Baltimore City has approveda $21 million purchase price for the “superblock,” a 3.6-acre parcel of Baltimore City?s West Side, with plans to sell to New York-based developers Chera Feil Goldman Group.
This could be the beginning of the end of years of development discussions about this particular site.
But the city does not fully own the land it plans to sell and has until Dec. 31 to acquire land from existing property owners within the block.
“We?re going to negotiate first [with the existing owners] and if we?re unsuccessful, the city has the power to acquire through condemnation ? but that is the last resort,” said M.J. “Jay” Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corporation. “If we cannot deliver the land, the developers can walk away from the deal.”
But the developer is not too worried yet.
“We are confident in the city [of Baltimore] and really in the Baltimore Development Corporation, and that they?re going to deliver to us what they promised to deliver to us,” said Jerome Hagley, executive vice present of Georgia-based development partner Harold A. Dawson Company.
The proposed plan includes about 200,000 square feet of retail space, 400 to 600 residential units and parking, Hagley said.
Remaining land owners on the block include the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, which owns 12 properties that the city hopes to acquire.
“We had been negotiating with the city for some while, but those negotiations fell apart in November and nothing has occurred. I have no idea what they intend to do,” said Shale Stiller, the foundation?s president of the city?s next move.
There are five to six additional properties to acquire, Brodie said.
The $250 million development project will produce around 900 jobs during construction, and once completed will pay about $3.5 million a year in a variety of taxes to the city, said Brodie.
“It is absolutely essential that there be movement immediately,” said Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership. “The area is definitely ripe for a major scale development project,” he said. “City center, with the opening of the Super Fresh, is experiencing a renaissance, and we want to tie that progress to the success along Eutaw Street, and in between is the superblock,” he said.
City Comptroller Joan Pratt voiced her concern that the city would initially lose money in the land deal due to the costs of relocating businesses and street closings, among other things.
“But after the development, I?m hoping the city will reap the financial benefits through the various taxes,” she said.
