For years developers have looked to Baltimore?s once-abandoned industrial waterfront as a source of potential for its future, a trend that?s continuing with several new projects in the Middle Branch area.
“Water is always an appeal, whether it?s a beach front or shore front,” said Patrick Turner, whose Turner Development Group plans Westport, a mixed-use development covering 50 acres along that waterfront. “But what makes Middle Branch so special is the size of the water and how beautiful it is ? it?s five times the size of the Inner Harbor.”
Across the water from Westport, developer Marc Solomon of Finmarc Management has floated the idea of redeveloping an existing Wal-Mart and Sam?s Club in Port Covington into a larger mixed-use development. Solomon was not available Thursday to comment on the project.
The projects are the most recent examples of Baltimore developers reclaiming industrial wastelands left behind by businesses departing Baltimore, and putting them back to use.
“One of the great hopeful [things] for cities around the world is the revelation of new life for the old industrial areas that have become vital to the economy of the city,” said Bill Stuever, CEO of Stuever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, whose Tide Point project turned the Proctor & Gamble soap factory in Locust Point into a 400,000-square-foot corporate office complex.
“Proctor and Gamble doesn?t make soap in five-story buildings in the middle of the city anymore,” he said. “The wonderful thing is these old buildings often can be terrific for new uses, as places to live, for retail, hotel, offices of all sorts.”
Stuever?s Tide Point was among the projects that spurred more recent industrial conversion plans, said Brent Flickinger, community planner for the city?s southern district with the Baltimore City Department of Planning.
“I think a few projects needed to happen for people to think maybe we don?t need to get rid of these buildings, maybe they’re not a wasteland,” he said.
The Cherry Hill community near Westport is putting the finishing touches on a comprehensive plan that could be adopted by the end of the year, and Flickinger is looking at development moving into that neighborhood next.
Flickinger said he was formerly a planner for the Middle River area, and said he?s not surprised developers have begun to make plans for the surrounding shores.
“I always used to say, man, someday someone?s going to discover this,” he said.
