Clarke closes deal for Fells Point Recreation Pier 

Posted: 7:41 pm Fri, March 12, 2010
By Robbie Whelan
Daily Record Business Writer

The developer of a hotel planned for Baltimore’s historic Recreation Pier, a Fells Point landmark, says he has closed on a deal to buy the property from the city after a year-long stalemate in negotiations.

J. Joseph Clarke, a real estate developer and husband of City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke, said Friday that the deal had closed last Tuesday, and work will begin as soon as Moran Towing Corp., a tugboat company housed in the pier, leaves in May.

Baltimore’s Board of Estimates approved an agreement last September under which the city and the developer will pay Moran $300,000 each to buy out the tug company’s lease. Moran plans to move to a new location in Canton in May.

“They can’t vacate the premises because they’re behind schedule on preparing their new South Clinton Street location,” Clarke said. “But essentially, we closed on the deal and we’re in.”

Paul Swenson, vice president of Moran and director of the company’s Baltimore operations, could not be reached for comment.

Clarke is partnering with Baltimore’s H&S Properties Development Corp., the builders of Harbor East, and investor Sylvan L. Cornblatt, who has offices in Owings Mills but lives most of the year in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to build a $50 million, 132-room Aloft-brand hotel with a second-story restaurant.

The deal has been in the works for more than five years, but has been stalled as Clarke had trouble finding financing. His main partner, a New Orleans-based builder, was wiped out by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Clarke brought on H&S to arrange the hotel portion of the project.

On Friday, Clarke said H&S controlled “the major share of money in the deal,” but would not say how large his stake or Cornblatt’s stake was.

Under the terms of a land disposition agreement approved in 2008, the city will sell the pier to Clarke’s team for $300,000, with the understanding that $8.8 million in renovations would be done to stabilize the structure.

Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano has said in the past that the pier’s 400 pilings were sinking into Baltimore Harbor, imperiling the historic building, which was once the site of community gatherings and served as a filming location for the television show “Homicide: Life on the Streets” and the two movies in the Step Up teenage dance film series.

Further complicating the issue was the fact that Moran still had eight years remaining on its lease for the Recreation Pier space, which it rented from the city at below market rates.

In October, Graziano responded to criticism of the high cost of relocating Moran by saying that the company and the developers had met with “extreme challenges,” and said the city’s commitment was intended to keep the company in Baltimore. Moran will locate to a new location at 1820 S. Clinton St.

“We wanted to make sure we treated them fairly and didn’t, frankly, drive [Moran] out of the city,” he told a city panel last fall.

On Friday, a spokeswoman for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City declined repeated requests to make the commissioner available for comment, but said the deal closed on Tuesday was exactly the same as the agreement approved in September.

“The project is now in the hands of the developers. Moran Towing is expected to move in May 2010. We expect that the developers would start restoration of the pier sometime in 2010,” she wrote in an e-mail.