Construction work on Harborplace’s redevelopment is expected to start by the end of the year with removal of the Light Street-to-Calvert Street “sweep” – the curving five-lane roadway that currently divides two parcels that will be combined along with the roadbed to create the footprint for the multi-building project.
The first phase, called the Inner Harbor Park and Promenade Project, is expected to cost about $300 million, create hundreds of jobs and take six to seven years to complete. It will affect 22 to 23 acres of waterfront, from the Maryland Science Center around to the National Aquarium on Pier 3. Portions of the Inner Harbor promenade will be raised about three feet as a precaution against rising sea water levels.
The two Harborplace pavilions at Light and Pratt streets will be demolished in the first phase because they were constructed above key utility lines, storm drains and other underground infrastructure that is being rebuilt as part of the larger project. Also to be demolished in this phase are two pedestrian bridges connected to the pavilions, one that spans Pratt Street and one that spans Light Street.
Four separate buildings that are planned as part of the development will be later “sequences” of the project and will rise as financing is finalized. The demolition of Harborplace will not wait until funding is in place for those buildings, which make up the “vertical construction” portions of the development as opposed to the “horizontal site improvements” that affect the ground plane and below.
The vertical construction phase includes two apartment towers, offices, shops and restaurants. Their construction is also expected to take six to seven years or more to complete. The developer is aiming to begin work on that phase in 2027. The cost of the total project is estimated to be $900 million or more.
The first phase also involves the first major reconstruction of West Shore Park since it opened in its present form in 2006, designed by Hord Coplan Macht of Baltimore and Thomas Balsley Associates of New York. Events that have been held on West Shore Park in past years, including the German Christmas Village and the Wine Village in Baltimore, will be relocated, most likely to Rash Field, while construction is underway.
Key features of West Shore Park will disappear or be relocated, including a fountain that honors civic leader Walter Sondheim Jr. and a statue of former Mayor and Governor William Donald Schaefer. Preliminary plans for West Shore Park include a memorial honoring Baltimoreans who led the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor starting in the 1960s, such as Sondheim, Schaefer and former Mayor and Governor Theodore McKeldin.
The wavy-roofed Baltimore Visitor Center at 401 Light Street will not be torn down but will be surrounded by construction activity. The promenade around the World Trade Center Baltimore at 401 E. Pratt St. and the 9/11 Memorial of Maryland will not be reconstructed as part of the MCB-led Park and Promenade Project because that building and plaza are state-owned property and will remain open to the public throughout the construction. MCB’s work will include reconstruction of the promenade adjacent to the city-owned green space between the World Trade Center and the National Aquarium, site of the city-owned Mark di Suvero sculpture, “Under Sky One Family.”
There are no firm estimates for the number of construction jobs that will be created but it could be in the thousands. The recent local project that’s closest in scope to the rebuilding of Harborplace is construction of the mixed-use, multi-building development called Baltimore Peninsula, which reportedly created 2,000 construction jobs.
Both union and non-union crews will be able to bid on Harborplace construction packages.
The development team will provide the fiber “pathways” needed to make free Wi-Fi possible in the harbor area but will leave it up to city officials to decide exactly what will be provided, since the project is a public-private partnership.
That’s some of the information that came out of a 90-minute “Subcontractor Outreach Event” that Harborplace’s owner and general contractor, MCB Real Estate and the Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., held on Wednesday.
‘Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’
The purpose of the meeting was to inform subcontractors about the jobs that will be available, how businesses can apply for them, and the projected timetable for work.
More than 150 people gathered on the eighth floor of MCB’s One East Pratt Street office building to learn about the job opportunities. In the process, they got a detailed briefing about the scope of the work and the construction timeline.
The size of the crowd was comparable to some of the audiences that attended community engagement sessions that MCB held while planning the project. The difference is that Wednesday’s crowd consisted primarily of representatives of the local construction industry, including numerous Minority Business Enterprises and Women-owned Business Enterprises.
The meeting started with greetings from MCB co-founder and managing partner P. David Bramble, MCB Harborplace Principal Adam Genn and Whiting-Turner President and CEO Tim Regan. Following their remarks, Genn and four members of Whiting-Turner’s team led the audience through the steps needed to pursue the jobs that will be available.
The last half hour was devoted to networking and one-on-one discussions, giving audience members opportunities to connect with project leaders, development partners and industry peers.
Since MCB closed on the property in June of 2022 and unveiled preliminary renderings for the project in October of 2023, Bramble said, the project has moved ahead to the point that MCB is ready to start the construction bidding process. He said MCB hopes to provide jobs for as many local businesses as possible.
“I’m from Baltimore and many of you hopefully are from the Baltimore area and that’s why we’re so excited to have you all here today,” Bramble said. “Because one of our major goals is to ensure that this major local project involves a lot of local businesses and as many as possible get the opportunity to be part of this amazing project. It’s really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity…You all are going to be a huge part of bringing that to fruition.”
From the outset of the project, “we’ve always wanted to maximize involvement from local small minority and women-owned businesses,” Bramble continued. “This is truly a Baltimore project, and we wanted to make sure that the team that builds it reflects that.“
“We’re getting ready to start construction on the future of Baltimore,” said Genn.
‘Our Number One job in the company’
Regan said Whiting-Turner “had the privilege” of building Harborplace and asked how many people in the audience were of driving age when it opened in 1980. Not many raised their hands.
Regan told the audience that Harborplace opened “to much fanfare and it changed Baltimore forever. But it has obviously truly run its course. It’s seen better days, and for years now, we’ve needed a greater, more modern, more vibrant version of Harborplace.”
While Whiting-Turner is a national company with 80 offices around the country, Regan said, the Baltimore area is its home and has been for 117 years. And like Bramble, he said, “I’m a Baltimore kid…This is our Number One job in the company, right now, right here. We are so committed to this…It’s so important to get this off to a good start.”
Whiting-Turner is working with THG Companies LLC, a minority-owned firm based in Clipper Mill, where MCB has its headquarters. According to MCB’s website, its role is preconstruction estimating partner. President and CEO Cheo Hurley said Whiting-Turner is acting as a mentor to THG on the project.
Project overview
While the briefing was held to provide details solely about bidding for the Park and Promenade phase of the Harborplace project, it was also useful for subcontractors who may want to bid on work related to individual buildings that will come later in the development.
Speakers gave an overview of the project’s horizontal site elements, including the promenade, bulkhead and marine infrastructure, demolition of the pavilions, mass grading, heavy civil, wet and dry utilities, road realignment, traffic signalization, custom waterfront seating features, site amenities, water features, amphitheater seating, and park green space, hardscaping and landscaping.
Genn echoed Bramble in saying that one of MCB’s goals is to create as many jobs for local subcontractors as possible and to create opportunities for mentorship, so relatively young firms can gain expertise they can apply to future jobs.
To that end, he said, Whiting-Turner will be structuring bid packages so companies with different skills can pursue them.
Lights, pavers, floating wetlands
Audience members were told that the Park and Promenade Project goes far beyond the 3.2-acre site currently occupied by the two Harborplace pavilions at Pratt and Light streets and that it will be carried out under a Public Works Developer’s Agreement with the city, which owns the land.
Genn said the work involves reconstructing the Inner Harbor seawall and promenade from the Maryland Science Center at 601 Light Street north to the Inner Harbor amphitheater between the two pavilions and then east past where the USS Constellation is located all the way to Inner Harbor Pier 3.
“We are quite literally touching everything from the Rusty Scupper to the south all the way around to the Aquarium to the northeast,” he said. “That is, all of the seawall, all of the promenade, all of the parks, all of the curbs, all of the roads.”
In addition to replacing the seawall, which was built in the 1970s, MCB will be adding roughly three feet of grade in a mass grading process across the entire site, reconstructing the parks and promenade around the infrastructure, and adding floating docks and wetlands.
Raising the grade of the promenade involves bringing in approximately 1000 cubic yards of fill material. Stormwater drainage and sewer work will entail installation of more than 25,000 linear feet of utilities. Crews will install 600 light fixtures and more than 400,000 pavers.
Site amenities will include another 900 to 1000 items, including bike racks, trash cans and benches. Landscaping will entail more than 500 trees and several thousand plants. Marine work will include more than 3,000 square feet of floating wetlands, 19,000 square feet of fixed docks and 24,000 square feet of floating docks.
In terms of roads and rights of way, Genn said, the project involves changes to Light Street and Pratt Street. After the change, he said, “it will be two-way on Light Street up to Baltimore Street,” which is different from Light Street’s one-way southbound condition on that stretch at present, and that involves signal work, right of way work, striping work, paving work and other changes.
All of this activity will create jobs for subcontractors with a variety of specialties. Within the package of drawings that go out for bid, speakers said, there will be a ‘developers’ agreement’ set of drawings, a ‘landside’ set of drawings and a ‘marine’ side set of drawings.
‘Employ as many Baltimore-based companies as we can’
The first step for subcontractors who want to work on the project, the audience was told, is to register with Whiting-Turner. The second step is to get prequalified to bid. Audience members were given the addresses of several websites with information, including www.ourharborplace.com and www.whiting-turner.com.
Genn said permits for the first phase of work have not been issued yet but the development team expects them to be issued this fall. He said the development team will be letting the bid packages out “in the coming weeks and months” and “our goal is to start the right-of-way work in November,” which would include the signal work, signs and other changes needed to implement the traffic changes.
Genn told the audience that the entire project will take six to seven years to complete “if everything goes perfectly.” He reiterated Bramble’s point that MCB wants to find as many ways as possible for the reconstruction of Harborplace to be a vehicle for training of contractors and subcontractors working in all facets of the construction industry.
“As Dave mentioned, one of the goals of this project from the outset is to employ as many Baltimore-based companies as we can,” he said.
Encouraging mentor-mentee relationships between large established businesses and smaller disadvantaged businesses is one way that Whiting-Turner will strive to bring local subcontractors into the project, said Division Vice President Ted Border.
“This is a big project for Baltimore,” he said. “We’re going to work with some mentorship programs and partnership programs to make sure we can get as many Baltimore businesses involved in this as possible.”
