After a delay of four decades, Baltimore politicians and architects have revived plans to renovate the Inner Harbor into a tourist-friendly boulevard.
Mayor Sheila Dixon revealed the final reconstruction plans last Wednesday during the annual meeting of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore. The main project is to convert the 16 blocks of Pratt Street into a friendly and inviting entry into Baltimore's premier business and waterfront districts.
The City of Baltimore hosted the Pratt Street Design Competition last spring and settled on the firm Ayers Saint Gross of Baltimore and the Olin Partnership of Philadelphia as the two winners, primarily because they have created an innovative yet feasible plan for the remodel, according to an e-mail from Mayor Sheila Dixon.
"The designers' plans came together with my vision in making Baltimore a more liveable city. This is a huge task for the city, and it's going to require a lot from all of us. But it's an ambitious and excellent plan, and I think we have the ability to get this done," Dixon wrote.
The partnership's original plan was to convert Pratt Street into a grand two-way street nearly double its current width, enabling smoother flow of traffic into the Inner Harbor. However, the city revised the two firms' plans into a much narrower one-way street, with a median strip to create a separate lane for bicycles and buses. City officials reasoned that a one-way street would be more appealing to businesses and would encourage pedestrians and tourists to patronize the local shops and restaurants.
"We revised their original plan to create more active street-level frontage for businesses," Dixon said.
The final plan presently includes renovations to the most valuable real estate in Baltimore, including the Gallery at Harborplace, the World Trade Center and the Harborspace Pavilions. It also includes plans for a new public recreational park in the nucleus of the city, as well as an extra acre of public land near Inner Harbor's water edge and a new public sculpture garden right along Lower Jones Fall.
The creation of new shops and restaurants along the 16-block stretch of Pratt Street will cost around an estimated $100 million. Last Tuesday, Comptroller Peter Franchot released updated revenue estimates that showed the state of Maryland would have a $432-million budget shortfall compared to previous estimates. That means the majority of responsibility for the budget of Pratt Street's reconstruction lies on Baltimore's budget, which is currently around $500 million in debt.
The budget is a preliminary estimate, according to Downtown Partnership Retail Development Director Nan Rohrer, and city leaders plan to look closely at all the costs involved to better understand how to reduce sunken costs.
"The initial plans we have now are very conceptual. Even the costs of estimates that we ran are, at best, very preliminary," Rohrer said.
According to Rohrer, the city is considering granting or selling nine blocks of city-owned parts of Pratt Street to private property owners in order to fund construction of new retail and restaurant spaces and decrease the initial costs of the reconstruction plan. But because of Baltimore's current budget deficit, it's entirely possible that city leaders will raise taxes, causing concern for many of its citizens.
"The city just funded new convention hotels and now we're remodeling 12 blocks of Pratt Street? What other parts of the city get a 10th of the attention that Disneyland gets for tourists? Hundreds of millions of dollars, and what does it get the average Baltimore taxpayer? The highest property taxes in the state," said Jim Canton, one of Baltimore's many troubled citizens.
Other criticisms are directed at the decision to demolish the sky bridges that span Pratt Street and Light Street. This was proposed in order to encourage citizens and tourists to walk at street level and patronize the local shops and restaurants.
"I feel like the whole project is just a waste of time and money. Baltimore has many lacking areas, and Inner Harbor isn't the part of Baltimore that needs to be redeveloped right now," Maryland resident and sophomore Wenning Xu said.
Although some citizens have raised complaints, others applaud city officials and designers for thinking big and taking the necessary steps to transform Baltimore into an attractive destination.
"The key to solving most of the city's problems is to create jobs so that struggling citizens can work. In order to do that, you need to create an environment where people will be able to walk at street level so that they can visit the retail establishments that might provide these new jobs," said Mike Durham, owner of The Sports Shop on Pratt Street.
Rohrer said city officials plan to assure property owners that it would be in their best interests to support the project. Without their cooperation and participation in the redesigning of Pratt Street, the project could fall short of expectations, costing the city even more money.
"The private sector has to buy into our plan for it to succeed," Rohrer said.
