Demolishing Baltimore Superblock buildings to make way for a murky future
Baltimore city workers razing part of the west side for redevelopment. (Photo by Fern Shen)
by FERN SHEN
The city began demolition yesterday another remnant of once-thriving Baltimore: a strip of retail buildings on West Lexington Street now so moribund that a patch of cattail stalks was visible growing on one roof.
But although yesterday’s ceremony featured an artist’s rendering of the glittery mixed-use development being imagined by the Cordish Company for the spot, and a crowd of “stakeholders” and media gathered to watch Mayor Sheila Dixon smash the first bit of facade with a backhoe, the immediate plan for the block is not too exciting:
A 100-space parking lot for Catholic Relief Services’ World Headquarters Building.
Why can’t they move forward with the development project on these properties they’re leveling (along the north side of Lexington, between Howard Street and Park Avenue)?
The reason lies in a snarl of litigation over the larger project across the street on the south side of the block — there are disputes with neighboring property owners, complaints about the character of the developers and objections from historic preservation advocates.
Both projects are part of the stalled Superblock redevelopment which, with a few exceptions, has pretty much been in limbo over the decade since it was announced with great fanfare.
Asked yesterday what the plans are for the spot, Zed Smith, vice president of development for Cordish, talked at first of transit-oriented development – the Metro and Light Rail are nearby. He spoke of apartments for potential city dwellers attracted by the area’s stronger features — the University of Maryland’s hospital and biopark, the Hippodrome Thearte, the Lexington Market. (Cordish is partnered with the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Inc. to develop the property under the name C-W Superblock, LLC.)
But, asked if any of these project elements are actually planned-out or scheduled to begin, he said “no.”
“We can’t really move forward until that project is settled,” said Smith, pointing to the 3.6-acre area bounded by Park Avenue and Lexington, Fayette and Howard Streets.
Mayor Sheila Dixon is, for just a moment, operating the backhoe. (Photo by Fern Shen)
Speakers at yesterday’s event alluded, delicately, to the delay.
“This is not a sprint, this business called urban development. It’s a marathon,” said the Baltimore Develop[ment Corporation’s Jay Brodie, speaking to the assembled crowd.
Kathy Robertson, director of the West Side Initiative Project for the BDC, said afterwards that the demolition was worth doing “because it moves us forward and will improve the appearance of the neighborhood — bring some energy to the street.”
She said the buildings, most of them the former Beehler Umbrella Factory, should be cleared by May and ready for parkers “sometime in the summer.”
Joan Pratt, Sheila Dixon, Kathy Robertson, Jay Brodie and Zed Smith gather to "Celebrate a Decade of Progress." (Photo by Fern Shen)
Meanwhile much of the superblock remains a grim landscape of shuttered businesses and wig shops. Soon, a parking lot will be part of the milieu. Will it be like the McCormick Spice Company building and the Baltimore News-American building, one more piece of Baltimore that is razed, readied and left empty, awaiting a development project that never seems to come?