Baltimore officials are paving the way for an extensive mixed-use project along the eastern shore of the Middle Branch with a plan to acquire the mostly industrial property and offer it for private development.
A proposed urban renewal plan for West Covington, bounded by Interstate 95 on the north, Hanover Street on the east and the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River on the west, would enable the city to acquire about 50 acres in a part of the city targeted for redevelopment.
But industrial businesses that would be displaced are fighting the plan, saying they already provide the jobs and economic development urban renewal is designed to bring.
Officials of Schuster Concrete, a ready-mixed concrete supplier that employs 900 people overall, said its West Covington facility is an essential cog in an operation that supplies concrete to many of the city's biggest new construction projects, such as the Ritz-Carlton Residences at the foot of Federal Hill.
In testimony before the city's Planning Commission yesterday, Baltimore planners and economic development officials said the plan would enable the city to make the most of its valuable waterfront and embrace a future that will rely increasingly on the creation of clusters of homes, workplaces and shops and less on an industrial base.
Redevelopment is occurring along the Middle Branch.
On the opposite shore of the tributary in Westport, a $1.4 billion project to replace shuttered factories with offices, shops, homes and a hotel is in its early stages. Just east and across Hanover Street in Port Covington, the owner of a waterfront shopping center wants to transform 59 acres into a $2 billion community that could include homes, offices, shops and a hotel.
"This is one of the most important property decisions affecting the economic development of the city that has been brought before this commission," M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of Baltimore Development Corp., told the Planning Commission yesterday.
He said the city's determination to move forward on the development despite opposition would pay off in the way that the creation of Charles Center and Harborplace had decades earlier. "The future of Baltimore is not the same as the past," Brodie said. "We can't re-create the industrial base of the Baltimore of the past."
