With skateboard in hand, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott was one of the first to try out Jake’s Skate Park, one of the highlights of Rash Field Park, which will officially reopen tomorrow after a $16.8 million makeover.
More than 200 people gathered today to mark completion of the 2.5-acre first-phase of a two-phase refurbishment of the 7.5-acre public park on the south shore of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, between the Maryland Science Center and the Rusty Scupper Restaurant.
The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore, which led the revitalization effort along with the city’s parks department, has planned a two days of activities this weekend to celebrate the reopening, including sunrise and afternoon yoga, music, biking, a garden discovery, a skate party and a demo with pro skater Joey Jett.
But the park was full of activity today even before kids from the Solo Gibbs Recreation Center in South Baltimore joined with Scott and other civic leaders to cut a green vine to celebrate the opening.
“This is a nature park, so we have a vine to cut, not a red ribbon,” explained Laurie Schwartz, president and chief executive of the Waterfront Partnership. The park makeover is one of the most significant capital projects Schwartz has spearheaded in a public service career that has spanned four decades.
“It’s about three acres of parks for Baltimore, but it’s really about bringing…moments of joy and happiness to so many people,” she said at the opening. “To kids who can climb up the towers and run across the rope bridge, explore in the nature park, relax in the shade lawn and look out at the water and sit under the trees…We hope to see families from all over the city gathering together in this shared space, enjoying this gorgeous park and having moments of joy and happiness, a break from our everyday lives.”
“This is an incredible day for Baltimore, all of Baltimore,” Scott said. “The harbor is for all of Baltimore. Rash Field is for all of Baltimore.”
Scott said people often tell him they remember when the Inner Harbor was first revitalized and became a space for gatherings, festivals and families.
“And guess what? It will be that way again, because we will continue to invest in the harbor,” he said. “An investment in the harbor is an investment in all of Baltimore, because it belongs to all of us…This is slated now and will become, again, one of our premier parks in the city…This is the first portion of the reimagining and the rebuilding in the 21st century of what Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is going to look like.”
William C. “Bill” Ferguson, president of the Maryland Senate, said completion of the park’s first phase shows what Baltimore can do to make a difference in people’s lives.
“What today represents is, instead of the handwringing – What are we going to do? How can we make things better? Are we ever going to fix things? – it takes people like the Waterfront Partnership to set out a vision and to quietly go to work,” he said. “This was no small project. At every corner there were new hurdles or new wrinkles or new changes or new additions. But along the way, consistently, a clear vision that was executed every single day is what brings us here today.”
Like Scott, Ferguson said it’s important for cities to invest in their downtowns.
“This is a major downtown investment, but if you look across the globe, there is not a city across the globe that has a struggling downtown and a thriving uptown,” he said. “We must have a thriving, upbeat, energetic downtown in order to create a thriving city. We rise and fall together, and today’s investment here at Rash Field, and what this incredible, incredible space represents, is everything that is good with this city. This is what we can do when we dream big… This is just such an amazing investment and proof that we can do big things in this city when we come together around a clear vision.”
The partnership broke ground on January 7, 2020 to begin the makeover, with Mahan Rykiel Associates as the landscape architect and Gensler as the architect of the BGE pavilion, which has a green roof and will house a café. The goal was to make the area more of a destination for both area residents and visitors by adding activities for the whole family.
One popular feature is a landscaped lookout point above the café that offers sweeping views of the Inner Harbor, while echoing angles of the National Aquarium’s glass pyramid roofs across the harbor. Other improvements in the first phase include two playgrounds, an interactive play area, trails and two climbing towers.
Designed by Grindline Skateparks of Seattle, the Rash Field skate park is named after Jake Owen, a five-year-old skateboarder and sports enthusiast who was killed in 2011 by a distracted driver. Earlier this year, organized by Baltimore real estate brokers Cindy Conklin and Bob Merbler, local artists created more than 60 skate decks – skateboards without the wheels – that were sold at auction to raise funds to help build the skatepark.
Still to come in Phase One, Schwartz said, are interpretive signs and the café, which she expects to open in the spring. The partnership is now turning its attention to designing and raising funds for Phase Two of the makeover, which will involve the remaining five acres east of the first phase and cost about $14 million.
Expected to take several more years to complete, Phase Two will be geared toward recreation and fitness and will feature running tracks, a soccer field and exercise equipment. Like the first phase, Schwartz said, the project will be paid for with a mix of public and private funds, and Maryland’s General Assembly has already committed $1.5 million. A representative for CareFirst of Maryland announced that CareFirst intends to help support the second phase but did not give a specific amount.
More information about Rash Field Park and this weekend’s activities is available at waterfrontpartnership.org.
