The Politics Meister

I read this State Center related article about two months ago, and soon after that I received the following email update on the State Center project.

Now that time has passed and I have had time to think about the project I have started to wonder about the new office buildings aspect of the project. I understand that in order to connect Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon the parking lots and office buildings have to go and that the office buildings are outdated, ugly, and possibly filled with mold and other environmental hazards. Without the office buildings the state workers will not have a place to work. The state says that new office buildings should be built on the site. My question is why should new office space be built when in downtown Baltimore there is a large amount of class A office space just sitting around empty? This class A office space is available at cheaper rates than the proposed new office space at State Center will be rented out for.  Almost a quarter of Downtown Baltimore’s premium office space sits empty! Why should the state be involved with a new office building project in such an environment?

“Attached is an update on the State Center redevelopment project prepared by the State Center Neighborhood Alliance.  We hope it is useful to you. The Alliance is an organization of 18 neighborhood associations and stakeholder institutions.  Information about it is included in the attached update. Feel free to share this information. If you have received this email in error or do not wish to receive further emails on this topic, please let us know at scneighborhoodalliance@gmail.com.” ATTACHMENT:

UPDATE ON STATE CENTER REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT – as of 7/30/10

Prepared by the State Center Neighborhood Alliance

The State Center redevelopment has cleared some major hurdles at the State administrative level and is moving forward quickly to meet an expected construction start date of November 2010.  The public/private partnership involves the State of Maryland and State Center LLC, a consortium of private entities headed by Ekistics LLC.  The overall goal is to redevelop a 28-acre site, currently occupied by large surface parking lots and Maryland State administrative buildings, into a lively, 24/7 transit-oriented development including 1,500,000 sf. of State offices, 583,000 sf. of private office space, 1,500 residential units, 264,000 sf. of retail, along with other amenities.

The State Center redevelopment team has taken the past few months to identify new minority development partners and new business terms.  These have been approved by Maryland’s State Center Executive Committee which is composed of five state cabinet secretaries, four members of the General Assembly, a representative of the Stadium Authority, and a representative of Baltimore City.

On July 28, 2010, a major hurdle was cleared. The new partners and new business terms were presented to the Maryland Board of Public Works, and the Board approved Lease agreements and the underground parking garage.  This approval triggers the development team’s final design process for Phase 1 of 5 phases.  Phase 1 includes parcel G (the parking lot at Eutaw and MLK) which is being planned for offices for the Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, an underground garage, some retail including a grocery, and some housing units AND parcel I-2 (a triangular-shaped plaza at Preston and Howard) which is being planned for offices for the Maryland Department of Planning and for the Maryland Transit Administration and some retail.

In parallel, Federal seed-money is initiating some of the traffic and street modifications recommended in the Traffic Impact Study from 2008 – specifically the modification of the intersection at Howard Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard.  A key modification that is among those seeming to move forward is to close the small piece of Howard immediately behind the Rite-Aid in order to improve the failing intersection at Howard and MLK.  There is some concern as to what this will do to traffic on Read and Chase.

Other concerns expressed so far involve getting the development team to address the traffic and street issues on all project edges at the same time in order to mitigate unintended consequences.  A Traffic Mitigation Agreement between the City and the development team is one of the next steps after the approvals at the Maryland Board of Public Works.  The Neighborhood Alliance is working on scheduling a promised work session with the development team and City traffic staff before the mitigation agreement is finalized.

The State Center Neighborhood Alliance, a confederation of 18 voting and non-voting members has been established to provide communication between the State Center development team and the surrounding neighborhoods.  The member organizations and institutions each have one representative and one alternate as designated by the member organization or institution.  The Alliance’s interim co-chairs are James Hamlin of the Pennsylvania Avenue Redevelopment Collaboration (PARC) and John Kyle of the Mount Royal Improvement Association (MRIA).  Neighborhood residents and representatives of stakeholder organizations and institutions are welcome to participate in Alliance committees.

The currently active committees are Traffic, Design, Human Capital and Commercial Synergy. Each of these committees has been meeting with the development team to discuss Alliance issues relevant to the project and their impact on the surrounding neighborhoods and institutions.  A Finance committee is still in a formative stage.

Page 2 of 2 – 7/30/10 State Center Update from State Center Neighborhood Alliance

Current work of the Alliance committees (not necessarily the full range of activity and goals):

– The Human Capital committee is currently focused on creating mechanisms to communicate future job opportunities and to develop joint jobs/skills training programs.

– The Traffic committee has been focusing on the currently failing intersections along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and looking at the overall plans on all edges to improve the connections to our surrounding neighborhoods and ensure that unintended increased traffic does not adversely impact our communities.

– The Design committee is working with the development team on reviewing the design of the buildings and site looking at issues such as scale, approach, materials, design elements and timing to ensure that this project is effectively knitted to its existing neighbors.

– The Commercial Synergy committee is focused on sharing marketing and business recruitment information so that existing retail corridors and the new retail to be established can be complementary in terms of both services provided and sharing leads which may better match each other’s areas.

– The Finance committee will eventually focus on the financial structure of the public support and preferably work on identifying potential revenue streams to support the efforts of the Alliance.

Details regarding the project can be found online at the State Center development team’s web site, www.statecenter.org .

Contact your participating organization or institution to learn more

and/or to participate in Alliance committee meetings.

STATE CENTER NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE – BACKGROUND INFORMATION (as of 11/24/09)

The State Center Neighborhood Alliance (“Alliance”) is comprised of neighborhood organizations, anchor institutions, faith-based entities, and community-serving organizations directly affected by the State Center development project. The Alliance is committed to support a State Center project that enhances and supports the surrounding communities but desires to work with the Developer, the State and the City to define/refine the project to ensure that it is designed and implemented in such a manner to allow that continued support.  The Alliance Interim Co-Chairs are James Hamlin of Pennsylvania Avenue Redevelopment Collaboration (PARC) and John Kyle of Mt. Royal Improvement Association (MRIA).

The purpose of the Alliance is to:

• provide the community voice to the development project occurring at State Center,
• leverage benefits for residents in the impact zone, and
• keep the Alliance and the greater community informed of the process.

The current participating organizations are:

1.      Antique Row Business Association

2.      Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

3.      Charles-North Community Association

4.      Druid Heights Community Development Corporation

5.      Heritage Crossing Residents Association

6.      McCulloh Homes Resident Council

7.      Madison Park Improvement Association

8.      Maryland General Hospital

9.      Maryland Institute College of Art

10.  Midtown Development Corporation

11.  Mount Royal Improvement Association

12.  Mount Vernon/Belvedere Association

13.  Pennsylvania Avenue Redevelopment Collaboration, Inc. (PARC)

14.  Seton Hill Association

15.  Terraces at the Towns Residents Association

16.  United Baptist Missionary Convention & Auxiliaries, Inc.

17.  University of Baltimore

18.  Upton Planning Committee, Inc.

Areas of Particular Interest:

1.      Commercial Synergy – Ensuring the retail strategy executed will ultimately improve the overall strength and retail mix of both State Center and the surrounding neighborhoods

2.      Traffic – Ensuring that both interim and final traffic patterns and transportation strategies are developed with community perspectives on traffic impact and physical changes to street, intersection, and sidewalk design with the goal of achieving positive pedestrian, traffic, and parking impacts on the affected communities.

3.      Design Oversight – Participating in the review of building, public space and streetscape design (e.g., articulation, style, scale, lighting, signage) in relation to (a) the site itself and the surrounding neighborhoods; (b) technical compliance with the PUD; (c) the “green” aspects of the project; and (d) the phasing/timing of the project

4.      Finance – Monitors the Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and land lease.

5.      Human Capital – Ensuring that community residents will be ready and available for employment, entrepreneurship, homeownership, and other Human Capital opportunities that are associated with the State Center Project by providing input, guidance, strategies, and communication mechanisms.