Cormony-led bid is preferred Parkway plan 

Posted: 8:43 pm Thu, November 19, 2009
By Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer

A team of developers including Cormony Development LLC and Seawall Development Co. has emerged as a frontrunner in the bid to redevelop the historic Parkway Theater in Baltimore.

The chair of the Baltimore Development Corp.’s projects committee, Deborah Hunt Devan, said Thursday that an advisory panel consisting of BDC staff and community members had selected the Cormony/Seawall proposal over another bid submitted by TK Services Inc., led by Alexandria, Va.-based businessman Joseph “Teddy” Kim.

“It was the unanimous recommendation of the advisory panel that the Cormony project met the goals of the neighborhood,” Devan said.

The Cormony/Seawall plan calls for a live music venue with as many as 1,200 seats, designed by local architecture firms Ziger/Snead LLP and Cho Benn Holback, that could host pop concerts, community theater event, lectures and other performances. Devan said that other uses may include a bar, an “arts laboratory,” and “related spaces.”

The competing plan from TK proposed razing 1 W. North Ave., a structure adjacent to the Parkway, and building a three-story glass structure to house a restaurant called Station North Steak House. Another property in the complex would be converted into student housing.

BDC officials said that part of their recommendation had to do with the fact that the Cormony/Seawall team plans to invest about $12 million in the property, compared to about $3 million for Kim’s plan.

“To say that [the theater] is in a state of decay and disrepair is to be kind about it,” Devan said. Both proposals had asked that the site be conveyed to them for $1, contingent on their commitment to redevelop the property.

“In both proposals there would be a city investment on the write-down of the land,” Devan said.

The Parkway complex, which consists of the theater at 3 W. North Ave., and two nearby buildings at 1 W. North Ave. and 1820 N. Charles St., is appraised at $1.2 million, but an RFP for the project was issued in August before the city gained control of the site.

This is because the city does not yet own the theater. The city moved to condemn the structure in September 2008, after Charles Dodson, its previous owner, failed to redevelop it after six years. Dodson, an engineer who now lives in New York City, claimed in response that he was harassed repeatedly by BDC officials and community leaders who thwarted his attempts to find funding to reinvigorate the property.

Under the city’s eminent domain policy, it paid $640,000, its proposed sale price for the Parkway, into a Circuit Court account, and then began proceedings to seize it. Dodson, who bought the theater for $235,000 in 2002 and stored vintage car parts there, vowed to fight the order, and BDC officials said Thursday that a trial is scheduled soon.

Samuel Polakoff, who heads Rockville-based Cormony, said he has not yet been inside the 95-year-old Art Deco theater, which has elegant, high-domed ceilings, a balcony and delicate moldings.

“All of my programming is based on finding what I expect to find when I get in there,” Polakoff said. “My guess is the stage isn’t big enough, and the back of house isn’t big enough to do ballet performances there.”

Seawall is led by Thibault Manekin and his father Donald, part of a prominent family of real estate developers and brokers who have done business in the Baltimore area for over three decades. This year, Seawall delivered its first project, Miller’s Court, a converted can factory that now provides housing for Teach for America employees on North Howard Street, just a few blocks northeast of the Parkway.

Polakoff said he has known the Manekins for years, and that he acted as a consultant on the early stages of Miller’s Court. The Parkway project, he said, will build on the momentum of other developments in the neighborhood, which is known as the Station North Arts & Entertainment District, including Joe Squared Pizza and Load of Fun, an art galley and concert space.

“It’s a neighborhood I’ve always been interested and I’m a big music guy,” said Polakoff, who named Counting Crows and the Rolling Stones among his favorite musical acts. “I do go to a decent amount of concerts and things like that. I think this a great neighborhood for a real music venue. It will be one of the only live music venues in the city that was built to be a performance space, with no columns, no sight lines, good acoustics. It’ll be used for what it was built for.”

BDC President M.J. “Jay” Brodie said Thursday afternoon that the BDC’s board would deliver its official recommendation to the mayor by Friday, and that the mayor’s final decision on the project is expected soon.