Harborplace’s owner says the city residents who filed a lawsuit this week to block its redevelopment project value “nostalgia for a few” more than “progress for all,” and vowed to move ahead with its plans.
MCB Real Estate, the company seeking to demolish the Harborplace pavilions at Pratt and Light streets to make way for a $900 million mixed-use development, addressed the suit on Wednesday in a four-paragraph statement on a website it controls, www.ourharborplace.com.
Attributed to Alexandra Hughes, an MCB spokesperson, the post was the company’s first public response to the lawsuit since it was filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on Monday. In the statement, Hughes described the seven plaintiffs as “a small group of opponents” who want 1980 – the year Harborplace opened – “to live forever.”
Here is MCB’s statement:
The latest action by a small group of opponents proves one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: nostalgia for a few is more important than progress for all.
For two decades, not one of the plaintiffs in this case went on a crusade to force greater investment in Harborplace, as out of state investors let our Harborplace decline to this point of disrepair.
A CIRCUIT COURT decided to award Harborplace to MCB, a process which included an objection period — the plaintiffs did not object. The PEOPLE OF BALTIMORE decided that they wanted to see Harborplace move forward with over 60% of the vote — 6% more than Rouse got in 1978. The SUPREME COURT OF MARYLAND UNANIMOUSLY rejected other efforts to obstruct progress at Harborplace. The plaintiffs have lost on the facts, they have lost under the law, and they are now just pounding the table.
MCB is not giving up on Baltimore. We will continue to press forward to create a downtown and a Harborplace that ALL of Baltimore wants to see – not just for a few that want 1980 to live forever.
Hughes’ statement makes points that real estate developers often have used when opponents seek to block projects that involve demolition: they accuse the naysayers of being out-of-touch elitists who are mired in the past and want to stand in the way of progress. The same argument was used in the battle over the demolition of New York’s Pennsylvania Station in the 1960s, when preservationists were mocked as ‘little old ladies in tennis shoes’ who wanted to freeze the train station in time.
The plaintiffs in the Harborplace lawsuit are William John Pencek; David Tufaro; Anirban Basu; Eleanor M. Carey; Anthony Ambridge; Barbara L. Valeri and David Benn. Their attorney is Michael McCann. The defendants are: the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore; the City Council for Baltimore City; the Board of Estimates for Baltimore City and MCB HP Baltimore LLC, an arm of MCB Real Estate.
Most of the plaintiffs are part of a group called the Inner Harbor Coalition, which has closely monitored the Harborplace project and has a Facebook page called Harborplace Forum. They say they want to see Baltimore’s Inner Harbor revitalized but they don’t want to see high-rise apartment buildings constructed on land that has been designated for use as city parkland, and they want the city and the developer to follow the law.
The plaintiffs say they’re particularly concerned that the Harborplace pavilions could be torn down and then MCB may not be able to move ahead with its replacement project due to lack of financing, leaving an eyesore on the harbor. They point to the corner of Baltimore and Charles streets, where a developer razed the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre starting in 2016 to make way for two apartment towers and which remains a hole in the ground 10 years later.
The role of the Baltimore Development Corporation
Tufaro, one of the plaintiffs, says the lawsuit is not about nostalgia. He particularly questions actions taken and not taken by the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC), the quasi-public agency that oversees downtown development for the city.
“I think we have a very strong lawsuit because of the actions taken by the City intentionally, and the actions they failed to take regarding Harborplace,” he said in an email message after the complaint was filed.
“Those of us who oppose the MCB plans are often asked, ‘why didn’t you come in with a plan to develop Harborplace when it went into decline?’ The answer is very simple. First, the responsibility fell with BDC, which had oversight responsibility for Harborplace, to have not allowed Harborplace to go into decline. I am certain that the lease the City had allowed them to step in and do what was necessary to keep Harborplace energized. Everybody knew [Ashkenazy Acquisition Corporation, the previous owner] drove Harborplace into the ground, as they did Cross Keys, and Faneuil Hall in Boston. Why didn’t BDC step in before it was allowed to fall into receivership?”
Second, Tufaro said, once Harborplace was in receivership, “why wasn’t there public advertisement for someone to step in? Third, in order to be able to assess alternatives, why didn’t BDC send out Requests for Proposals (RFP) just like had been the practice in Baltimore for public sites for decades? They would have placed parameters on the RFP that were consistent with the public nature of the site and the Master Plan. They would have received proposals from across the country from developer/design teams with the best ideas that would have been vetted by the Planning Department and the Planning Commission…If there had been an RFP process for Harborplace, there is no way that a proposal would have included the giant apartment towers that are part of MCB’s plans.”
In addition, “the City, under the Mayor’s direction, intentionally chose to avoid a public competitive process, by his own admission, and did a secret deal with his friend from West Baltimore, [MCB managing partner] David Bramble,” Tufaro said. “That deal was done in 2022. And MCB’s plans were not revealed to the public until the staged press conference in October 2023. These facts are already known. The lawsuit process will reveal exactly how the secret deal was hatched, and how the Mayor and City agencies illegally bypassed the normal public process.”
Baltimore resident Liz Ankewitz Bement said she thinks Hughes’ response amounts to bullying on the part of MCB.
“Dismissing city residents with ridiculous labels while fundamental questions remain unanswered is straight out of the mayor’s playbook: bully citizens, smear anyone asking questions, label them nostalgic – or worse – and paint legitimate pushback as bad faith obstruction,” she wrote on Facebook. “It’s a transparent tactic meant to deflect from ever growing public distrust and justifiable skepticism.”
Slapping a label on a group such as ‘nostalgic’ is “designed to put them on defense,” Bement continued. “They need to immediately justify themselves and it stops them from zeroing in on the real issues. It’s a cheap silencing tactic meant to derail debate…Why are they so afraid of the debate?”
The Mayor’s Office has declined to comment on the lawsuit.
“As this matter is the subject of active litigation, the City will reserve comment for the appropriate judicial forum,” a representative said in an email message.
More businesses closing
Meanwhile, two more Harborplace businesses are planning to close and move out of the Light Street Pavilion by the end of the month to make way for MCB’s development.
The next businesses to close are Cuples Tea House and Vinyl and Pages, side-by-side businesses run by Lynnette and Eric Dodson. The Dodsons have announced that “The Last Pour” for Cuples Tea House will be Sept. 26 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and that “Everything Must Go” dates for both businesses will be Sept. 28, 29 and 30.
We are all entitled to our preferences—it’s human nature. We are humans with various life experiences, education, training, and hence a range of preferences for how we want ‘our Harborplace’ to look and feel. I’m no different in that regard—it’s quite natural and normal. So, for several months after the reveal of the MCB proposal/plan, I’ve was in ‘values and preferences warfare’ as I listened, read, learned and challenged myself to consider alternative ways of thinking, assessing and judging the MCB proposal. I engaged with others about their preferences.
I’ve done enough almost enough research for a doctoral dissertation! Well over 20 times I’ve extensively reviewed their designs (including walking the site with design in hand), their website as well as the Master Planning documents. I read traffic studies and plans written over the past 12 years.
At this stage of review and discussion that is NEVER ENDING, we all see and hear our competing expressions of preferences and opinions because of something that’s so important to us.
I implore us to think about and reconcile competing values, multiple preferences and what seems to be an unproductive ‘us versus them’ situation. I arrived at a reckoning with the realities for a thriving downtown and having Harborplace again. A huge factor— one of economic viability so very desperately by this area of Baltimore and its downtown forced me to do a ‘reality check’ and re-ordering of my assessment and preferences.
While there are many significant elements to be considered as Purpose, Function, Form, what is paramount is how can this special place be fashioned, framed and structured to meet not only our passion for its public spaces and park areas, but also for its economic vitality even greater than in the past?
My arduously-achieved stance is based upon several factors including that the majority of the MCB Harborplace design and function meets many competing needs and even preferences:
• The park areas are larger than in the past, stunning, and environmentally sounder than our current ones.
• An award-wining, breath-taking building, the Crescent— along with large/HIGH glass-enclosed ground level spaces in all other buildings—provide plentiful amounts of both public access and also many eating, entertaining and shopping spaces. Few views are blocked.
• So, to be predictably human, I’d prefer a lower height residential building, but I’ve moved from opposition to understanding the economic sustainability rationale for it. I realize, logically, that TRADE OFFS are necessary to fulfill this crucial part of our City’s SURVIVAL and potential for THRIVING!
• Lastly, I see truly mixed-use development that combines residential spaces with spaces for public enjoyment for dining, entertainment, shopping and recreation. The allocation of space for all these uses is balanced. We can have a vibrant and dynamic environment, attracting both residents and visitors—tourism is not optional. Satisfying almost all factors and preferences aims to balance economic growth, community well-being, and environmental sustainability
Finally, when I learned in early 2022 (SO LONG AGO!) that, at last, there was someone LOCAL seriously interested in revitalizing Harborplace, I felt relief and my belief that downtown Baltimore could start a pathway toward thriving—soared. Again, we’d have the Harbor as a place of, excitement, hope, and wide-ranging possibility for social and economic transformation. A plan has been proposed that engages, educates and entertains people who live in Baltimore as well as those many who visit our city. The majority decided to support this plan and want it to become a reality in our lifetime.
LET’S GET GOING, NOW!
EJStokes