State Center redevelopment enters new phase as search for consultants begins

Maryland officials on Thursday began their formal search for a consultant team to help them determine a new redevelopment plan for the dilapidated and increasingly vacant State Center Complex in Baltimore’s Midtown area.

Considering that the site is between a subway station and a light rail station and is close to Baltimore’s Penn Station, state and city officials have envisioned a development surrounding the transit hubs that boosts ridership and includes new housing, retail shops, and green space.

“You cannot have economic mobility in Baltimore without physical mobility,” Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement. “This next chapter for State Center will expand our mission to create jobs, build housing that’s affordable, and create new pathways to work, wages, and wealth.”

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said Thursday that the project represents far more than the redevelopment of old government office buildings, saying that it will bring long-overdue investments to the community surrounding State Center, including potential plans to redevelop the nearby McCulloh Homes complex.

“For years, residents have waited to see meaningful progress here, and this redevelopment will deliver critical opportunities for housing, workforce development, transit access, and neighborhood revitalization,” Scott said in a statement.

The state, led by the Maryland Economic Development Corp., issued its request for proposals Thursday in search of a consultant team that will help determine the strategy for bringing the State Center site to market. The state will be soliciting proposals until Aug. 7.

Over roughly two-and-a-half years, the consultant will be tasked with updating market and financial analyses, determining site requirements and gauging whether certain buildings can be reused or repurposed, among other items.

The state has long been in the process of moving its employees from State Center to other office spaces in the downtown area. Six agencies have relocated, and four more are expected to move out by the end of 2026, according to the Maryland Economic Development Corp.

The project to rebuild State Center began in 2005 under Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich. Officials at the time also envisioned an office, retail and residential development to replace a cluster of five state buildings and 1,300 parking spaces on about two dozen acres of property in Midtown.

Despite receiving state approval years later in 2009, the project never made it past its conceptual phase, in part because of prolonged legal challenges.

Attorney General Anthony Brown has said that evolving economic conditions, real estate markets and technology, new proposals from the developer, and changes to the state budget also combined to grind the project to a halt and led the Board of Public Works to cancel it in 2016.

Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan announced in 2016 that the state would go to court to terminate its contract, and the State Center developer countersued.

The attorney general noted that recent rulings in the case significantly increased the state’s exposure, with the potential for having to pay out claims totaling more than $200 million, on top of the significant time and money already poured into the litigation.

A motion for summary judgment was granted in the state’s favor, in part, which Brown has said would have significantly reduced the state’s exposure. But the judge who granted the ruling has retired, and the judge now presiding over the litigation has reconsidered and reversed “most, if not all” of that ruling, Brown has said.

The state ended up settling, and in November the Board of Public Works approved a $58.5 million payment to State Center LLC, with whom the state first contracted about 20 years ago, to resolve claims stemming from the failed project.

(This story has been updated.)