In 1978, thousands of Baltimoreans opposed a commercial development at Harborplace by James Rouse and his company. They tried but failed to stop the construction of Rouse’s “festival mall” on the public waterfront at Pratt and Light streets, and the rest is history.
James Rouse was a white man. I point this out only because of Mayor Brandon Scott’s recent statement that 46 years later, opposition to the redevelopment of Rouse’s Harborplace is due to the lead developer, David Bramble, being Black. That unfortunate claim insults anyone who knows the history of Harborplace or, for that matter, any controversial development almost anywhere.
From sea to shining sea, thousands of battles have been fought by citizens to keep various developments from happening. And the vast majority of those battles, I’d wager, have been fought against white men who wanted to build things — shopping centers, houses, apartment buildings, crematoria — that local residents did not want. If race is a factor, it’s usually because a largely white, largely affluent community somewhere does not want to see affordable housing built near them, the fear being that people of color will become their neighbors. We’ve seen that happen too many times over the years.
But that’s not the nature of opposition to MCB Real Estate’s proposal for the redevelopment of Harborplace.
It should not be hard to understand that some Baltimoreans do not want to see Bramble and his co-managing partner, Peter Pinkard, build apartment towers and an office building on what is public parkland. (For the record, Pinkard is white.)
Nothing against Bramble and Pinkard. They are doing what developers do. They have seized an opportunity, presumably taken on some risks and cobbled together a plan that they believe will have public benefit while making money for themselves and their investors. That’s what developers do.
In fact, MCB has already taken on redevelopment projects in Baltimore. I first met Bramble just as Yard 56, his shopping center in Bayview, was about to open. He turned a post-industrial brownfield into something southeastern Baltimore needed. Yard 56 might look like a suburban-style shopping center with a supermarket and big parking lot, but it resulted from smart, determined deal-making that used tax policy intended to bring investment to places that need a lift.
I’ve also been impressed by MCB’s transformation of Northwood Plaza Shopping Center, and its current project, Reservoir Square, will be a huge bonus to the strong community building that has been underway for years in Reservoir Hill. Opposition to any of these projects would have been foolish in a city that needs new residents and more amenities.
However, I do not consider opposition to MCB’s proposal for Harborplace foolish. It comes from a perfectly understandable place: Commercial development of this scale, and including private space (900 apartments in two towers), should not happen on public parkland.
In Baltimore County, no one will get to build a strip mall in Cromwell Valley Park. I’m sure some people would love a house on Centennial Lake in Howard County, but that won’t happen. In the city, we don’t allow housing developments in Druid Hill Park, and no one will be permitted to build an apartment tower in Patterson Park. So there should be protected space on Baltimore’s waterfront, which sociologist Ray Oldenburg called “the great good place” for public gatherings.
I’ve heard people suggest that older Baltimoreans are stodgy and resist change. That’s true about certain things, mainly having to do with crabs, but not Harborplace. It obviously can’t stay as it is, a tired mall that was mismanaged for years. People on both sides of this battle — those supporting the MCB plan and those who want to see it scaled back — agree that the corner of Pratt and Light needs a lift.
Bramble says he needs the apartment towers to build density — more people on Harborplace every day. When I suggested that he could build an even bigger apartment building right across Pratt Street, on the parking lot where the News-American once stood, he said, “It’s not enough… We need more.”
But it’s hard to believe that a more attractive Harborplace, sans the apartment towers, won’t attract visitors. It’s hard to believe that there aren’t enough residents between Harbor East and downtown to support the cool-looking marketplace and restaurants in MCB’s plan.
It’s hard to believe that a renewed and robust effort by the city government and a team of tourism wizards to attract people to Harborplace will fail.
It’s hard to believe that thousands of visitors, maybe millions, would not find their way to Pratt and Light to attend annual maritime festivals and visit tall ships. (In 2012, the weeklong Star-Spangled Sailabration drew more than 1.5 million visitors — some 435,000 from out of state — and had an estimated $166 million in economic impact on the metro area, according to a study released four months later. A similar number of visitors arrived for Operation Sail 2000.)
Thousands of people would come to Harborplace to attend festivals of all kinds — book festivals, food festivals, holiday and seasonal festivals, ethnic festivals, concerts and music festivals, dragon boat races, food truck rallies, fairs and flea markets.
All of that, of course, takes a lot of vision. It takes hard, sustained work. It’s much easier just to privatize public space and hope for the best.