Developer Mark Sapperstein this week outlined plans to build 119 luxury town houses in Locust Point, if he can get zoning approval from the city.
At a meeting of the Locust Point Civic Association (LPCA) in the Knights of Columbus banquet hall on Wednesday, Sapperstein said he assumes home prices would be in “the sixes and the sevens,” meaning the $600,000- and $700,000-range.
If the average home price is $600,000, construction of 119 dwellings would add real estate worth $71.4 million to the city’s tax rolls. If the average price is $700,000, the build-out would total $83.3 million. If the average price is $799,000, the potential build-out would exceed $95 million.
The site is a seven-acre parcel in the 1400 block of Beason Street, west of Haubert Street and south of Key Highway Extended. It’s currently occupied by a 138,198-square foot warehouse/showroom that’s adjacent to the former Under Armour headquarters on Hull Street.
Under Armour vacated its offices there when it moved last year to its new global headquarters at Baltimore Peninsula, formerly Port Covington. Sapperstein’s project does not involve the property owned by Under Armour, the waterfront promenade or a large parking lot by the train tracks that run through the area.
The Beason Street parcel, known as the Cheer property, was sold by an entity connected to Cross Street Partners principal C. William Struever. It’s one of two major parcels in Locust Point that have been expected to change hands. The other is a 14-acre, commercially-zoned property still owned by Under Armour, including the historic buildings originally occupied by Procter & Gamble, now known as Tide Point.
The Beason Street parcel is currently zoned partially for light industrial use, in the warehouse/showroom, and partially for residences — up to 64, plus a 530-car garage that was never built. Its zoning is governed by a Planned Unit Development (PUD) designation that also governs what can occupy the former Under Armour campus. A PUD is a detailed, protective layer of zoning restrictions over and above the city’s underlying zoning.
More than 150 people attended the meeting to learn about Sapperstein’s plans. They were told that Sapperstein has acquired the seven-acre parcel for residential development, wants the city to alter zoning to remove the industrial use and increase the number of residences allowed on the property, and is seeking the community’s support for the zoning changes.
Other Locust Point projects
A principal of 28 Walker Development, Sapperstein has completed other projects in Locust Point over nearly two decades, including the McHenry Row mixed-use development off Fort Avenue and a townhouse community called Banner Row. He’s also the land developer behind Locke Landing,conversion of the former Locke Insulators industrial property to an 800-unit residential community in the Port Covington/Baltimore Peninsula area, and the 40Ten Boston office building on Boston Street, one of the city’s new mass timber structures. In 2022, he received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award from the Baltimore chapter of the Urban Land Institute.
Sapperstein said he would be the land developer, demolishing the warehouse and preparing the land so a homebuilder can come in and construct residences on it. “I’m not building the houses myself,” he explained. “I’m the developer of land for the homebuilder,” who would determine the prices.
Sapperstein said the warehouse at 1450 Beason St. is about 20 years old and was last occupied by Under Armour. He said there are no structures on the seven-acre site that have landmark designation and would need to be preserved. A bridge that links the warehouse to the former Under Armour complex on the south side of Key Highway would have to come down, he added.
‘Energy-efficient homes’
A homebuilder has not been named for the project, and no renderings of proposed houses were shown. Sapperstein presented preliminary site plans to show how roads and houses could fit in with the surrounding street grid, but he cautioned that the exact layout is subject to change.
The houses under construction at Locke Landing are a mix of 16 feet wide and 20 feet wide. Sapperstein said the minimum width of the houses in the new development will be 20 feet wide and that it’s possible some could be 24 feet wide. “These are all going to be 20s,” he said. The homes will be three stories tall and most likely will have the latest energy-saving features, he added. “It will be a question for the builder,” he said when asked about specific features. “I think, in today’s world, everybody wants the same thing – energy-efficient homes.”
For more than an hour Sapperstein answered questions from the audience about the amount of green space on the site; provisions for parking; traffic control and the need for street lights; stormwater management; allowable building heights; the number of train crossings in the area and other issues.
He said his current plans call for the parcel to provide 389 parking spaces, including two-car garages with all 119 homes and another 151 “surface parking spaces” either on the street or in a paved area outside of the homes. The primary entrance to the community, he said, likely would be from the Key Highway side, not from Fort Avenue, and he proposes that the new streets be two-way, rather than one-way.
Elementary and middle school students living in the new houses will attend Francis Scott Key Elementary/Middle School (FSK) on Fort Avenue, if they attend a public school. City Council member Zachary Blanchard said projections by the city’s public schools department indicate a 119-unit development would result in increased enrollment at FSK of about 20 students per year, once all the houses are occupied.
Civil discussion
With the exception of one unruly woman in the front row, the audience was respectful with its questions and comments, and the discussion was civil. Several residents noted that Sapperstein is familiar with Locust Point from having worked with the community before and said they believe he’s preferable to a developer who hasn’t previously worked in the area.
Sapperstein said he believes this may be one of the easier projects he has tackled recently because it’s relatively straightforward and the land isn’t contaminated and in need of costly remediation. “I’ve done a lot of testing here already – they allowed me onto the property – and it doesn’t really have an issue” in terms of contaminated soil, he said.
One issue that residents brought up is parking by non-resident commuters who take the water taxi from Locust Point to Fells Point or Canton and leave their cars parked in the neighborhood. One resident warned that commuters likely would use any unassigned parking spaces in Sapperstein’s development if parking isn’t restricted or other parking isn’t provided. LPCA president Molly Miller noted that residents haven’t been receptive to permit parking in the past.
One of the next steps is to determine the best way to rezone the land and then prepare legal documents that would need approval from Baltimore’s Planning Department and, most likely, the City Council. Miller and Sapperstein said one way to rezone the property would be to remove the seven-acre Cheer parcel from the larger PUD zoning district and then change the underlying zoning to permit the proposed development. Another, they said, would be to rezone only the area within the PUD that applies to the Beason Street warehouse and leave the rest of the PUD intact. A third would involve repealing the entire PUD layer of restrictions.
Miller said Sapperstein’s ultimate goal is to change zoning for his seven acres from a mix of residential and light industrial use to solely residential use, and any of the approaches would trigger public hearings giving Locust Point residents additional opportunities to comment.
The community association has already formed a “Tide Point Taskforce” to address issues related to Under Armour’s move away from Locust Point and new owners or tenants moving into the area. Sapperstein said he hopes to have City Council legislation pertaining to his parcel drafted, introduced and heard by July. If the zoning change is approved by then, he said, ground could potentially be broken for the new houses in the third or fourth quarter of 2025.
No votes were taken at this week’s meeting, which was held for informational purposes. Miller said the LPCA will schedule a follow-up session to discuss the project and community concerns. She noted that there are “5,000 people in Locust Point” who are potentially affected by changes brought about by new development and promised “we are going to have additional meetings to talk about this.” Sapperstein pledged to keep working and meeting with the community as the planning effort continues.
