Baltimore Grows

For those not familiar with the McHenry Row project, it is the large retail & residential development project currently in progress in Locust Point. Read these posts for some more background.

Baltimore’s McHenry Row – Panera, Starbucks…
McHenry Row – Baltimore – Locust Point

If you have driven down Key Highway recently, you know the McHenry Row construction is well under way on the first structure – the parking garage.? It appears the earlier reports of Harris Teeter being the grocer and anchor store, are about to become true. Developer Mark Sapperstein? hopes that the deal will soon be announced. The store will be their largest location and will likley stay open 24 hours. If what’s being said is true – this will be the nicest grocery store in the city. It’s proposed to have a high-end selection of prepared foods, deli/butcher, bakery, seafood, sushi bar, cheese bar, on-site pizza makers, etc. The store will have a big focus on fresh produce and organic products. The projected completion for the grocer is Summer/Fall 2010, months after the residences will open.

Harris Teeter opening a Baltimore location is a bit of a stretch for them. It’s outside of their existing geographic area, and this area of Baltimore does not yet support their typical demographics.? The success of the overall project, and bringing in additional high-end retailers, really hinges on locking in Harris Teeter.? Once that happens the other tenants should be lining up.? I’ve heard that Starbucks and two banks are likely, and Panera, Cosi, Cold Stone, Legal Sea Food and other restaurants are possible.? If the project plays out as hoped, it will certainly become one of the nicest retail centers in Baltimore.

Sapperstein is also planning on doing some interesting lighting and signage on the existing water tower at the site. He’s proposing to use some variation of neon or a well lit sign, as well as some automated lighting effects that “go off” every 7 minutes. It sounds a bit cheesey, but is supposed to play off existing Baltimore landmarks like Domino Sugar, Phillips Crab, Natty Boh, and UTZ signs.

Key highway will also undergo a large amount of work that includes a landscaped medium between the existing four lanes.

Baltimore’s development arm, the Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) recently released a snapshot of their master plan for the Charles North Area, AKA Station North, north of Penn Station.?

While the plan calls for higher density high rises, including a 60 story building, it seems unlikely that any of those would come to fruition in the near future, although the BDC has plans to acquire about 18 properties to start the revitalization process.

? The most tangible aspect of the plan could be the addition of a boutique hotel to the top three floors of Penn Station in conjunction with a renovation/expansion of the train station and concourse as reported in the Baltimore Business Journal.? http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2007/10/15/story7.html

? I’m curious to hear what people think about a potential 60 story building in this neighborhood.? Add your comments or shoot me an e-mail.

jeffcantonite@yahoo.com

Baltimore’s tallest building, the Legg Mason building, is getting a new parking garage.? Contractors recently broke ground on the new 10 story structure located across the street from the Legg Mason building near the corner of Light and Lombard.? Burke’s Restaurant, currently at the location will apparently remain and will supposedly get a face-lift.? It appears that the building’s owners are preparing for Legg Mason’s exodus to their new headquarters in Harbor East as a selling point for future tenants.? Parking, or should I say lack thereof, was a major reason for Legg’s departure.?

jeffcantonite@yahoo.com

It was announced today that Baltimore City and the University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus have reached an agreement to open a new university bookstore on the northeast corner of Baltimore and Paca streets, just west of the Hippodrome Theatre.? The new bookstore will be operated by Barnes and Noble.? Even though the university could have placed the bookstore in one of their existing buildings, the thoughts are that a bookstore in this location would be a greater boon to the West-side revitalization.? In all likelihood, the University of Maryland Barnes and Noble will be similar to the recently opened Barnes and Noble associated with Johns Hopkins University in Charles Village.? Main complaints about these university bookstores are that they lack the kind of book selection that a standard Barnes and Noble would carry, since their main focus is textbooks.? No word on construction schedule or format for the recently announced store.

Article? from? The Examiner about new development in Mount Vernon?

Part of Mount Vernon is getting a makeover, thanks to a pair of developers with big plans.? Two large buildings at the north end of the 800 block of Park Avenue are the targets of new development projects. One, the historic Brexton Building, will be turned into a boutique hotel. Across the street the Waxter Center, a senior center, will be rebuilt at an adjacent site along with a 600-unit apartment-condominium complex targeted to young professionals and grad students.

Full article

On the heels of the recent articles about Sam’s Club closing its Port Covington store, The Daily Record published a story about the developer’s plans to build a billion dollar project on the 56 acre waterfront site.? Really it just sounds like more of the same for Port Covington – lofty plans, great ideas, but no real time frame or movement.? ? ?

Previous coverage?

Even rumors about Donald Trump purchasing the site have circulated for the last couple years, but at this point as far as I know they’re nothing more than that.

After multiple conflicting reports, today’s Baltimore Sun has an article revealing that the SAM’s club in Port Covington is indeed being relocated to Glen Burnie, but the Wal-Mart is staying.? Which sucks, because the Wal-Mart is a real dump, but the SAM’s Club is pretty nice.

Basically the article states that the retail stores were premature, and need more residential in the area to support them.

“Clearly the area will go through a transition, and it hasn’t gotten there yet,” Spector said.? “Residential is very important down there,” Spector added. “Right now there is not residential there and retail obviously requires residential bodies.”

Rumors have been circulating for years about the future fate of the Wal-Mart and SAMS club in South Baltimore’s Port Covington area.? The latest rumors have indicated that the two stores will be closing as early as January 08 and that the retailers are replacing them with a SAMS in Glen Burnie and a Wal-Mart in Southwest Baltimore.?

The development of these two big box stores on waterfront property has been controversial form the beginning.? And it seems that the SAMS club does well but the Wal-Mart has never lived up to expectations.? A entire retail complex was originally planned and promised for the site – but years later the two super stores sit alone among unfinished parking lots.

A March 2007 Baltimore Business Journal article covered the subject in detail.

The spaces have remained blank nearly five years since a Connecticut developer opened the city’s first Wal-Mart in a once empty rail yard. And, by all indications, it seems the spaces will remain blank in the foreseeable future. The reason: Its original developer said it had no interest in staying at Port Covington for the long haul and its new owners have no immediate plans to develop the site.

Kodiak Properties LLC and Finmarc Management Inc. of Bethesda purchased the site that houses the Port Covington Shopping Center in early 2005.

However the new owners have stated that they have no immediate plans to develop the land.? Apparently they want to wait it out until market conditions are better – not sure when that would be.? There have been all kinds of retail and residential uses discussed for the area, but it seems that none of these have gained? enough traction.? This article talked about one such plan.

The waterfront property with easy adjacent access to 95 seems too valuable and has too much potential to remain undeveloped – it’s just a question of what and when it will be redeveloped.? One bright spot of news for the area is the Port Covington Maritime Center, which is where Tidewater Yacht Services moved to from its former location on Key Highway next to Domino Sugar.

This PDF shows the proposed site plan for the former Chesapeake Paperboard site in Locust Point.? The plan originally started out in this same type of Main Street concept, but later morphed into one central over sized structure. Both the city and community special committee objected the revised plan.? Luckily developer Mark Sapperstein came back with a third concept (shown here) that was much more in line with the Main Street concept he originally sold to the community.? I’m sure the plan has changed since this was created back in October 06, but it’s the latest version that I have seen.

The last word was still that the developer had planned to have the grocer Harris Teeter as the anchor store.? UPDATE – The Baltimore Business Journal posted that the new plans have one approval from UDARP.

Yesterday’s Baltimore Business Journal published an article about how the Chesapeake Paperboard site (The Shoppes at Fort) plans have been delayed.? Developer Mark Sapperstein is building a mixed use project on the 9-acre property.? The project’s master plan? was already approved by a Locust Point Civic Association and the city.? However, the more detailed architecture plans did not meet the Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel (UDARP) requirements.? Aesthetic changes such as brick color and changes to the parking garage were requested.

Sapperstein wants to optimistically break ground this Fall, but this might delay the start.? The $80 million dollar project which includes 250 high-end apartments, and 110,000 feet of retail space is scheduled to be completed by spring 2010.? I’m surprised it will take that long.?

This photo shows satellite view of the site – outlined in red – and the surrounding streets.? This shot was taken before the demolition of the former plant beagn over a year ago.? The firehouse sits just above the property and to the right is the Phillips Seafood plant.

UPDATE – The Baltimore Business Journal posted that the new plans have one approval from UDARP.