Developer of Harborplace aims to have additional tenants and ‘major events’ at the Inner Harbor in 2023; the Baltimore by Baltimore festival series will return for a second year

Now that P. David Bramble has an amended ground lease with the city to operate and “reimagine” Harborplace, what can people expect to see in 2023?

There will be more tenants, additional “major events” and “enhanced programming” at the Inner Harbor, according to a website launched by MCB Real Estate, the Bramble-led company that’s redeveloping the twin pavilions at Pratt and Light streets.

One part of the waterfront that isn’t likely to change in 2023 is the buildings themselves, which are required to remain in place and in their current condition or better at least until April 2026, according to the amended ground lease approved by Baltimore’s Board of Estimates on April 19.

A preview of the changes planned for the Inner Harbor can be found at www.ourharborplace.com, the website that MCB Real Estate created to provide information and answer questions about the waterfront property and its proposed redevelopment.

“2023 will bring enhanced tenancy at the Harbor through our work with the Waterfront Partnership and the Downtown Partnership, as well as new, local, small, minority and women-owned businesses occupying space” in the pavilions, the company states.

In addition, “we hope to have two (2) major events in addition to the July 4 and New Years fireworks, and enhanced programming providing a reason for all Baltimoreans to come to the harbor each and every day,” the website states.

Baltimore by Baltimore festival series returns

Bramble’s website doesn’t say what the additional major events will be, when they will occur, or who will produce them. The two fireworks displays are produced by the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA). BOPA pared down last December’s fireworks at the last minute, eliminating a performance by the band Soul Centered and the countdown to midnight, due to the threat of inclement weather.

MCB Real Estate isn’t ready to provide more information about the additional events it envisions but it will be soon, according to senior marketing director Kristen Durkin.

At least some of the “enhanced programming” will be led by the Waterfront Partnership, which is bringing back its popular “Baltimore by Baltimore Waterfront Music & Makers Festival” series for a second year, starting in June.

The Waterfront Partnership launched the series last year to bring people to the waterfront, and it helped fill the void left when BOPA didn’t have a book festival, Light City festival or Artscape.

The dates for this year’s series, posted on the Waterfront Partnership’s website, are June 3; July 1; Aug. 5; Sept. 2; Oct. 7 and Nov. 4. Leanna Wetmore is the Partnership’s Director of Events and Programs. She has scheduled an audition session for 2023 Street Performers for May 13, from noon to 4 p.m. in the amphitheater between the Harborplace pavilions.

“Baltimore by Baltimore is a series of six all-day festivals that serve as a platform for Baltimore’s all-star artists, makers and creatives to showcase our diverse and creative community to the world!” the Waterfront Partnership website states.

“Set against the gorgeous backdrop of the Baltimore Waterfront and on the city’s most iconic stage, each show features a different emerging or professional producer who selects the best representation of artists and makers in their network.”

The Partnership indicated in its latest newsletter, Harbor Weekly, that it will be doing even more to support Bramble and the MCB affiliate that controls Harborplace, MCB HP Baltimore LLC, in its efforts to bring people to the waterfront.

“After too many years of out-of-town ownership, decline, and vacant windows, Harborplace is now quickly moving toward an exciting new life,” the newsletter said. “Waterfront Partnership is thrilled to be working hand in hand with MCB-HP on a robust activation and programming schedule for Harborplace and the Amphitheatre, which will be rolled out soon.”

In the coming weeks, MCB will also be launching an “unprecedented massive community engagement and design process” to help arrive at a vision for how Harborplace should be redeveloped, the Waterfront Partnership noted in its newsletter.

“With this commitment, the Inner Harbor is about to begin a second renaissance as a transformed Harborplace and environs become what Baltimoreans want it to become and will ensure Baltimore’s ‘front porch’ is a welcoming destination for all.”

Short-term tenants

While his company hasn’t announced details about the events it envisions for Harborplace, Bramble has spoken at length about his plans to bring in more tenants to the Light Street and Pratt Street pavilions, which are nearly vacant.

In a presentation last month to the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, Bramble said he intends to lease the two buildings on an interim basis to short-term tenants who can use the space without extensive improvements, and who would then be willing to move out once MCB has a long-range plan for the property.

Bramble said filling the building with short-term tenants is preferable to letting them remain mostly vacant during the planning process, which could take a year or more.

“Local, authentic tenancy is what made Harborplace great when it opened as one of the first festival marketplaces in the world,” MCB’s website states. “During the design process local, minority and women-owned businesses will be identified for inclusion in Harborplace’s Local Tenancy Plan, which aims to provide prime, waterfront retail space to deserving businesses at below-market rents to bring vitality back to the waterfront and grow our great Baltimore businesses.”

The website encourages citizens to suggest what they would like to see at Harborplace, long-term and short-term, and tells people who want to be short-term merchants at Harborplace how to show interest.

It states that MCB plans to host at least four public forums across the city over the next year to get ideas for revitalizing Harborplace. The first one, tentatively scheduled for June, will focus on “big picture” ideas. The second, later in the summer, will seek to engage Baltimore’s senior citizens. The third, in mid fall, will seek to engage Baltimore’s youths. The fourth, in the winter, will give the development team the opportunity to get community feedback on ideas and designs that have surfaced previously.

Amended ground lease

The ground lease had to be amended because the City of Baltimore owns the land beneath the Harborplace pavilions and city officials wanted the lease to reflect a change in ownership of the Harborplace pavilions on the parcel, about 3.2 acres in all.

As part of the amendments approved by Baltimore’s Board of Estimates, Bramble’s MCB HP Baltimore LLC replaced the previous owners who ran into financial problems and lost control of the property, an affiliate of Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation.

In amending the ground lease last week, the Board of Estimates said it would give Bramble’s MCB-HP three years to work with the city “in good faith” to come up with a long-range development plan for the property.

During the three-year period, the amended lease states, the developer does not have to pay rent to the city for the ground lease, and it must promise to keep the property in the same condition it was in when it took control of the building.

Some observers have responded to media coverage of the transaction by criticizing city officials for not charging any rent during the three-year development period. But in the 43-year history of Harborplace, no owner has ever paid the city rent for the land.

Previous leases have called for the owner of Harborplace to share a percentage of the profits from the development, if any. But the developers have always submitted financial statements for the development that show a loss on paper, leaving no profits to share with the city. That has been true all the way back to the first years of Harborplace’s operation, when The Rouse Company said the large crowds that came to its festival market resulted in higher-than-expected costs of crowd control and maintenance, and that Harborplace didn’t show a profit on paper even when it drew an estimated 18 million visitors a year.

In agreeing to abate rent for three years, the city may be losing a chance to share profits with MCB if it makes any, but it wasn’t receiving rent from any of the other developers before.

No demolition

The lease amendment also requires the developer to maintain Harborplace “in the condition in which it [was] received at the time of settlement.” Some observers have said that wording in effect allows MCB to get by without making any major improvements to the buildings for the next three years.  

Another way of looking at it, officials say, is that it prevents the developer from tearing the buildings down during the three-year development period, before there is any consensus on a long-range plan for the property.

One question that has not been addressed by the development team is whether it intends to tear the buildings down or not. In Jacksonville, Florida, a festival market modeled after Harborplace, Jacksonville Landing, was recently razed after it lost retail tenants and fell into poor condition. In that case, the city of Jacksonville acquired the property from a private developer, who had allowed the property to decline. The city’s goal is to create and maintain a public park on the site.

In Baltimore, too, there have been suggestions that the Harborplace pavilions be torn down and replaced with a waterfront park. But unlike Jacksonville, Baltimore did not acquire the buildings after the previous owner ran into financial trouble and was replaced by a court-appointed receiver. That would have been the time to create a public park. As the managing partner of a real estate company, Bramble is seeking to create a development that will make a profit, not build a public park.

Bramble has not been specific about what might happen with the Harborplace pavilions, beyond the short-term tenancy period when the pavilions remain in place. At the Downtown Partnership meeting in March, he spoke about the community engagement process MCB plans to launch to help up come up with a vision for how Harborplace should be redeveloped.

Asked in March if he might seek to get the height limit lifted so he could build a taller replacement structure, Bramble said nothing is off the table while the community engagement process is underway. “It could be anything,” he said of a possible replacement.

The website is also unspecific about the fate of the Harborplace pavilions, pointing to the community engagement process.

 “While we have established core pillars for redevelopment, we will look to this process, and to the residents of Baltimore, for inspiration on specific improvements and design,” it says. “Once constructed, a reimagined Harborplace will be a world-class waterfront asset for all to enjoy.”

The website states that the potential investment in downtown represented by the development of Harborplace “could exceed $1 billion,” depending on “the final project plan established through the engagement process.”

The website states that “P. David Bramble and the Team at MCB Real Estate” are leading the planning effort, “along with their world-class team of Architects, Engineers and Designers.” Durkin, the senior marketing director for MCB, said in an email message that the company is not ready to name the members of the design team.

Height limit questions

One factor that currently limits what can be done at Harborplace is a height limit on the land.

According to city planners, the city currently has a height limit on the Harborplace parcel, which states that no buildings can be taller than the bow of the USS Constellation, or about two stories. The height limit was drafted as part of the master plan for the Inner Harbor. It calls for buildings along the shoreline to be low, so occupants of buildings farther back from the shoreline would also have views of the harbor. The original master plan made exceptions for two “point towers,” the former Transamerica tower at 100 Light Street and the World Trade Center Baltimore tower 401 East Pratt Street.

If Bramble wanted to replace Harborplace with a taller structure, planners say, he would need the city to amend the ground lease and the urban renewal plan that governs development along the harbor shoreline. If he proposed a building that blocked views of the Inner Harbor, he likely would get opposition from owners and tenants of other buildings that would have their harbor views blocked, such as the 28-story office tower at 100 E. Pratt Street. A taller building at Harborplace also could make it more difficult for property owners to find tenants to move into buildings that lose harbor views.

Landmark designation?

Some preservationists have suggested that the city designate Harborplace a city landmark, to provide another layer of control over what is built there.

If the pavilions were designated a landmark, they say, Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation (CHAP) would have authority to review any plans to alter the exteriors of the Harborplace pavilions, up to and including demolition.  As part of the review process, the commission would then be required to hold a public hearing on any proposed changes, giving members of the general public a chance to weigh in.

Eric Holcomb, executive director of CHAP, said no one has asked his office to make Harborplace a city landmark. But he said he believes a case could be made for landmark designation, because it was a model for festival marketplaces that have been built around the U. S. and as far away as Sydney, Australia. It’s also associated with prominent individuals, including visionary developer James Rouse and noted architect Benjamin Thompson.

Holcomb also said he believes a case could be made for designating a historic district along the harbor shoreline. Such a district might include not only Harborplace but also the World Trade Center Baltimore, designed by Henry Cobb of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, and the National Aquarium on Pier 3, designed by Peter Chermayeff of Cambridge Seven Associates.  

“Eager to re-engage’

Anirban Basu, the chairman and CEO of the Sage Policy Group, has a different perspective.

As a writer and economist who follows the growth of the city and its harbor, Basu said, he believes that the amended lease is a reminder that the city and its residents have a stake in what happens at Harborplace.

Basu said he can understand why Bramble has a two-step strategy for redeveloping Harborplace, first with interim tenants and then with long-range occupants. But he said he is concerned that a three-year development period could have a chilling effort on potential investment in the area, because others won’t know what is coming and might not want to make any investments involving nearby properties until they do. He said he would have preferred that the redevelopment happen more quickly and all at once, rather than in two stages.

“Sooner is better than later,” he said. “People are eager to re-engage Harborplace and the Inner Harbor generally. There is a dearth of amenities in and around the aquarium, for instance, that frustrates visitation and therefore economic activity. As stakeholders in the city’s economy, of course we would prefer the development manifest itself expeditiously.”

At the same time, he said, “there are realities. There’s architectural work to be done. There’s a community engagement project to be conducted. There is financing to line up. And there probably is a need to observe how the economy responds in the post-pandemic world, with respect to consumer behavior and business-locational decisions…I don’t know that that is avoidable.”

A big issue, he said is that any change at Harborplace should be substantial enough that it makes an impact.   

“We don’t want something incremental,” he said. “We don’t want something evolutionary, I don’t think. We want something revolutionary. We want something iconic. I think many people would settle for the pavilions to be rebuilt and re-tenanted, and people would feel good about that and life would move on. That would be a massive missed opportunity. So when they talk about an interim plan, simply re-tenanting what is there and then eventually doing what they are doing, my hope is that that is not signaling that what they seek to achieve is incremental, that what they seek to achieve is simply to get the spreadsheets to work out.”

Baltimore needs a change at the Inner Harbor that’s big enough that people will take notice and want to come and see it, he said.  

“This developer has referred to himself as a spreadsheet guy, as opposed to a visionary,” he said. “Well, the spreadsheets need to work out. The numbers need to line up. We need to have fiscal and financial viability. That’s fair. But boy, I think the community is desperate for something that is iconic, that positions Baltimore to attract more visitation, and is so spectacular in terms of its experiential quality, that it will actually bring suburbanites — whether from Catonsville, Cockeysville or elsewhere — back downtown, for more than Orioles or Ravens games. That should be the objective. And given that they have dealt with the ground lease issue, and given that they have offered some subsidy to this developer, that I think gives the community the right to ask for something spectacular. The taxpayer in particular is now a co-owner of this project and should not therefore settle for anything less than a development that is transformative.”

What should that be?

“Something that’s very rooted in Baltimore, the Baltimore experience,,” he said. “That’s not cookie-cutter. That is a draw. Something that will complement Camden Yards, the National Aquarium and will be a destination in its own right. That might mean tearing down the pavilions and having something brand new there, something really creative…There needs to be something that is very special.”

Replacing the pavilions 

Basu said he is open to the idea of replacing the Harborplace pavilions. As far as the height issue is concerned, he said, he could support a somewhat taller development, although not too tall. But he said he believes the developer needs to come up with a project that is so compelling, and so right for Baltimore, that it justifies changing the city’s master plan to allow it.

“I think the use matters more than anything,” he said. “So first one has to determine the use – what one is trying to accomplish — before one talks about the height or even the architecture. I harken back to what [American Visionary Art Museum founder] Rebecca Hoffberger has said, which is: it has to be experiential. It has to be joyful. I think it has to appeal to families, including families with young children. I would love to see something akin to the Eye of London [a 394-foot-high “observation wheel” on the South Bank of the River Thames, the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom]. But it would be the Eye of the Chesapeake, or the Eye of Baltimore. Something that would really be appealing to younger children, draw in families.”

Along with a tourist attraction such as an observation wheel, Basu said, “one could imagine that there would be a mixed-use development — that there would be some residential, I presume, some retail, maybe a touch of commercial, meaning office space for instance.”

From the standpoint of activating the waterfront, Basu said, he wouldn’t want to see too much office space.

“If it’s a high-rise office building, what a disaster that would be,” he said. “This is not about people being shuttered in cubicles. This is about people enlivening the streetscape, enjoying the waterfront, in addition to adding some much-needed tax base to the city’s coffers.” 

In terms of height, Basu said, the developer and city planners would have to consider the impact any new building would have on its neighbors.

“Of course you have to think about viewsheds and not interfering with the views from Pratt Street and so on and so forth. Fair enough,” he said.

He said he wouldn’t want to see a large tower on the site. 

“I’m not saying that it should be a high rise,” he said. “I’m saying that it should be higher than it is now. But that doesn’t mean that it should be 15, 17 stories, something like that. I hope it isn’t”

But he said he could imagine a building or buildings that are somewhat taller that what’s there now.

“Probably something taller than these two story pavilions,” he said. “Something a bit more dramatic than that, I think. Remember, we have the World Trade Center there – the tallest pentagonal building in the world, as I understand it — sitting astride the area we’re talking about for redevelopment. So I don’t think some height would be inconsistent with the character of that area. “

A building as tall as the National Aquarium might be acceptable, he said.

“If it matched the height of the aquarium, I don’t think that that would be a source of major complaints,” he said. “If that’s what it takes to accommodate various desirable uses, then that’s what it will take.”

If the pavilions are to be replaced, Basu said, he wishes there could be a design competition to decide what gets built.

“I would have loved for there to have been an international design competition and then the city or some panel – the Architectural Review Board, for instance — determining which of those designs is most appealing and then having a developer commit to implementing that design. That would have been terrific.”

‘It’s our chance’

Basu said he knows the redevelopment of Harborplace has to make sense financially. 

“The pro forma has to pencil out,” he said. “It has to be financially viable. That said, there are iconic developments around the world that are also economically and financially viable, and this needs to add to that population of iconic global destinations.”

Above all, he said, the redevelopment of Harborplace is a one-time opportunity to elevate the city and get Baltimore back in the spotlight as the place to be, for residents and visitors, just as the opening of Harborplace did in 1980.

“It’s our chance,” he said. “It’s our chance to have something spectacular, like the Sydney Opera House or something of that ilk –something that will rebrand Baltimore, something that tells the world that Baltimore has not disappeared, that we are still a community with which to be reckoned, that we are a community that has pride in itself, respects its history, respects its role in the world and is still on the move forward despite its many challenges. That’s what this has to be.”

Basu said his greatest fear is that the city will embrace a plan that is “suboptimal” for the site.

“We don’t need an ordinary development in an extraordinary location,” he said. “We need an extraordinary development in an extraordinary location. That’s what the people of Baltimore should ask for, because that’s what they deserve.”