Dan Rodricks: Two big questions for David Bramble about Harborplace | STAFF COMMENTARY

I had two questions for David Bramble: What happens if his fellow Baltimoreans go to the polls in November and vote down his plan to build high-rise apartment buildings at Harborplace? And if, on the other hand, voters say yea to that, where are the tenants going to park?

I know: That second question is so eternally Baltimorean , but I had to ask. Bramble and his company, MCB Real Estate , propose two towers with 900 apartments between them, with no plan for a parking garage, on the Light Street side of Harborplace. Those towers – one of 25 stories, the other of 32 – are greatly disliked by those of us who want to see Harborplace get a makeover of some kind without looking like an extension of Harbor East. MCB’s proposal could fail if voters do not approve of residential development on the public space at Light and Pratt.

So, first question: MCB acquired Harborplace out of receivership and has a lease agreement and development rights. Bramble and his MCB partner, Peter Pinkard, want to demolish the 44-year-old Rouse pavilions and replace them with the apartment towers, an office building, public spaces and the large “Sail” building that would house a market and restaurants. To do this, Bramble and Pinkard need voter approval. What happens if they don’t get it?

Bramble first answered this question while we stood on a sidewalk at Reservoir Square , MCB’s $100 million redevelopment of a nine-acre West Baltimore site into townhomes and apartments, the company’s third major project in the city in recent years.

Bramble was a little vague at first, but he suggested that, if the Harborplace referendum fails, MCB likely would move on.

“This is our chance to make a major investment,” he said, “to do something transformative for downtown Baltimore and, quite frankly – and I’ve said this a lot – I need this project like I need a hole in the head. I already have really hard projects.”

There’s a separate effort underway to declare the waterfront park at Pratt and Light – and 19 other city parks – off limits to private development. What if that effort, a petition drive , results in a ballot question this fall and voters approve of it?

“I bought the leasehold interest,” Bramble said. “They can’t take that away. If you pass a law like that, then you’re stuck with exactly what you have there. No one can redevelop it. So the question is, what are you going to do with those [Rouse] buildings? And I can tell you this, I’m not gonna do anything with those buildings and I don’t think anybody else is but fill them up with … some junk.”

And Harborplace has already seen plenty of that.

Bramble mentioned a chain convenience store, to make a scary point about what could end up at Harborplace.

Several days later, I went back to him for clarity. What happens if he does not get what he needs from voters?

“I firmly believe,” he wrote in an email, “that the people of Baltimore want to see a reimagined Harborplace that is dynamic, multi-faceted and will be for everyone — not just some people. That’s why Peter and I invested to begin with. MCB was the only company to step forward when Harborplace became available and we believe the only way to make this project viable for generations to come is that it is financially stable and vibrant — and that means mixed use and some component of residential. We’re confident in its passage and we are not currently planning for failure.”

OK, OK. I appreciate his optimism. But what if?

“If somehow an initiative to stop our development passes,” Bramble wrote, “MCB will not move forward … and whomever acquires the project will have to find the funding to pay off the bond holders and figure out what to do within the limited uses that would be available at the property.”

That seems as clear as it’s going to get.

So, now, onto my second question: What about the parking?

“There’s too much parking downtown,” Bramble said when we met at Reservoir Square.

He sent me a map showing hundreds of available spaces. MCB has purchased several downtown buildings, including a 12-story parking garage at 200 E. Lombard St., a block away from Harborplace. The company is in a partnership to one day develop the surface parking lot between Lombard and Pratt, site of the News-American building until its demolition more than 30 years ago. So the plan is to offer parking to tenants within walking distance of Harborplace.

And investors are OK with that, financing 900 apartments with no parking garage?

“We are comfortable with the financing because there are thousands of unused parking spaces immediately surrounding Harborplace,” Bramble said, “and we anticipate utilizing those spaces in addition to on-site parking which would be concealed from view.”

I threw in one more question about the apartment towers: Are they really necessary? Can MCB’s plan make financial sense without them?

“It’s not so much the financial part,” said Bramble. “I don’t think it will be successful. Not enough people, not enough excitement, not enough transformation. The long-term financial, economic sustainability, in our opinion, is a mixed-use project. If you go to any other major waterfront in the world, you have mixes of uses. You have apartments, you have retail, you have hotels. Because that’s what real estate development is today. That’s the future.”