The Inner Harbor’s next major attraction will open in June 2026, when work is scheduled for completion on the five-acre, $18 million second phase of improvements to Rash Field Park.
Approximately 100 people gathered at the park on Thursday as city and state leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony to signal the start of construction on the project, which will mark the completion of a two-phase effort to upgrade the 7.5-acre recreational space at 201 Key Highway.
Speakers also took advantage of the ceremony to pay tribute to Laurie Schwartz, the longtime Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore president who is retiring at the end of June 2025. The Waterfront Partnership is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year as an organization dedicated to “enhancing and promoting Baltimore’s Waterfront” and under Schwartz’s leadership, it has led the effort to upgrade Rash Field Park.
“This is a bold vision,” said Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson. “It took a lot of big ideas…It would not have happened without the unbelievable and incredible leadership of Laurie Schwartz.”
“Thank you Laurie,” said Mayor Brandon Scott. “Don’t go too far…Thank you for all the years of service.”
The $16.8 million first phase of the Rash Field Park renovation opened in November of 2021 and included 2.5 acres of upgraded recreation public space on the south shore of the Inner Harbor. Features include Jake’s Skate Park, a grassy overlook offering views of the downtown skyline and a variety of areas where children can play.
The second phase will provide upgraded public space between Phase 1 and the Rusty Scupper restaurant to the east. Elements will include a large open lawn for field games or special events, extensive gardens and several walking paths, including a nature walk and a fitness trail with exercise equipment. Another component of Phase 2 is a kayak launch, which will be operated by the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.
“Our dream of building Rash Field Park has been more than 10 years in the making,” Schwartz said. “While Phase 1 is more focused on children and learning and play, Phase 2 is focused more on recreation — youth and adult recreation.”
Everyone will be welcome to visit the upgraded park, she said, but it’s really a place for Baltimoreans.
“This is Baltimore’s place,” she said. “We want statewide and any tourists to come here. But our goal is really to create a green space, a safe place for all Baltimoreans to come together and mix and play regardless what ZIP code, wherever from the city you came.”
Schwartz said attendance at Phase 1 has grown over the years, from 1,000 visitors in September 2021 to 23,000 in September 2024. “We’re so excited that we’ve been able to accomplish what the goal was all along,” she said.
“This is really the front door, the front step to the city of Baltimore,” Ferguson said. “When there is a game — an O’s game or a Ravens game — there’s the overhead look. When people have that image of what is Baltimore, this is what they see. They see this incredible space. Phase 1 was just the very beginning of that.”
“This is our face to the world,” Scott agreed. “We know that we have to undertake this new beginning, and what is happening with Phase 1 and what is happening with Phase 2 is just that.”
Mahan Rykiel Associates was the landscape architect for both phases. Plano-Coudon Construction is the construction manager for Phase 2. The work is expected to take 14 months, putting its completion at June of 2026.
Construction activity won’t prevent Inner Harbor visitors from walking along the waterfront promenade from the Maryland Science Center to the Rusty Scupper restaurant, but the construction site will be off limits to the general public while work is underway. Fencing is going up around the perimeter to mark the area that will be off limits.
Part of the Phase 2 footprint includes the Pride of Baltimore memorial, which honors four crew members who died when the Pride of Baltimore sank on May 14, 1986. As part of the area’s makeover, the memorial will be taken down, restored and then re-erected at the same location as before, according to representatives Lori Ferrara and Will Backstrom.
Designers had explored other possible sites within the park to relocate the memorial but ultimately decided to keep it where it is. Work will include the repair of stonework at the memorial’s base and restoration of the mast that rises from the ground, Ferrara and Backstrom said.
Also coming to Rash Field Park is OneDo Café, opening this summer beneath the grassy overlook that was completed in Phase 1
Ferguson indicated that he’d like to see the second phase completed in 12 months, not 14.
“This is what Baltimore deserves,” he said. “This is what we should be striving for across our entire city, a place where everyone feels like it can be home.”
