News
GOAL!
March 15, 2011
| Futbol, anyone? Thursday Pat Turner said soccer team DC United could be Westport?s newest tenant if options in Washington run out (not to mention that construction can finally start there in the next year and a half). |
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| We snapped Pat at the ULI Young Leaders Lunch at the Baltimore Rowing Club. He says the north end of the 50-acre Westport site could accommodate a 25,000-seat stadium (which would be financed by a combo of EB5 financing and MD stadium bonds) attached to a 500-key hotel. Westport is approved for up to 5M SF of mixed-use development, Pat tells us, and $35M worth ofinfrastructure improvements to the site start in the next 120 days. One year after that work starts, construction can begin on Phase 1: a 200-unit multifamily building with 5,000 SF of street-level retail, 250k SF of office space, and 72 townhouses. |
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| Baltimore City set up a $160M TIF zone for the site, Pat says, $10M of which will go toward transportation improvements. Vacant houses in Westport will be bought with $6.3M in TIF financing, and the immediate neighborhood will be free of empty units in 18 months. Pat also tells us Annapolis Road (which he envisions as a new main street) will be rezoned for commercial uses; did we mention his firm's planting 400 new trees? |
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| We also snapped AmDyne?s Carrie Miller, flanked by Merritt?s Dan Pallace and Morris & Ritchie Associates? Tommy Eckes. Westport has five times the water area of the Inner Harbor, says Pat. His vision is for a green waterfront, where kayaks and canoes outnumber motorboats and marinas. Pat also tells us the city will shut down one lane of the Hanover St. Bridge for cyclists as part of the Gwynns Falls Trail. |
