The B&O Railroad Museum already is one of Baltimore's most popular tourist attractions, with 90,000 to 100,000 visitors inspecting its landmark roundhouse and vintage locomotives every year.
But executive director John Ott believes it could attract even more people if it also were home to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, now located in a flood plain in the Jones Falls Valley, and other transportation-related attractions that have expressed a desire to be closer to the Inner Harbor.
Potential candidates, he said, include the Society of Model Railroad Engineers, now located on Eutaw Street near Lexington Market, and the Fire Museum of Maryland, in Lutherville.
If several attractions could be consolidated within the 40-acre tract at 901 W. Pratt St., the result would be a "Williamsburg of railroading" that could draw upward of 300,000 visitors a year, he predicts.
"It would create a synergy for the development of this area as a kind of transportation hub -- steam-powered, diesel, railroad, streetcar," he explained. "Each attraction would be strengthened its relationship to the others."
Mr. Ott will soon be able to refine his vision of expanding the museum with the help of a $160,000 state grant.
In conjunction with Baltimore's Department of Public Works, the museum launched a national search this month for a design team to prepare a master plan that can guide the institution's growth over the next decade.
The goal, Mr. Ott says, is to map out a strategy for revamping and upgrading the Mount Clare property so it will attract more visitors, provide a richer experience for them, and help spark a rejuvenation of the surrounding Southwest Baltimore neighborhoods.
"What we're trying to create is an interactive site that challenges and excites people," he said. "We want to show that rail transportation was important, is important and will be important in the future."
Known as "the birthplace of American railroading" and located less than a mile from Baltimore's Inner Harbor, Mount Clare has been the site of the Baltimore and Ohio's main repair and operations complex since the founding in 1827 of the railroad, which later became part of CSX Corp.
The museum occupies former railroad property. It has 21 full- and part-time employees, plus 100 volunteers. The grant will allow directors to survey their extensive holdings in light of the city's latest push for tourism and convention business.
"We want to look at the total assets of the museum -- the grounds, the buildings, the locomotives and other rolling stock, and figure out how to put them to the best possible use." Mr. Ott said. "It will tell us where we should focus our attention."
The cost of the expansion could range from $6 million to $30 million, depending on what the museum and its collaborators can afford to implement. Feb. 15 is the deadline for consultants to submit their credentials, and a design team will be selected soon after that.
Within empowerment zone
Mr. Ott said he is anxious to move ahead next year because the museum falls within Baltimore's empowerment zone, the area for which the city was just selected to receive $100 million worth of federal aid.
He believes an expanded museum would be not only a source of jobs and employment training, but a magnet that can draw new businesses to West Baltimore.
"We're going to be a vital part of the empowerment zone," he said. "The B&O can't be a museum without being a community player. That's the goal we have set for ourselves."
Planned improvements
In addition to testing the feasibility of moving other attractions to Mount Clare grounds, Mr. Ott wants the selected design team to help improve the museum's existing physical plant in several ways. They include:
* Creating a new main entrance at the intersection of Pratt Street and Arlington Avenue, to replace the current entrance at Pratt and Poppleton streets. Arlington Avenue was the original entrance to the Mount Clare shop complex and would be able to accommodate many more people.
* Proposing strategies for linking the museum with other attractions, including the Inner Harbor, Camden Yards, the Mount Clare mansion in Carroll Park, and the proposed Gwynns Falls Greenway.
* Developing a plan to recycle two former Mount Clare buildings that the museum is seeking to acquire from private owners: the 1866 General Office Building, a vacant, three-story building at 200 S. Arlington Ave., and the 1875 Saw Mill, a two-story building at 201 S. Arlington Ave.
Fronting Pratt Street just west of Mount Clare's landmark roundhouse, the brick and timber structures were recycled in the mid-1980s for office use by the developer of the Mount Clare Junction retail center.
