Developers of Baltimore’s “superblock” have visions of a $150 million mixed-use project that connects the city’s central business district with its retail- and residential-starved west side.
City preservation groups, though, want the developers to think and design around several historic buildings, some a century old, included on the project’s footprint.
“We have to think about the economics of the project,” said Bailey Pope, vice president of design and construction for Atlanta-based Dawson Co. and member of superblock developer Lexington Square Partners. “We can’t make [historical preservation] the be-all, end-all of the project.”
Lexington Square introduced its plan Thursday to the Westside Project Area Committee and the city’s Urban Design Architectural Review Panel.
The plan would redevelop a portion of the superblock bounded by Park Avenue and Howard, West Lexington and West Fayette streets.
The plan calls for T-shaped residential towers, the taller building climbing 28 stories, that include about 360 one- and two-bedroom apartments, about 150,000 square feet of retail space and 650 to 700 parking spaces.
A San Francisco boutique hotel company has also shown interest in the development and would consider constructing a 120-room hotel and an upscale restaurant as part of the project, Pope said.
The project builds on Downtown Partnership’s desire for a $100 million Pratt Street redesign. The plan, outlined in September, would include about 300,000 square feet of new retail build-out in the form of two- and three-story buildings along Pratt Street.
Several historical preservation groups, including the Maryland Historical Trust and the Baltimore City Commission for Historic and Architectural Protection, are against Lexington Square’s plans for the demolition or partial demolition of at least one building in the area the city and MHT agreed should not be torn down.
Lexington Square plans to tear down parts of The McCrory building next to Valu-Plus on West Lexington Street, but it will preserve the vacant Brager-Gutman building at West Lexington Street and Park Avenue.
Kathleen Korarba, executive director of the Baltimore City CHAP, said she wanted to see the plan maintain the retail streetscape along West Lexington Street.
“There’s still a little more that we think should be preserved,” Korarba said after the presentation at the Architectural Review Panel meeting.
Baltimore Development Corp. President M.J. “Jay” Brodie said the city’s downtown and west side have huge retail needs, adding the superblock would build on the success of the Best Buy and Filene’s Basement in Inner Harbor and the Superfresh in Charles Plaza that have opened in the past two years.
“There are various pieces to the superblock project — small, medium and large. This is a large piece,” Brodie said. “It’s a very big area, and it’s a very big idea.”
The project still needs approval from several city groups and the MHT, but Brodie said construction on the project could begin in 2009.
