BALTIMORE — Surrendering five acres of public park land for private development surrounding the Inner Harbor?
Opponents called on voters to just say no.
“It enables a private developer to construct two luxury towers—-one 32 stories, one 25 stories with expensive, luxury 900 apartments,” Sandra Seward of Protect Our Parks told a crowd in the weeks leading up to Election Tuesday.
But voters approved the measure, and newly-re-elected Mayor Brandon Scott is re-energized to begin pushing the project forward.
“We’re very excited that the residents were able to vote for that, saw through that and saw, again, through some of the racist things that were done and said,” said Scott, “Referring to me as a monkey, right? Those kinds of things that we saw just had no place in this debate, but we’re glad that the residents saw through it and supported it.”
Calling it the lynchpin of future economic development in the city as well as in the state, the Baltimore Development Corporation is also celebrating the voters’ decision.
“I was truly worried about the future of not just the Inner Harbor, but really the entire downtown,” said BDC President & CEO Colin Tarbert, “Downtowns need to transform themselves post-COVID and the need a catalyst to do that and so we’ve had a number of successful projects recently—-Lexington Market, CFG Bank Arena’s been a big success, but we need to continue that momentum.”
MCB Real Estate’s managing partner, David Bramble, purchased the depressed property out of receivership three years ago.
In a statement today, Bramble and MCB Co-Founder Peter Pinkard say, “Now the real work begins to transform Harborplace, the Inner Harbor and the City of Baltimore for the benefit of our City and State—-and we will need everyone to help make this a reality.”
Funding, rezoning and recruiting are expected to take a few years before work can begin to change the withering face of the Harborplace we see today.
