Unhappy with a developer’s plan for revitalizing Harborplace, a group of private citizens has formed the ‘Inner Harbor Coalition’ to promote an alternative vision

With just over a month to go before City Council members start holding hearings on a private company’s $500 million plan to redevelop Harborplace, a group of Baltimore residents has formed a citizens’ coalition to promote an alternative vision.

The Inner Harbor Coalition is the name of a group that has been created to block MCB Real Estate’s plan to replace the existing Harborplace pavilions with two residential towers and other commercial development, and to show other ways the prime waterfront parcel can be revitalized.

Working with a lawyer, the group is exploring plans to put a question on the city ballot in November 2024 that would give voters a chance to prevent the sort of mixed-use development that MCB proposed and the increased private control of public land that it is seeking.

It would potentially be the second Harborplace-related question on the November ballot, along with one asking voters to amend the City Charter and give MCB control over more city-owned land than it has now.

The coalition was announced five weeks before city council members start holding hearings on three bills that would change zoning and waive height limits to pave the way for the development plan that MCB unveiled in October for the intersection of Pratt and Light streets.

The council’s Economic and Community Development Committee has scheduled a public hearing for Feb. 13 at 2 p.m. at City Hall to consider the Harborplace-related legislation. If that committee passes the three bills, they would move on to the full council for consideration.

David Tufaro, a local developer and opponent of the MCB’s redevelopment plans, announced the formation of The Inner Harbor Coalition during an interview on Saturday with Jayne Miller on WBAL NewsRadio. 

“I have been working and talking to a lot of people and we have just formed The Inner Harbor Coalition, which will be, in all probability, offering its own version of a referendum to keep this [intersection] our space, public space,” he told Miller. “I think the public will embrace the view this is a public park to attract people of all ages, all racial groups, and a variety of uses for their enjoyment into the future, just as Harborplace did…for a long time.”

On October 30, MCB managing partner P. David Bramble and others unveiled renderings showing they want to raze the mostly-vacant Harborplace pavilions and replace them with a multi-phase project that contains two residential towers, offices, shops, restaurants and public space, including a two-tier waterfront promenade and an area called The Park at Freedom’s Port.

The towers would rise 32 and 25 stories and contain about 900 residences – a use not permitted by current zoning for the area. The developers are also asking the city to increase the amount of city-owned land they control from 3.2 acres to 4.5 acres – a change that requires approval by city voters in a public referendum.

Seeking a master plan

Tufaro told Miller that he and other members of the coalition don’t have a vision for the Inner Harbor that’s as specific as the one put forth by MCB.

In essence, he said, his vision is to see the city complete a new master plan to guide Inner Harbor and Camden Yards development before elected officials waive height limits or change zoning to accommodate the plans of any one developer.

“We need to get public input,” he said. “In my view, we need to have a commission like we had the Charles Center-Inner Harbor Management group, now succeeded by the Baltimore Development Corporation, which does not seem to want to do things in public, and get a group of people, get a new master plan done that includes the Inner Harbor, the stadium areas and all the land in between, and look at Baltimore’s future for the next 50 or 100 years. This is an opportunity, and we shouldn’t squander this opportunity in my view without doing the proper thinking and have this current plan rammed down the throats of the citizens.”

‘A different path’

Since unveiling its plans in October, MCB has received a wide range of reactions to its plans. The plan has been endorsed by most elected officials, including Gov. Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon Scott, and in December Baltimore’s Planning Commission voted to approve three council bills needed to make it possible.

“As much as I have a concern about the evolution of this plan, I am satisfied that we have a process in place that can start to address” community concerns, said planning commissioner Douglas McCoach. “And as much as I imagine that the city could have prepared itself for the eventuality of redeveloping Harborplace, I accept that we’re on a different path and that we have the people and the tools necessary to move the dialogue forward.”

But the specifics of the plan have been criticized by some residents who don’t support the construction of high-rise residences or offices on city parkland. Many say they would like to see the land around the Inner Harbor reserved for public uses that will draw people to the area, the way Central Park does in Manhattan. Certain preservationists question why the existing pavilions can’t be recycled.

Some opponents of MCB’s plan are also incensed by comments that Scott made at the unveiling of MCB’s plans in October, in which he bragged that he was less than transparent about the efforts made by the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) and other agencies “to aid Dave and his team in tackling this project” after he became mayor in December 2020.

“I’ve been known to keep secrets, but the hardest one that I had to keep is the work that my law department and BDC and others were doing from the first day I got in office to make sure that we didn’t let Harborplace stay or get into other out-of-town hands,” the mayor said. “We made sure that Harborplace got into the hands of a West Baltimore boy who understands and knows Baltimore like no one else.”

No Plan B

In his interview with Miller, Tufaro said he believes the opposition to the current Harborplace redevelopment proposal is much stronger than the opposition in 1978, when The Rouse Company sought voter approval to build Harborplace and got it.

“Do you anticipate a battle?” when the public is asked to vote in the referendum, Miller asked him.

“I think so, and I think at a level of energy far exceeding what took place in 1978,” Tufaro said.

Bramble, who led a series of community engagement sessions leading up to the Oct. 30 unveiling of architectural renderings, has said on many occasions that he welcomes public discussion about his plan and wants everyone to have a say. “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion,” he said after a six-hour hearing in December.

Bramble said he was gratified that the Planning Commission approved the three council bills but “there’s still a long way to go. This is just the beginning.”

He also said he has been impressed by the level of discourse on the part of those who have testified at public hearings.

“I’m glad that this has become a discussion about ideas – and it really has,” he added. It has been “less about everyone attacking each other, and more about what are the best ideas and how do we implement them. That is a huge win for Baltimore.”

Asked if he has a Plan B to fall back on, Bramble says he’s focused on getting this plan approved.

If the city doesn’t support the changes needed for his Inner Harbor project to move ahead, he said at a community meeting shortly after the plans were unveiled, somebody will do something, but “it won’t be done by us.”