'It's Time For Something New': Top Baltimore Developers Support Plan To Raze Harborplace

A pair of prominent developers voiced support Thursday for MCB Real Estate's proposal to raze Baltimore's Harborplace pavilions to clear the way for a redevelopment along the Inner Harbor.

Seawall Development co-founder Thibault Manekin and Greenberg Gibbons CEO Brian Gibbons defended MCB Real Estate's plans to demolish the pavilions during a panel at Bisnow's Baltimore State of the Market event at Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel. 

"I think that those buildings have served their purpose in a beautiful way. I grew up going to them, and it's time for something new," Manekin said.

Seawall Development completed a similar project earlier this year when it delivered a new $45M Lexington Market building, replacing decades-old structures that contributed to sharp losses in the number of vendors and customers.  

MCB Real Estate's P. David Bramble said Saturday his team's plan for redeveloping the sites fronting the harbor along Pratt and Light streets involves demolishing the Harborplace pavilions, 43-year-old glass-enclosed mall structures built by renowned developer James K. Rouse. 

MCB Real Estate Managing Partner and Co-Founder P. David Bramble didn't respond to a request for comment on this story. 

Gibbons, who formed a partnership with MCB Real Estate earlier this year after his firm sold a stake in its Foundry Row project in Baltimore County, also voiced support for Bramble's proposal to raze the buildings.   

Gibbons said he shared with Bramble a story from the Baltimore Sun that included comments from Rouse's son criticizing MCB Real Estate's plans to level the buildings. Gibbons said he texted Bramble: "No good deed goes unpunished." 

While Gibbons said he hasn't thought much about what should replace the pavilions, he said a mixed-use project oriented toward residents and not tourists makes sense. He said that type of development would create a vibrancy that has been missing in the area, and that is the direction MCB Real Estate is heading with its redevelopment plans.   

"I don't see [Harborplace] succeeding as it exists," Gibbons said. "I agree with with David on that. Exactly what [replaces it], I don't know. But I'm not thinking about it all day, every day like they are."

During the last decade, developers throughout the metro area have converted a stream of outdated shopping malls into mixed-use developments with residential, office and retail, such as The Rotunda in Hampden.   

However, the Harborplace pavilions hold greater sentimental value for many Baltimore residents. That standing has more to do with what they represent than their design. What they mean to many Baltimoreans is a new beginning when the city struggled with its first prolonged spate of decline after decades of growth.   

The first concepts for transforming Baltimore's waterfront stretch back to the 1950s and emerged from city business leaders' concerns about the city’s dilapidated downtown. Eventually, those concerns spurred the creation of public and private partnerships to generate investments in urban renewal initiatives, such as the construction of Charles Center downtown.    

After completing Charles Center in 1962, city leaders turned their attention to the next round of urban renewal — transforming Baltimore's decaying downtown waterfront. Yet, despite the speed of earlier urban renewal efforts, the waterfront redevelopment took longer to complete and was cobbled together incrementally over the next two decades.  

It wasn’t until the early 1980s when Baltimore completed work transforming its gritty piers and aging waterfront industrial properties into a tourist attraction dubbed the Inner Harbor, which featured a 282K SF retail complex called Harborplace.      

The pavilions featured a design that Rouse Co. and architecture firm Benjamin Thompson and Associates pioneered in Boston dubbed "festival marketplace." The concept, first used at Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, emphasized facilitating social interaction from activities such as shopping and dining.   

"Thompson designed two new twin pavilions that were meant to evoke the character of old market sheds typically found in older east-coast U.S. cities. They were backless — simultaneously facing both the city and the harbor — and lined with shops and restaurants," the Society of Architectural Historians wrote about Harborplace. 

For decades after its launch, tourists and residents visited the Inner Harbor to visit the National Aquarium, the USS Constellation and Harborplace. However, the pavilion's popularity declined and slowly slid into disrepair after Rouse died in 1996. 

First General Growth Properties purchased the pavilions in 2004.  In 2012, bankruptcy forced General Growth Properties to sell the pavilions to Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. Then, in 2019, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge ordered Harborplace into receivership when Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. defaulted on its loan for the property.  

After months of negotiations, MCB Real Estate announced it officially acquired Harborplace in July. MCB Real Estate also announced Gensler would lead its design team, which included the Baltimore-based firms Sulton Campbell Britt & Associates, BCT Design Group and Unknown Studio.   

Since revealing MCB Real Estate closed the deal for the property, the new owner has held several meetings with residents to gather input it planned to incorporate into final plans for the development. During that time, Bramble has made it clear that while his firm listens to community input, he envisioned pursuing a mixed-use development on that site.