Columbus Center

The Columbus Center is looking for private donors to give the $20 million it needs to supply scientific equipment for the center's new marine biotechnology labs in Baltimore and to fabricate the educational displays for its Pratt Street exhibition hall."

I applaud the article about the best "theme" for the Inner Harbor ("Best theme for the Inner Harbor: water" June 8) and agree that the growing number of residents must be considered. I walk along the promenade frequently and see scores of moms and dads with strollers, office workers headed to work and fellow city boosters. We are all walkers, all residents and all eager to see our city thrive. We have a treasure that we need to promote and to nurture. Waterfront Partnership is striving for a healthy harbor and intends to achieve that goal.

Rita R. Colwell's decision not to seek the presidency of a large Alabama university is impressive testimony to the impact she believes the Columbus Center will have on the international scientific community. Few ambitious academics with a flair for administration could turn down a university presidency, least of all for a small research institution that is still two years from coming into its own. The Center of Marine Biotechnology, one of six research and teaching units that make up Dr. Colwell's Maryland Biotechnology Institute, will be the centerpiece of the $160 million complex that bids to become the latest jewel in the Inner Harbor.

Jim Rouse's "festival market place" concept for the Inner Harbor, with retail pavilions and entertainment venues, brought with it the retail industry's pattern of re-branding and call for entertaining with ever new "attractions. " This put the harbor into competition not only with malls but also with amusement parks and beach venues — essentially defining it as a place of entertainment and amusement. Maybe it is time to challenge this paradigm. Should really great locations have to reinvent themselves constantly?

With the U.S. Senate on the way to approving $20 million for the Christopher Columbus Center for Marine Research and Exploration, can the House be far behind? The answer had better be "yes" if this country hopes to compete with Japan and others for leadership in the promising 21st century field of marine biotechnology.Thanks to the clout of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, her appropriations subcommittee added $20 million for the Columbus Center and then approved a spending bill for the nation's space program and other independent federal agencies.

The Rouse Co. of Columbia was chosen yesterday to manage construction and development of the $164 million Christopher Columbus Center of Marine Research and Exploration, the first Inner Harbor project in the 1990s for the company that helped transform Baltimore's waterfront in the 1980s.Stanley Heuisler, chairman of the non-profit board planning the project, said the nine-member board voted to hire Rouse to supply the buildingand development management staff to create the multifaceted marine research center.

The most provocative feature of Baltimore's newest showpiece, a $160 million marine research and education center planned for Piers 5 and 6, is the giant fabric canopy that will cover public exhibits on the building's west side.Whenever designs for the Christopher Columbus Center of Marine Research and Exploration have been presented to Baltimore's architectural review board, panelists have raised sharp questions about that canopy:How long will it last? How well will it hold up in cold weather?

The Columbus Center is looking for private donors to give the $20 million it needs to supply scientific equipment for the center's new marine biotechnology labs in Baltimore and to fabricate the educational displays for its Pratt Street exhibition hall."

The Food and Drug Administration formally signed a lease yesterday for 20,000 square feet of space at the Columbus Center, off Pratt Street and the Inner Harbor, for its Food Safety Research Unit.The lease will run for 10 years. The agency has two five-year extension options.FDA officials said they plan to consolidate several of its seafood research facilities from around the country into the new Baltimore facility as the agency prepares to launch its first national seafood safety inspections program.

Scientists at the Center of Marine Biotechnology (COMB) will be moving shortly into spacious new quarters at the $160 million Columbus Center in Baltimore now that the state has approved their lease.The Board of Public Works approved a 47-year lease yesterday with Columbus Center Development Inc., a private, nonprofit corporation."This is a wonderful opportunity to work in advanced facilities that will allow us to make rapid and important progress in our work," said Dr. Madilyn Fletcher, director and professor at COMB, which is part of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor has a wide range of attractions for families and acres of open space, planners say, but it doesn't have many quiet outdoor spaces where a mother can take her baby in a stroller or where area residents can relax without running into throngs of tourists. Two local nonprofit groups are working to address that shortcoming by creating a $2 million waterfront park for families living in the Inner Harbor and Harbor East communities. Pierce's Park is the name of a public space that is expected to open by the fall of 2011 on a one-acre parcel on Inner Harbor Pier 5, between the Columbus Center and Eastern Avenue.

Yonathan Zohar beams like a proud parent as he cradles the freshly netted fish in his hands. He didn't catch this glistening branzini. He raised it - and thousands more - in large fiberglass tanks at the Columbus Center at the Inner Harbor. "This is a happy moment here," says Zohar, director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. "Green fish, as good as it gets. Clean, environmentally friendly, sushi-quality fish, delivered to the restaurant a few hours after harvesting."

I KNOW I speak for many Baltimoreans when I express disappointment that the long-vacant Hall of Exploration in the Columbus Center will not be used for Hooters II. Another big idea bites the dust. Just last month, I proposed that the city take the plunge and cash in on several proposals for commercial decadence - regular tapings of Girls Gone Wild at Bohager's, thousands of slot machines at Pimlico and booze served there until 4 a.m., promotion of The Block to pump up the sagging convention industry - marketing Baltimore as a spring-break destination for college students.

In a deal designed to put Baltimore's money-losing children's museum on solid financial footing, Port Discovery officials revealed yesterday a rescue plan that would allow the attraction to remain at its current Market Place home while leasing half its space to a city high school. The plan - a reversal of earlier proposals to move to a waterfront location - calls for the attraction to shrink by more than a third and to lease the freed-up space to the city public schools, already a tenant.

Baltimore's children's museum, Port Discovery, remains a possible tenant for the University of Maryland-owned Columbus Center in the Inner Harbor, a key panel of the university's regents decided yesterday. "The committee essentially instructed the staff, while continuing to work with Port Discovery, to begin reviewing other options relative to interest that has been expressed," said David H. Nevins, chairman of the Board of Regents finance committee. Nevins, who declined to identify the other interested parties, said he expected that the process could take weeks.

The proposed relocation of Port Discovery to the Columbus Center would likely be killed if officials from Baltimore's children's museum seek to renegotiate an agreement made last summer to lease the space, according to a regent of the University System of Maryland, which owns the Columbus Center. David H. Nevins, chairman of the Board of Regents' finance committee, said yesterday that it was his "understanding" that Port Discovery would ask for a reduction in rent. "I think it is doubtful that we'll be in a position to accommodate a significant decrease in those numbers," Nevins said.

A Baltimore Circuit judge approved the sale yesterday of the financially insolvent Columbus Center in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to the University System of Maryland for $650,000.Approving the deal in a brief two-page order, Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan overruled an objection to the sale filed by J. Stanley Heuisler, the former head of the marine biotechnology facility, who complained in court papers that the purchase price was too low.John Lippincott, associate vice chancellor of the university, said he was pleased by the decision.

WASHINGTON -- A proposed marine science and exploration center planned for Baltimore's Inner Harbor got a major boost yesterday when a key Senate committee approved $20 million in construction costs, twice the amount Congress granted the project last year.The Appropriations Committee backed the funding one day after Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., slipped the amount for the Christopher Columbus Center for Marine Research and Exploration into the budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Officials of Port Discovery continue to pursue moving the financially strapped children's museum to the Columbus Center's long vacant Hall of Exploration, but delays in completing the deal have caused them to start thinking about several alternatives. They are looking at other Inner Harbor locations and are even considering staying where they are. There have been some discussions with the Maryland Science Center, which is in the midst of a $40 million renovation and expansion, and the Visionary Art Museum on Key Highway, according to Douglas L. Becker, chairman and chief executive of Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. and chairman of the Port Discovery board.

The Board of Estimates approved yesterday the awarding of a $3.5 million contract for the long-delayed Baltimore Visitors Center, clearing the way to break ground on the project this month. "The greatest beneficiaries of the visitors center will be the attractions outside the Inner Harbor," said Andrew B. Frank, executive vice president of Baltimore Development Corp., the city's economic development agency. "Imagine the potential for 15 million people to be exposed to the latest exhibit at the Walters or the expansion planned for the Great Blacks in Wax [Museum]