News on the State Center:
http://www.mddailyrecord.com/article...5304&type=UTTM
$1.6B State Center facelift will add retail, residences
ROBBIE WHELAN
Daily Record Business Writer
May 6, 2008 6:51 PM
The plain, unassuming cluster of state office buildings in Central Baltimore known as State Center is truly an island in the middle of several thriving city neighborhoods.
Seemingly walled off by Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the median of four-laned Dolphin Street, two sets of light rail tracks and several large parking lots, it’s hard to imagine that 3,500 state employees go to work every day in this empty-looking complex.
But with the backing of the city and the state transportation department, State Center will undergo an estimated $1.6 billion redevelopment, led by local developers Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse and Doracon Contracting Inc. One state official has called it “the biggest project since Harborplace in terms of its impact on the city.”
“This is obviously one of the best opportunities in the state [for transit-oriented development],” said Jamie Kendrick, deputy director of the Baltimore City Department of Transportation. “You’ve got the confluence of the backbone of our system with the light rail and the Metro there. It should be able to flourish, especially if it’s a good mix of residential and retail development.”
This week, the city’s Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel will review State Center’s master plan, and take the first steps towards approving the Struever company’s Planned Unit Development. Officials at Struever Bros. expect PUD approval by the end of the year, followed by a year-long design phase, a groundbreaking in 2010 and completion of the initial construction plans, which include at least one new building, by 2012.
Caroline A. Moore, Struever’s chief operating officer for public-private partnerships, said Thursday’s discussion at UDARP comes after 10 months of community-oriented planning that included input from 500 people in nine neighborhood groups, as well as at the nearby University of Baltimore and Maryland Institute College of Art.
“When State Center was created, it was detached from the grid,” Moore said. “The governor likes to say, ‘Gosh, this is in the middle of nowhere,’ but actually … if we can get this right, you can have a catalytic impact on nine different neighborhoods.”
With its five state-owned office buildings, the area has an isolated, institutional feel.
Extra-wide sidewalks separate parking garage entrances from the street, and most of the buildings have second-floor lobbies that were once connected by aerial walkways. A patio filled with outdoor, café-style lunch tables — which sat empty during Tuesday’s lunch hour — is next to 10-foot-tall heating exhaust ducts on the side of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene building at 201 W. Preston St.
“Its disconnect: that’s probably the biggest design flaw,” said Michael A. Gaines Sr., assistant secretary of the Maryland Department of General Services. “There are no amenities. Where do you go to eat? Where do you go for a cup of coffee and a meeting? And at 4:30, when people leave, it’s desolate. … It’s not pedestrian friendly at all.”
Gaines, who was once a vice president at the Rouse Co., and served as general manager for Harborplace, the large retail development along Baltimore’s Inner Harbor that many say contributed to a revitalization of the city in the 1980s, said the goal of the Struever-led project is to “fix some of that connectivity,” and add housing and retail amenities, to best leverage the nearby transportation hub. State Center has its own Metro and light rail stops, Penn Station is less than a mile away, and the buildings stand near several MTA bus lines and bicycle routes, including the Jones Falls Trail.
Plans include tearing down the building at 1100 Eutaw St., now home to the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, lopping off the facade of 201 W. Preston St., and eliminating the second-floor access on all of the buildings to make way for street-level retail businesses.
Moore said the developer also plans to reduce the buildings’ set-backs by cutting into the sidewalk space on West Preston Street, expanding its median into a plaza, and building a new structure in the middle of the street that would house a restaurant, retail space and a bicycle depot with showers and locker rooms, modeled on the bike garage at Chicago’s Millennium Park.
All told, the project is expected to result in eight new buildings and 6 million square feet of new construction: 1.5 million square feet of residential space, 250,000 square feet of retail space, 2 million square feet of office space, 250,000-300,000 square feet of public-use space, and 2 million square feet for parking.
Of a total 1,200 residences, 40 percent will be condominiums, built by Struever, some of which will be sold as work force housing, with price tags based on buyers who earn 60-120 percent of the area’s median income.
The remaining units will be developed by St. Louis-based McCormack Baron Salazar, a company that specializes in mixed-income housing. Of these, 10 percent will be rented at rates based on less that 30 percent of the area median income, 30 percent will be based on incomes of 60 percent of the area median income, and 60 percent will be rented at market rate.
The most inexpensive rental housing, Moore said, will be comparable to prices at the nearby McCulloh Homes, a high-rise public housing development.
“It’s not going to be an overwhelming mix of affordable [housing] — it’s just about 30 percent — but if it’s well-managed, it can be a tremendous asset to the city,” said Karl Schlachter, senior vice president of McCormack Baron Salazar. “Where we’ve done other transit-oriented developments, we’ve had huge demand for affordable housing, because if you don’t have to pay for gas, you can free up a lot of income for the more important things to survive in this world, like sending your kids to school.”
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