Just call it “Phelps Point”
August 22, 2008
Maybe it’s becoming chic to move to Baltimore.
This spring, Charm City welcomed the newlyweds Jenna Bush and Henry Hager to a $440,000 rowhome in Federal Hill.
But the presidential offspring’s move-in is officially old news now that Michael Phelps has bought a waterfront condo for a $1.69M in Fells Point. The pad reportedly boasts a pool (not Olympic-sized, unfortunately), a jacuzzi and 4,080 square feet.
Phelps has already spent a lot of his newfound gold: the swimmer bought the Meadowbrook Swim Club & Northwest Ice Rink this week, with the intention of turning it into an Olympic training center with coach Bob Bowman.
Before he moves in, though, he’ll need to clean out his place in Ann Arbor.
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentWill city taxes really stop returning suburbanites?
August 8, 2008
In May, while in Las Vegas on assignment for The Daily Record I happened to interview C. William “Bill” Struever, the successful developer who heads the Baltimore company Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, who was there for a conference. We chatted about many things, including the state of the economy and the price of oil, and one memorable thing he said to me was this:
Clearly, these are uncertain times, but I think there’s a very helpful aspect of $120-a-barrel oil, which is the end of this destructive and wasteful fascination with suburbs and cars.
This idea resurfaced in my mind as I read two cover stories recently, one in The Washington Post and another in The New Republic. Both dealt with what academics, demographers and developers have known for years, what the Post calls “suburban migration” and TNR calls “demographic inversion”—affluent people are moving back to major U.S. cities in high numbers and pricing low-income city folks out of neighborhoods that have typically been associated with poverty, crime and urban decay.
The Post pins this almost exclusively on high gas prices, which it says are now the number two financial concern for American families, while TNR points to the retail, transit and cultural amenities that are returning to cities and attracting young professionals to live downtown.
I was trying to think of how this trend applies to Baltimore, and what the city can do to accommodate returning suburban exiles. Certainly, neighborhoods like Canton, Fells Point and Federal Hill have benefited from yuppies’ renewed interest, and many more areas stand to gain as well.
There has also been a lot of chatter lately about how to attract businesses and residents back to the city, and a lot of it involves building a more comprehensive mass transit system and lowering property taxes. Baltimore has a property tax rate nearly double that of surrounding suburbs. Some believe that high taxes have crippled Baltimore’s ability to attract and keep businesses headquartered in our town.
But if what these publications and Bill Struever say is true, why worry about the tax rate at all?
If the people and businesses are coming back to the city for reasons that have nothing to do with property taxes, why not keep property taxes sky-high, and really build the city’s tax base? That way, we’ll have more money in the general fund to improve infrastructure and mass transit, to provide social services to rich and poor alike and to concentrate on large-scale public works. Why not welcome reformed suburbanites with open arms and ask them to open their wallets?
ROBBIE WHELAN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentPenny postcards reveal 1920s Baltimore as a ‘city of homes’
July 16, 2008
Over July 4th weekend, I was visiting my family at our house in Thurmont. My grandmother was born in a one-room cabin on the property in north Frederick County, and her parents built the first house there in 1920, a pre-fab Sears Roebuck two-story that we now lovingly call “Wild Rose Lodge” because of the flowers that bloom every year there.
Until 2006, I had a great-uncle who lived at Wild Rose Lodge and who had collected an impressive assortment of family and Maryland-related memorabilia — paintings by one-time MICA president Stanislav Rembski, D-Day and moon-landing editions of The Sun, and a letter on White House stationary congratulating my great-grandmother on being “Maryland Democratic Mother of the Year,” to name a few.
I’ve often wandered around the house, opening drawers and poking around bookshelves for interesting trinkets, and this time, I happened upon a real gem – a set of 22 penny-postcard images of Baltimore, printed on a glossy, fold-out, accordion-style booklet, which is wrapped up in a self-created envelope. I realize that’s hard to visualize, but that’s why we have a nice little slide show of a few of the images.
Sphere: Related ContentWestport gets branded
July 14, 2008
Turner Development Group, the force behind several of Baltimore’s biggest development projects, has finally launched a Web site – or at least, the front page of a Web site – for Westport, its multi-billion dollar project in the West Branch of the Patapsco, near the intersection of Interstate 95 and MD-295. And it’s an impressive piece of branding.
Not only is it “kinetic,” “a mix of rhythms,” and full of “buzz” “whir” and people with their “finger on the pulse,” but it establishes a pictographic logo for the community and tags it as “Baltimore’s Green Waterfront.”
Turner is the same company that turned an aging, unused grain elevator in Locust Point into Silo Point — an extravagant condominium tower with units selling for several million dollars apiece, based on their sexy, modern design and 360-degree waterfront views.
So it figures that on the Web site, the central image we get of Westport — which will be built next to a largely working class community in Southwest Baltimore — is of a wan-faced mannequin decked out in a couture dress and fancy accessories, illuminated by spotlights that evoke a fashion show runway. The image is flanked by a rowing shell (a park next to Westport is the home of the Baltimore Rowing Club, an organization that Patrick Turner, the company’s CEO, has very publicly supported) and a generic-looking glass skyscraper, which suggest, respectively, community spirit and commerce. But the message is clear: Westport will be hip, stylish and cutting-edge.
We anxiously await further details, and more symbolic images for the face of Westport.
ROBBIE WHELAN, Daily Record Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentWaterfront views and wind power come together in Dubai
July 1, 2008
Two issues that have been the subject of much discussion in the pages of the Daily Record – building condo towers with stunning water views, and the potential for wind power as an alternative energy source – have been married, to a psychedelic effect, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, by an Italian architect.
The BBC reports that Florence-based designer David Fisher has planned an 80-story skyscraper, the Dynamic Tower, which would rise more than 1,300 feet (that’s 2.6 times as high as the Legg Mason building) into the sky and would house condo units that rotate around central columns using wind power.
The $700 million project, expected to be completed in 2010, would have 79 turbines, placed between floors that would capture the wind, which blows strong off of the Persian Gulf, allowing the owners of the housing units, which run from $3.7 million to $36 million, to rotate their homes using a voice-command system. The idea is that the building would be constantly changing, never looking exactly the same at any two given moments. Something like living in a combination-snowflake-windmill, I guess.
Dubai, with its sailboat-shaped hotels, underwater restaurants and indoor ski slopes, has lately not been a place for modest design ambitions, and something of a paradise for dreamer architects, but this project takes the cake. Imagine if we had one of these babies in Baltimore. Who needs views on three sides in some old grain elevator?
Don’t forget your Dramamine, though.
ROBBIE WHELAN, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentReport: Giannasca to bypass Baltimore, head for Hilton Head
June 27, 2008
In a story in today’s Reading (Pa.) Eagle, Edward V. Giannasca II says he will appeal his $33 million loss to former Raven Michael McCrary — and denied he has any intention of fleeing the country with his three children, as alleged by his ex-wife.
“What is she talking about fleeing? I’m right here,” Giannasca told the paper from his office in Reading, where he’s seeking approval for a $2.8 billion mixed-use project on 80 acres along the Schuylkill River.
Giannasca said he “merely got passports for all the children at the same time because one son needed one,” the Eagle reports.
He will have a chance to explain that to visiting Judge Paul E. Alpert, who ordered him to appear in Baltimore City Circuit Court on Monday, June 30, under threat of a body attachment.
But, according to the Eagle, he has other plans.
“Giannasca said he won’t be there because he and his family will be on a weeklong vacation in Hilton Head, S.C.,” the story said.
The Eagle also says Giannasca stayed away from this week’s legal proceedings in Baltimore, despite a court order and his own promise to appear, on advice of counsel.
BARBARA GRZINCIC, Managing Editor/Law
Sphere: Related ContentHome for sale: 2,000 sf plus wife
June 27, 2008
The real estate market must be really lagging, if this Florida woman is trying to auction off herself and her home in a combo deal. She’s using Craigslist and Ebay to do it.
JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor
Sphere: Related ContentTaking a look at Baltimore’s “downtown renaissance”
June 27, 2008
It may have something to do with the fact that Charles Center turned 50 this year, or maybe it’s all the condo and office buildings rising along Key Highway and in Harbor East. Whatever the reason, there has been a lot of looking back recently, remembering and critiquing Baltimore’s downtown redevelopment.
Two recently-produced documents demonstrate that there are two very different perspectives on the “downtown renaissance,” and whether it was really as visionary and beneficial for the city as its creators would have us believe.
“Global Harbors: A Waterfront Renaissance,” a documentary film that aired June 10 on Maryland Public Television, and will re-air July 22 at 9 p.m., revisits both Charles Center and Harborplace through the eyes of Martin Millspaugh, former Evening Sun reporter and urban planner, whose work made both developments possible. The basic premise of the film is that Baltimore’s plan to re-develop its waterfront was risky, but it has been a tremendous success, and has inspired waterfront redevelopments in “90 to 100” cities worldwide, including Sydney, Australia — where the Rouse Co. partnered with local government to build a festival market that looks remarkably like Harborplace — to Osaka, Rotterdam, Pittsburgh and Honolulu.
Sphere: Related ContentPinpointing the start of Baltimore’s revitalization
June 16, 2008
I came across a post this morning on the East Coast Bias blog called “Baltimore Orioles, City Reinvents Self,” that remarked on how much the city has changed in the past decade or so.
Without a doubt, much of the development that brings the after hours crowds and the weekend tourists to Baltimore wasn’t here 20 years ago (the Camden Yards Sports Complex and all of Harbor East to name a few). But a PBS documentary that aired last week on Maryland Public Television reminded us that Baltimore’s revitalization began much earlier than that.
Nearly 50 years ago, Baltimore’s Inner Harbor was one of the city’s “worst areas, full of rotting, rat infested piers and trash,” according to the documentary “Global Harbors: A Waterfront Renaissance.” But then a group of city planners came along with the goal of turning it into a waterfront destination that would once again breathe life into the city.
The model would be followed years later by Sydney, Australia, and other waterfront cities looking for a business and tourism renaissance. But, the documentary said, there were some bumps along the way, such as the late 1970s protests to building Harbor Place on open space that was enjoyed by many.
Today large retail stores like Best Buy and Bed, Bath and Beyond are moving in, but parking is an issue for those who might want to shop downtown.
Baltimore’s hospitality industry is also growing, and the city visitor’s bureau is bringing more conventions here to fill up the hotel rooms that are being added. But at a panel discussion last week, members from that industry expressed concern that both the slowing economy and competition from the Washington area would cause a growth plateau period for Baltimore’s hotel occupancy rate for the next couple of years.
Do you think the city’s tourists and weekend shoppers will be able to support the continuing renaissance in downtown? Or are there things you dislike about the expansion — then and now — and think the city ought to pay more attention to preserving some of the open space?
LIZ FARMER, Business Writer
Sphere: Related ContentA bird’s-eye view of Baltimore Co. development project
June 12, 2008
Wednesday marked my first time aboard a helicopter. That’s right, I’ve never been airlifted from a war zone, seen the rocks of the Grand Canyon up close, or gone down with a Black Hawk in the wilds of Somalia. And this occasion wasn’t incredibly glamorous either. We rose up, twice circled the proposed site of an office park redevelopment in Halethorpe, saw it from both sides, then touched down. It was a surprisingly smooth ride.
The occasion for my helicopter debut was some reporting I did on Hollins End Corporate Park, a warehouse redevelopment project in Baltimore County being carried out by Lutherville’s Preston Partners. Showing a development site to Realtors, businesspeople and members of media is an uncommon treat at ground-breaking ceremonies, but in the case of Hollins End, it was especially interesting because it put the project in the context of its location.
The developers are building their 1.3 million square feet of office flex and warehouse space on 51 acres between a number of major roadways — I-95, I-695, I-895 — that connect the Baltimore and Washington metro areas. It really took a trip up high to illustrate this context. We saw cars running along I-895, up to the Baltimore beltway, and beyond, in the distance, the skyline of Baltimore rose from the haze.
A media spokesperson for Baltimore County, who was sitting near me in the cramped, four-person cabin of the Bell 407, said, “Google Earth just doesn’t capture this!” I couldn’t agree more. It’s easy to see why so many action film directors choose to shoot from the open doors of a chopper. The sweeping, expansive view you get is just amazing.
Plus you get to wear some totally cool-looking headgear.
ROBBIE WHELAN, Business Writer
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