Harborview

A $5 million lawsuit brought by a Baltimore penthouse condo owner over mold in his unit was recently dismissed by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge in favor of the waterfront property's condo association. The condo owner, Paul G. Clark, bought a penthouse unit at auction at the HarborView off Key Highway for $1.15 million in 2009. He later sued the condo association and property manager, Zalco Realty Inc., at the 27-story building over a water leak that he claimed damaged his unit and caused mold.

Many Marylanders live on the water, but the owner of this contemporary townhouse in Baltimore can walk out on three balconies and be over the water. The five-level home, built in 2006, sold for $1,125,000, about $100,000 less than the asking price. "This home was fun to sell because it showed so well and had excellent views of Baltimore's Inner Harbor from every level," said real estate agent William J. Ganz III, who listed the townhouse at 647 Ponte Villas South. "Combined with the fact that it is located in the private, gated Pier Homes at Harborview community, it was just a matter of time before it sold.

Bending to a weak real estate market but determined to push ahead with a proposed $600 million waterfront village on Key Highway, developers of HarborView will rent luxury apartments rather than sell condominiums in the high-rise tower they plan to start in a year.Proceeding with a rental tower -- which developers always have planned to include somewhere among six proposed towers on the 42 acres -- in no way means developers have veered from their original vision of an upscale, resort-style community, said HarborView officials.

A $5 million lawsuit brought by a Baltimore penthouse condo owner over mold in his unit was recently dismissed by a Baltimore Circuit Court judge in favor of the waterfront property's condo association. The condo owner, Paul G. Clark, bought a penthouse unit at auction at the HarborView off Key Highway for $1.15 million in 2009. He later sued the condo association and property manager, Zalco Realty Inc., at the 27-story building over a water leak that he claimed damaged his unit and caused mold.

Many Marylanders live on the water, but the owner of this contemporary townhouse in Baltimore can walk out on three balconies and be over the water. The five-level home, built in 2006, sold for $1,125,000, about $100,000 less than the asking price. "This home was fun to sell because it showed so well and had excellent views of Baltimore's Inner Harbor from every level," said real estate agent William J. Ganz III, who listed the townhouse at 647 Ponte Villas South. "Combined with the fact that it is located in the private, gated Pier Homes at Harborview community, it was just a matter of time before it sold.

Buyers snapped up townhouses alongside the Inner Harbor for as much as $1 million off the asking price at a Monday night auction that experts say could help reset prices in Baltimore's languishing luxury real estate market. The auction — held at a Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel ballroom where bidders were greeted with an ice sculpture and served dishes such as pork tenderloin — drew about 400 people, 135 of whom registered to bid. After the action started, the development partners put more units on the block than originally planned and sold 18, all for hundreds of thousands of dollars off. The most expensive of the Pier Homes at HarborView auctioned off was a 3,732-square-foot unit.

In some ways, Baltimore's 27-story HarborView condominium complex seems as odd as its roof-top beacon that lights the night sky around the Inner Harbor. Here is one of the biggest private residential developments ever built in the city being completed at a time of continuing real estate foreclosures and economic uncertainty.Is it a harbinger of a boom or bust?With apartment prices ranging from $161,000 to $1.7 million, HarborView does not promise cheap living in a rowhouse city where a number of condominiums have run into trouble.

The fall of 1990 hardly seems an ideal time to start selling luxury high-rise condominiums on Baltimore's waterfront. With the crisis in the Middle East, the sluggish economy back home and past resistance to high-rise housing locally, it may seem more like sheer madness.But if anyone is going to roll the dice and come up a winner, the developers of the HarborView condominiums in South Baltimore appear to have a shot.With today's grand opening of a $5 million sales center and yacht club at 500 HarborView Drive, the public is going to see a high-powered, high-tech marketing effort that surpasses the debuts of just about any other local project in recent years -- for sheer chutzpah if nothing else.

Baltimore's ethics board asked a city councilwoman to stop contacting city agencies on behalf of the Inner Harbor luxury condominium outside her district where she lives with her boyfriend. The five-member board concluded that Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector did not pressure officials to drop mold citations against the tenants' association of the Harborview condominium complex, but that her actions caused "uneasiness" among city employees. "Some City employees who were not directly contacted by Councilwoman Spector felt that her interest in the citations was potentially inappropriate when they found out that she lived at Harborview and that a different City Councilmember represented the District where that building is located," the board chair wrote in a letter to a tenant last month.

The developer of Baltimore's HarborView Marina and Yacht )) Club was selected as a Silver finalist for marketing efforts in the 1992 "MIRM" awards, the nation's largest new home marketing competition.HarborView Development Co., a joint venture of the Swirnow Group and Parkway Holdings Ltd., was named as having the "Best Sales and Information Pavilion" -- the three-story sales center and yacht club off the 1100 block of Key Highway.The pavilion was designed by the Columbia Design Collective to serve as the sales center for the entire $600 million, 42-acre HarborView community, which will have up to 1,590 residences.

The Tiki Barge won't have a twin barge this Spring after all. Owners of the popular and controversial floating barge had planned to build a seafood and raw bar aboard a second barge this Spring, but the Baltimore Liquor Board Thursday sided with neighbors who opposed the idea. The decision was a major disappointment for Tiki manager Bud Craven, who was ready to start construction Monday.  "I'm real surprised," Craven said after the hearing. "A lot of time and a lot of money has already been spent on this project.

Chip Olsen and his wife, Linda, grew up on Long Island. Their memories, reflected in framed photographs on the walls of their home, are of long afternoons sitting on sandy beaches or idly dangling their feet from one of the many piers along the shore. Little wonder, then, that they would end up living in a home on a pier jutting 500 feet into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Chip Olsen's job as senior managing director at CB Richard Ellis required travel and relocation, taking the couple from Charlotte to Atlanta.

Former Ravens player Orlando Brown has been found dead in his downtown Baltimore home, officials and the team said. He was 40. Ravens coach John Harbaugh announced Brown's death at the beginning of his news conference with reporters on Friday afternoon. City police and fire officials confirmed that they were at the player's home at the Harborview complex in South Baltimore. Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said medics were called after the player was found unresponsive in his home in the 1200 block of Harbor Island Walk.

A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has ruled that a lawsuit over mold in one of the ritzy Harborview condos can proceed to trial. Paul C. Clark, who bought a penthouse at the Inner Harbor complex for more than $1.1 million in 2009, is suing Zalco Realty and the 100 Harborview Drive Council of Unit Owners for $5 million. He contends that the defendants knew of water and mold problems before his purchase but issued him a "resale certification" that stated they were aware of no building or health code violations.

Baltimore's ethics board asked a city councilwoman to stop contacting city agencies on behalf of the Inner Harbor luxury condominium outside her district where she lives with her boyfriend. The five-member board concluded that Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector did not pressure officials to drop mold citations against the tenants' association of the Harborview condominium complex, but that her actions caused "uneasiness" among city employees. "Some City employees who were not directly contacted by Councilwoman Spector felt that her interest in the citations was potentially inappropriate when they found out that she lived at Harborview and that a different City Councilmember represented the District where that building is located," the board chair wrote in a letter to a tenant last month.

One of the largest collections of property on Baltimore's Inner Harbor — the last four undeveloped parcels of the HarborView community — was put up for sale Monday. CB Richard Ellis, or CBRE, a commercial real estate services firm, announced Monday that it has set Feb. 1 as the deadline for prospective buyers to express interest in acquiring or investing in one or more of the parcels at HarborView, the upscale community along Key Highway that Baltimore businessman Richard Swirnow and others have built over the past two decades.

Dato Tan Chin Nam, the Malaysia-based chairman of Far Eastern investors bankrolling Baltimore's HarborView, is the first one to admit that the $100 million condominium complex near Federal Hill has done poorly in its initial year."

One month after opening an $80 million, 248-unit condominium tower in South Baltimore, developers of the HarborView community are seeking approval to build an $8 million comprehensive-care nursing home nearby.Sites proposed for the nursing home -- either 1100-1126, 1128 or 1200 Key Highway -- are controlled by HarborView Properties Development Co., headed by Richard Swirnow. They are across Key Highway from the 42-acre waterfront HarborView parcel, which has been approved for up to 1,590 condominiums.

A city panel dismissed citations for mold at a luxury Inner Harbor high-rise this summer after inquiries from a city councilwoman who lives there. A penthouse resident at the Harborview says Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector contacted city officials out of concern that enforcement action would hurt property values at the 27-story building. Paul C. Clark says leaks and mold have forced his family out of the penthouse they bought last year for $1.15 million. Spector, who lives at the Harborview with her boyfriend despite representing a district in Northwest Baltimore, says she called city officials about the case, but did not ask them to drop the citations proposed by the Health Department.

One of the last major empty parcels in Baltimore's Inner Harbor is headed for the auction block, attracting strong interest from potential bidders while renewing hope that one of the city's most valuable properties will be developed. The former McCormick & Co. spice factory site, a 1.9-acre tract at Light and Conway streets, has been used as a surface parking lot ever since the aromatic factory was razed in the late 1980s. It was to have been the location of a 59-story skyscraper that would have been Baltimore's tallest building, containing luxury housing, a hotel, shops and parking.