Reviving Baltimore’s Westside, one building at a time

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Editor’s Note: View a visualization of the RFPs since 2014 at the end of this article.

Michael Baldwin, a 26-year-old Lexington Terrace resident, stood in front of the old Hutzler Brothers’ department store on the Westside of downtown Wednesday morning. Looking at the vacant buildings around him he recalled more businesses, owned by blacks, operating in the area when he was younger.

While waiting for a Light Rail train to work, and between drags off a cigarette, he said the community needs investment. At the same time he’s worried new building will displace black residents and what little is left the community’s black-owned businesses.

“Believe it or not it’s a big race thing out here,” Baldwin said.

Despite the skepticism of some residents, officials at the city’s economic development agency, the Baltimore Development Corp., feel their efforts to bring new buildings and add some luster to the faded Westside will benefit all residents.

“We’ve been really pleased with the progress that’s been made. Especially, say, over the last three to four years. We’ve got a lot of interest from smaller developers, but there’s still some gaps, and if you drive up Howard Street there’s still some disappointment … in the fact that there’s still these pockets of vacancies that we’re still trying to push along,” said Kimberly A. Clark, the corporation’s executive vice president.

Baltimore’s elected and economic development officials have long wanted new development on the Westside. But the historic retail district fell on hard times as the city overall declined.

The dwindling Westside served as a symbol of Baltimore’s slump following integration, flight to the suburbs and the city’s overall loss of standing in the post-industrial economy. Now the city’s boosters hope it can become a sign of Baltimore’s resurgence.

Concentrated efforts to bring new life to the area date back roughly 20 years ago. Those endeavors were stalled by myriad issues, but the major blow came from the 2008 financial meltdown. The tanked economy, and tight credit market killed development plans in the area, such as the so-called Superblock project.

The Westside consists of a roughly 100-block area between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the west and Charles Street to the east, Pratt Street and Camden streets to the south, and extending to Chase Street to the north. It was once the region’s premiere retail destination.

Distant memories

Ask residents of a certain age, and they’ll recall special trips for Christmas shopping, searching for a prom dress downtown, or simply enjoying the atmosphere of a retail center alive with commerce.

But as residents fled for the suburbs in the decades after World War II, and the city’s manufacturing job-base cratered, the anchor department stores also left. One by one, emporiums such as Epstein’s, Hutzler Brothers and Hochschild, Kohn & Co. disappeared. By the early 1990s the area’s department stores were all memories.

Those moves and closures left behind vacancies, crumbling properties, and a diminished Lexington Market. Crime in the area, feeding off disinvestment, hastened the neighborhood’s downfall.

Even the presence of University Maryland, Baltimore, construction of nearby Oriole Park at Camden Yards and completion of the Light Rail line down Howard Street couldn’t reverse the area’s fortunes.

A commitment to revitalizing the district emerged around the turn of the century, according to a 2010 report from the Urban Land Institute Baltimore. In the decade leading up to the report, the organization tallied more than $800 million in private and public-sector investment.

“Although the Westside’s rebound has trailed similar redevelopment areas in the city, the vision and potential to restore the area to its former glory — albeit in a different form, as a predominantly residential mixed-use neighborhood — remains strong,” the report declared nearly eight years ago.

Still the area struggled.

The most ambitious Westside redevelopment proposal was the so-called Superblock project.

The proposed development evolved from an initial request for proposal covering four parcels between North Liberty and North Howard streets, and West Fayette and West Lexington streets.

Eventually, the parcels were split and awarded to different developers. But the project proposed by Lexington Square Partners LLC for the parcels between Park Avenue and Howard streets, and Fayette and Lexington streets, was still referred to as the Superblock.

Lexington Square Partners LLC’s signed a $152 million land disposition agreement with the city in 2007.

But the developer struggled to line up financing, and the city in 2013 decided against granting the developer another extension to secure financing. Lexington Square Partners sued Baltimore for $57 million in damages alleging breach of contract. That case was dismissed in 2015, and the decision was subsequently upheld.

The Baltimore Development Corp. again issued request for proposals on the properties in 2015. But the city declined to move ahead with any of the offers it received.

Those properties remain among those on the Westside the city hopes to find developers for in the next few years. Clark estimated all of Baltimore’s city-owned property on the Westside could be in the hands of private developers in as little as five years.

Smaller parcels

Since the demise of the Superblock, the BDC tried to entice developers into purchasing and overhauling city-owned blight. Much of the tangible progress resulted from a strategy of offering smaller parcels to attract a wider array of developers.

That game plan was laid out in the recommendations made in the Urban Land Institute Baltimore’s 2010 report on rebuilding the Westside.

“The panel believes that BDC must get city-owned properties onto the market in small packages at the block level, generating activity with a number of smaller developers rather than through large-scale disposals,” according to the report.

Between February 2014 and September 2018, according to the city’s economic development agency, Baltimore issued 17 request for proposals in the Westside to remedy city-owned blight that are now in the development process or resulted in completed projects. Those totaled 75 individual addresses.

The most recent request for proposals included in that data were released earlier this month. A pre-proposal conference for the buildings is scheduled for 10 a.m., on Sept. 26 for the properties at 142 W. Fayette St.; 144 W. Fayette St.; 102 N. Liberty St.; 104 N. Liberty St.; and 106 N. Liberty St. Development proposals are due to the corporation by noon Nov. 5.

One of the firms taking advantage of purchasing unwanted Westside properties is Poverni Sheikh Group.

The regional developer, according to its website, has developed more than $120 million of real estate since its founding in 2009. The development firm, which also has a mixed-use project nearby dubbed Howard Crossing, was selected by the city to redevelop the dilapidated buildings at 407 through 416 N. Howard St. after responding to a request issued in March of 2017.

The city-selected developer bid $75,000 on buildings to win out over two competitors for the property. The developer broke ground on construction in July. Plans call for transforming the buildings into a multimillion-dollar development with 41 apartments and ground-floor retail.

Grigoriy Kostrikin, vice president of development at Poverni Sheikh Group, said the company invested in the project partially because executives are encouraged by other development in the area. The apartments at the project will be market-rate but will not charge the same rent as nearby luxury units. Retail spaces will also be smaller and aimed at emerging businesses. That’s part of a desire, Kostrikin said, to encourage forming a diverse community.

“So the community feels vibrant. I believe that’s key to making any community thrive,” Kostrikin said.

Remaining businesses

Renewed development in the area can’t come soon enough for business owners in the area.

Joanne Shephard, vice president of G. Krug & Son Inc. metal craftsmen and museum at 415 W. Saratoga St., said the main reason the company remains is the area’s history. The business traces its roots in Baltimore back to 1810.

In the 13 years she’s worked at the historic shop, she said, the area has declined. Since the riots in April 2015 stemming from the death of Freddie Gray, the neighborhood has become harder to operate in. But potential for new investment offers reason for optimism.

“That does give us hope,” Shephard said.

Not everyone is as optimistic.

Courtney Hobson, 28, lives in the nearby Hollins Market neighborhood. She moved there from the city’s Medfield neighborhood about a year ago because she wanted to live in a more diverse section of Baltimore.

Conditions in her neighborhood could be better, she said, but there’s already a stark difference between the east and west side of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. After seeing gentrification’s impact in her native Prince George’s County, Hobson worries new development will do the same thing to the Westside.

“It seems like the development in the area is not serving the interest of the people who are living in the area. They want to bring investment in, and that usually translates into bringing new people in,” Hobson said.

But Clark, in an interview at her office on Wednesday, pointed out the Westside was always a retail district. The neighborhood has never been a residential center, she argued. So concerns about gentrification or displacing residents isn’t as prominent as it would be in a traditionally residential community.

Current and planned building in the Westside is a positive step for a community that is evolving from largely abandoned commercial district into a mixed-use neighborhood.

“It looked abandoned and ignored, and to me became a city embarrassment because it just looked so horrible, and we struggled,” Clark said. “Now with revitalization of these buildings, and being able to preserve the historic nature of many of them, we’re bringing a whole new vitality back.”

Click on any of the highlighted tracts to see RFPs since 2014 in the Westside.