Focusing less on the design of a proposed ski-lift-style gondola over the Inner Harbor than other issues, the city architectural panel questioned the private funding of such a transportation project and worried that the attraction could steal pedestrians away from a redesigned Pratt Street corridor.
But the developers pitching the $40 million privately operated "SkyLine Baltimore" system to the Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel yesterday remained optimistic about their plan to connect the Convention Center to Fells Point via a seven-minute aerial ride. Trey Winstead of Winstead Brothers LLC has been planning, engineering and lobbying for the 1.3-mile route along overhead cables for six years.
As funding for transportation projects dries up, Winstead and his advisers said their privately financed lift would provide a connection to the light rail, Water Taxi and the proposed public transit Red Line without taxpayer dollars.
"You do have that integration with our existing transit lines, which makes it more than just a pretty cool gondola," Otis Rolley III, Mayor Sheila Dixon's former chief of staff and now chief executive of advocacy organization Central Maryland Transportation Alliance, told the panel after Winstead's pitch.
But several panel members weren't so easily convinced. Architect Gary Bowden said the cable cars transporting 2,800 people an hour could undermine the goals of a walker-friendly harbor front.
Bowden and members Emily Hotaling Eig and Mark Cameron worried about the policy implications of a privately financed transit option that might initially generate riders but then fail.
"To me it comes across as a little gimmicky," Cameron said to Winstead. "Will it be of interest initially and then will it just die out?"
The panel also asked Winstead and his San Antonio-based architect to further flesh out designs for the lift's four terminals and 20 towers to support its cables.
The up to 95-foot-tall posts should resemble ship masts to blend in with the Inner Harbor, the team said. But panel members didn't seem taken with preliminary designs.
City planning director Douglas B. McCoach III also said the plans for the ticket stations at each end of the route should be better integrated into the existing Convention Center building and Harbor Point project in Fells Point.
For the project to proceed, the developers need a franchise agreement approved by the City Council.
laura.mccandlish@baltsun.com
