October 11, 2010|By Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun
Work is scheduled to start this winter to transform the biggest state government complex in Maryland into a model of 21st-century urban design, a $1.5 billion "village" that clusters offices, homes and shops around mass transit and plazas in a now-blighted swath of midtown Baltimore.
After years of planning and community input, and with a new development team at the helm, the overhaul of 28 acres at State Center will begin with an underground garage at Madison Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Above that, new buildings will rise by summer 2014, including offices, rental apartments and a grocery store. Next summer, work will begin on a building at West Preston and North Howard streets, which is scheduled to open in 2013. It will house two state agencies.
Unlike many new construction projects under way in a rocky national economy, State Center already has tenants lined up for the $200 million first phase, with three state agencies slated to lease more than a half-million square feet.
It is the strength of the state government as anchor tenant, and the partnership with private companies, that is allowing redevelopment to move forward, developers and state officials say.
A revitalized State Center, planned on state-owned property since 2005, will be built over 15 years and will replace an outdated complex of 1950s-era office buildings on the western edge of Mount Vernon, occupied now by 3,500 state employees. The site, which has access to light rail, Metro and train service, ultimately could include 2 million square feet of public and private office space, 1,400 rental and for-sale housing units and 250,000 square feet of ground-level shops. While some existing buildings could be demolished, developers hope to renovate structures that lend themselves to new uses — for instance, turning the tallest office building into an eye-catching condo tower.
State officials and developers hope the project will become a model for urban renewal, a place to live, shop and work. Developers intend to create inviting spaces to walk, stroll and gather and to promote the use of mass transit. They also hope to reconnect nine surrounding neighborhoods, among them Bolton Hill, Madison Park, Upton, Seton Hill and Mount Vernon, which for decades have been cut off from one another and from the city's cultural district.
The site represents a rare opportunity for redevelopment, said Caroline G. Moore, chief executive officer of real estate development company Ekistics LLC, which is leading the project.
"There are not many places in the country where you can go and find 28 acres with a strong anchor tenant on top of a transit stop in the middle of the city to redevelop," Moore said. "It's such a unique opportunity to really lead the way in transit-oriented and sustainable development in the country."
For decades, she said, the site has been a "blighted" gulf separating neighborhoods — "the place everyone wants to avoid." With redevelopment, Moore said, the area will draw people from out of town, much the way the Harborplace waterfront pavilions and Oriole Park at Camden Yards drew visitors when they opened."
The timing of the planned five phases of development will be driven by market demand, said Michael A. Gaines Sr., an assistant secretary in the state's Department of General Services.
Christopher Patusky, director of real estate at the state Department of Transportation, said: "This will become a tremendous economic growth center. You bring this [area] to life and all these institutions will benefit," including the Maryland Institute College of Art, the University of Baltimore, the Lyric Opera House and the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. "It's not just that it is going private and being developed, but it is being developed in a visionary way."
The state, which proposed the project during the Ehrlich administration in conjunction with private developers, has committed to keeping the same number of employees at State Center. Among those agencies moving first will be the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which will take up 390,000 square feet of new offices on the Madison and MLK parcel, currently a parking lot. Some 60,000 square feet of retail space will house a yet-to-be-selected grocery store and other shops. Two more state agencies, the Department of Planning and the Maryland Transit Administration, will move into the 125,000-square-foot building planned for West Preston and North Howard streets, which is scheduled to open by fall 2013.
