part of the first phase, some say, is that the area will be so torn up with construction work on the ground plane that potential patrons are likely to stay away and it will be harder to get deliveries in. The proposed realignment of Light Street traffic lanes is also seen as a potential deterrent to visitation.
MCB and Whiting Turner Contracting Company held an “outreach event” on June 17 to let local subcontractors know how they can bid to work on the Park and Promenade phase, which is expected to cost about $300 million and create potentially thousands of jobs. Demolition of the two pavilions and the pedestrian bridges is part of the site work for which the development team will be seeking bids.
A date for the closing of the Light Street and Pratt Street pavilions has not been announced, and some merchants are counting on Fourth of July crowds to boost business after the tall ships leave town, but some merchants are already leaving or preparing to leave.
A maker who’s been selling items in the Light Street Pavilion’s Made in Baltimore store posted on social media that he pulled all of his products from the store this week.
“My wares sell well here,” he wrote about Made in Baltimore. “It’s been a truly great location run by and for local makers.”
But “they’re closing, because the developer we voted to give it to hasn’t yet secured financing for the residential-towers project he plans to build in its place,” he continued. “Oh well, hope it works out.”
More information about the tall ships, the aviation events and other Sail250 Maryland and Air Show Baltimore activities is available at www.sail250md.org.
