City Approves 32 Downtown Baltimore Properties For Sale
Baltimore's spending board approved an ordinance clearing the way for the sale of 32 properties in downtown's Westside neighborhood.
On Wednesday, the five-member Board of Estimates — which includes the mayor, city council president and comptroller — unanimously voted without comment in favor of the ordinance, which also received broad support from several city agencies.
"The sale of these properties represents a proactive step towards transforming dormant spaces into dynamic hubs, contributing to the overall prosperity and vitality of Baltimore," the city's civil rights office said in a letter supporting the proposal.
Mayor Brandon Scott's administration requested the ordinance from the city council on behalf of the city's quasi-public economic development agency, the Baltimore Development Corp. The ordinance is required to sell the properties purchased through the Market Center Urban Renewal Plan.
The 32 properties, spread throughout the plan area, include some ongoing projects.
"The disposition of these properties can lead to many fiscal outcomes," the Department of Finance wrote in a letter about the sales. "Dispositions are generally expected to return the property to productive status. However, when buildings are disposed of to a non-profit, there is no revenue despite the benefits of the property back in regular use."
The properties approved for sale include three parcels that the development corporation already awarded to developers through its request for proposals process, according to documents in the bill's legislative file: 414 N. Howard St., combined parcels at 102-106 N. Liberty St. and 142-144 W. Fayette St., and combined parcels at 114-116 W. Lexington St. and 207 Park Ave.
A spokesperson for the Baltimore Development Corp. didn't respond to questions about the status of those projects.
A joint venture of nonprofits Episcopal Housing Corp. and Healthcare for the Homeless proposed building 42 units of affordable housing on the North Liberty and West Fayette streets site, the Baltimore Fishbowl reported. It also reported that Chukuemeka “Chukes” Okoro of Okoro Development has proposed building a six-story apartment building on the West Lexington Street and Park Avenue site.
Of the remaining 23 properties approved for sale, the city lists 19 as future development or potential future development sites. At the same time, one parcel of four addresses in the 300 block of Eutaw Street will continue as a Maryland Department of Transportation and Maryland Transit Administration parking lot.
The Market Center Urban Renewal Plan, created by the city in 1977, once covered all of the properties approved for sale on Wednesday.
That plan aimed to turn the district into a mixed-use neighborhood that connected the University of Maryland, Baltimore and University of Maryland Medical Center campuses with downtown and, later, Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium.
That urban renewal plan expired at the end of last year. According to the Department of Finance, the city decided to "move toward a Sales Ordinance which would mirror the disposal authority in the expired URP."
However, the once-thriving retail district has struggled with disinvestment for decades, as the area's lifeblood retailers closed or followed customers to the suburbs following World War II.
In recent decades, the city has tried to revive the area by selling city-owned vacant properties to developers focused on large-scale overhauls, such as the proposed Super Block project.
Following the 2008 financial crisis and the failure of more extensive redevelopment proposals, the Baltimore Development Corp. altered its tactics and sold off smaller chunks to developers interested in rehabbing or replacing smaller parcels of outdated and decaying commercial property stock.
Baltimore also created the Bromo Arts and Entertainment District in 2012, which aims to create an arts hub in the neighborhood by providing tax incentives to artists working in the neighborhood and for developers to create spaces geared toward arts and entertainment uses.
Once a substantial number of smaller projects were underway, the city turned its attention to reinvigorating the Westside's last central retail hub, Lexington Market. The market has operated in the neighborhood since 1782, attracting generations of visitors and residents alike.
But Lexington Market, housed in decaying and outdated buildings completed in the 1950s, struggled as the neighborhood declined. As a result, the number of people shopping at the market dropped as the quality and number of vendors operating there declined.
Eventually, after years of study and false starts, the city tasked Seawall Development with creating a new $40M market building that opened in January.
Since then, additional development projects have progressed in the neighborhood, including Westside Partners LLC's proposed $100M mixed-use building The Compass on much of the old Super Block site along Park Avenue and North Howard, West Lexington and West Fayette streets.
