The owner of the Atrium at Market Square LLC is challenging Baltimore City?s right reach an agreement with a private company that wants to develop the city?s “superblock.”
Baltimore lawyer M. Albert Figinski, who practices law with Peter G. Angelos, filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Baltimore City Circuit Court against the mayor and Baltimore City Council, the Baltimore Development Corp. and Lexington Square Partners LLC, developer of the “superblock.”
The lawsuit challenges the BDC?s city-granted authority to enter into an agreement with Lexington Square, and further challenges the BDC?s authority to recommend to the city?s Board of Estimates that the land be sold to Lexington Square.
BDC officials didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment.
Joining Atrium owners in the lawsuit are 120 West Fayette Street LLLP and39 West Lexington Street LLC, both of which own property within the boundaries of the six-block “superblock.” The area is bordered by Fayette, Liberty, Clary and Howard streets.
Lexington Square is a partnership between the New York-based Chera Fell Goldman Group and Atlanta-based Harold A. Dawson Co. Inc. The group wants to create 200,000 square feet of retail and about 500 residential units in the “superblock” area.
In the lawsuit, Atrium and the property owners claim the city?s development agreement is invalid because vague language in the Request for Proposal submitted by Lexington to the BDC was never addressed by local officials.
Atrium and the others also claim that Lexington Square Partners, a Delaware-chartered company, is not registered to do business in the state of Maryland.
The lawsuit tells only one side of the story. The defendants have yet to respond to the claims.
The Atrium lawsuit is the second filed this year challenging the city?s “superblock” project.
Arnold M. Jolivet, leader of the Maryland Minority Contractors Association, claimed in his January lawsuit against the city that the mayor and City Council went around the public bidding process to award the “superblock” developer a $10.5 million credit in demolition and removal costs. It?s a similar claim made in Atrium?s lawsuit.
Figinski said in the Atrium lawsuit that the city?s offering to Lexington Square Partners is “nothing less than a means for the City to procure, without bids, certain undefined public improvements and public works.”
