Neighborhood Makeover

6.17.2005

The Daily Record, Volume 116, Num 213

The man behind the plan to convert an industrial grain elevator into upscale condominiums in Baltimore's Locust Point neighborhood appears to be putting together an even bigger waterfront development project. While developer Pat Turner declined to discuss his efforts, interviews with various city officials and a review of documents reveal that Turner's plans go well beyond what's known publicly - that he intends to redevelop the 16-acre Carr-Lowry Glass Factory on the western shoes of the Middle Branch, and "L" shaped wing of the Patapsco River.

In fact, he is quietly working to transform a 50-acre industrial landscape on the Middle Branch western shore.

From the dust of the shore's mechanical past, Turner wants to build a vibrant community not entirely unlike Inner Harbor East, whose high-rise office buildings can be seen far-off across the water from the Middle Branch. While Inner Harbor East's future looks assured, the future of what's coming to be known as Inner Harbor West does not. "My prediction is the Middle Branch waterway is going to turn out to be one of the greatest neighborhoods in the city," Turner told the Daily Record last month during an interview. While Turner did not reveal specifics about his plan, officials with the Department of Planning and the Baltimore Development Corp said he is preparing to transform nearly the entire shoreline of the Westport neighborhood that's home to Carr-Lowry. To accomplish that goal, Turner is negotiating the purchase of properties on both sides of Carr-Lowry, said Christopher Ryer, deputy director of the city Department of Planning. Those properties include a Constellation Energy building, the D&G Brice Concrete Co., recycling center Cockney's Enterprise, a city-owned parcel known as Kloman Ballfield, as well as land owned by the Maryland Transit Administration and CSX railways, Ryer said. Turner would put roughly 1,500 housing units in that parcel, along with retail and office space that fit the guidelines of high-density, mixed-use zoning, Ryer said. Turner declined to discuss the project for this story.

Despite Turner's optimism, his plan is not without risk. The risk has to do with Inner Harbor West's location. The area is separated by water from the downtown business district. It has long been dominated by heavy industry. And it neighbors some of the city's poorest neighborhoods: Mount Winans, Lakeland and Westport. "I'm not sure if I'd have the desire to take that risk," said Mark Deering, senior vice president for Lutherville-based MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services LLC. But all of that may prove inconsequential, because it is located next to real estate gold - water. "Right now, the trend is anything along the water with water views that's residential or commercial has interest," Deering said.

Long Road
There is a long and winding road to travel before Harbor West arrives, but city officials say that Turner is already on the path. Councilman Edward Reisinger, a Democrat who represents West Baltimore, submitted a bill this week to rezone Turner's targeted 50 acres from industrial to mixed-use residential. Reisinger said he submitted the bill on my behalf of a holding company owned by Turner called Inner Harbor West LLC.

The wide scope of the rezoning would likely postpone the bill's passing until fall or winter, Reisinger said. "This project is not like you want to rezone a small piece of property from M-1 to residential," he said. "He has to make sure this plan is done right." But while the bill might not pass for months, the existence of such a document will help Turner gather funding for the project now, Ryer said. "That show the lenders that the city is committed to a change in the use of that property," he said.

Hinting at the future shape of the Western harbor are development recommendations in the planning department's master plan for Mount Winans, Lakeland and Westport, a document planning officials say was drafted during ongoing discussions with Turner. Those recommendations include dense development at the northern and southern ends of the 50-acre site. "Tall, slender buildings" or towers, are encouraged to maximize view corridors for current residents of the Westport neighborhood. The master plan also suggests extending existing streets, which now dead end at the light rail track, to provide neighborhood access to the waterfront.

High density, such as Turner's proposed 1,500 units, would provide "transit-oriented development," using the resource of the light rail, which stops directly behind Carr-Lowry. High density would also be more likely to support stores and offices, the master plan said.

Officials shocked
Turner obviously saw the potential in the old industrial shore, but he shocked city officials when he shared his vision. "Turner surprised everyone with this," Ryer said. "I would have expected an out-of-towner," given the size of the project.

Turner's biggest city project before Harbor West is the ongoing transformation of a former grain elevator in Locust Point as the centerpiece of a townhouse and condominium development called Silo Pointe. Before that, the developer was known for smaller projects, such as his 2001 redevelopment of the Southway Bowling Center in Federal Hill to loft apartments.

"Silo Pointe is a big project, but before that he hasn't really done anything like it," Ryer said. "It's a big leap." Challenges on the industrial site abound. Massive demolition costs, environmental cleanup and revitalization of historical buildings are logistical obstacles.

Some also wonder if anyone will want to live or work in an upscale community that is just across the tracks from, and connected by public land to, poorer surrounding neighborhoods. "I think that water is a great neutralizer of opportunity," Deering said. "You can have significantly different product types adjacent to each other that can be neutralized by the water. It's something that only the water can do." But that does not eliminate the risk involved, he said.

Randall M. "Rand" Griffin, president and chief operating officer of Corporate Office Properties Trust and chairman of the board of Baltimore's National Aquarium, which building a $100 million expansion just down the road from Turner's planned project, echoed Deering's viewpoint. "If you look at urban development over time, it always needs the catalyst is the water."

"The area on the other side of the tracks is difficult, but that area has been in the process of being rehabbed," he said.

Indeed, the planning department's master plan proposes to acquire abandoned properties in Westport, Mount Winans and Lakeland and encourage businesses to settle into commercial areas.

Zoning changes are also in the works to put development pressure on certain neighborhood corridors. "Developers don't go if they don't anticipate a demand," Griffin said. "I think five years from now you won't recognize it," he said of Harbor West.

'Green' Harbor
The city's main goal for Harbor West is to create a "green" harbor, which would reconnect with the water neighborhood residences long separated by industrial buildings. "The whole Middle Branch will be turned into a place where people will live and a place where there will be a natural environment," said Beth Strommen, an environmental planner with the planning department.

The master plan calls for developers to keep from further gentrifying residents of Westport, Mount Winans and Lakeland, neighborhoods on the other side of the light rail tracks that have long been associated with poverty. To combat gentrification, the master plan calls for a portion of new residential units to be reserved for low-to-moderate incomes.

New homes now going up along the Middle Branch, such as a 119-unit development called Waterview Overlook by Consolidated Investment and Management Group LLC., are expected to garner between $300,000 and $500,000. Turner would not comment on his plans or the pricing of any homes in his development.

But community residents who have worked with Turner say he has been extremely sensitive to neighborhood goals. "He's committed to helping us get a sense of community there," said Linda Towe, executive director of Project Toour, or Teaching Our Own Understanding and Responsibility, an umbrella group for Mount Winans, Lakeland and Westport. While Turner has discussed some of the aspects mentioned in the master plan, including affordable housing, no real plans have yet been revealed, Towe said.

A 100-foot public buffer around the shore line where Turner's development is planned, with a waterfront public hiking and biking trail, are among the features meant to fight gentrification, according to the neighborhoods' master plan. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers also is in the process of creating a three-acre wetland extended from the current shore. The construction would increase the "green" aspects of the shore, and hearken to the neighborhood's past.

"The middle Branch was the playground for Baltimore City Residents," Strommen said. "It's where Baltimore City residents went to swim and play." But that all changed in the mid-1900s, when industry settled in.

Now, more than 50 years later, Turner's interest in redevelopment has given the city a way to revive the Middle Branch's old uses. "Here's an opportunity to have environmentally sensitive economic development," Strommen said. "I think the desire had always been there but no one saw it until now."