MCB Real Estate proposes apartments for Reservoir Hill and Lauraville

MCB Real Estate unveiled plans Thursday to build apartments in place of open lots in two Baltimore neighborhoods, Reservoir Hill and Lauraville.

The Linden is the proposed name of a six-story, 154-unit apartment building that would rise on Druid Park Lake Drive, just east of Linden Avenue.

Marren Architects, the designer, proposes a building that would be divided into three “pavilions” that face Druid Lake to the north, with balconies and bay windows to take advantage of the views, one level of underground parking for 62 cars, and 1,200 square feet of commercial space.  The lot is eight-tenths of an acre.

MCB also plans to construct a four-story, 147-unit, midblock apartment building in the 4500 block of Harford Road, in place of a car sales lot on the east side of the street.

That stretch of Harford Road is a commercial corridor that serves Lauraville, Hamilton, Arcadia and Moravia-Walther. The apartments, just south of developer Sam Polakoff’s Soha Row and Soha Union projects, would surround a landscaped courtyard and have 62 spaces of surface parking for tenants.

Charles Alexander of Alexander Design Studio is the architect. A second phase involves the restoration of a three-story historic building on the block, once a hotel, for commercial use.

Preliminary plans for both projects were shown today in virtual presentations to Baltimore’s Urban Design and Architecture Advisory Panel, whose members suggested ways to improve the designs.

MCB Real Estate, headed by P. David Bramble, is the Baltimore firm that was recently selected to be the new developer of the Harborplace retail pavilions at Pratt and Light streets. It also has projects in Charles Village, Madison Park North, Clipper Mill, Bayview and Northwood, plus the former News-American parcel downtown.  

Bramble, the managing partner and co-founder of MCB Real Estate, has been scheduling meetings with various downtown stakeholders to hear ideas for how to rejuvenate Harborplace. He and others opened a branch of Harbor Bank at Northwood Commons on June 20 to mark the Juneteenth holiday.

At a board meeting of the Bolton Hill Community Association this month, Bramble and developer Mark Renbaum told residents that they expect construction to begin this summer on the first phase of a mixed-use project they’ve been planning to replace the old Madison Park North public housing project along a three-block stretch of West North Avenue, containing 120 market-rate town houses.

According to the Bolton Hill Bulletin, Bramble said the houses would be priced starting at around $350,000 and that he hopes to have a model home complete by June of 2023.  Ryan Homes is the builder for this phase of the project, and completion is targeted for 2025. Later phases include rental apartments and commercial space, including a grocery store.