The poster child for the downtown office space glut is Metro West, the million-plus square foot complex abandoned by the Social Security Administration. The state should redevelop the Metro West white elephant for state employees rather than continuing to mess with the paper tiger at State Center, with its decades-long stalemate between rebuilding or moving out.
Because of the office glut, the proposed rents for the State Center redevelopment became far in excess of the market value, which led to lawsuits from other downtown property owners and the decision by the state to pull out of the State Center deal. Now is the time for the state to finally take advantage of those lower rents at Metro West. There are plenty of things to do with the savings.
The bottom line is that the State Center site has inherent geographic value, while Metro West just a few blocks down MLK Boulevard is condemned to remain essentially worthless unless there is a major intervention, and the state government is probably the only entity which can do it.
State Center has the advantages of two rail transit stations and being surrounded by stable neighborhoods in Bolton Hill to the north, Mount Vernon to the east, Seton Hill to the south and even McCulloh Homes to the west, which got a major vote of confidence when it was decided to retain its sorely needed low income housing rather than adding to the State Center footprint.
State Center became a white elephant because of state workers, who stampede to get out at 5 PM instead of creating a community. The time to try to fix that with infill development such as on the parking lots was decades ago before the offices were allowed to deteriorate. But attempting to create a coexistence of bureaucrats and urban hipsters has always been a far-fetched concept that no amount of subsidy could really accomplish.
It's the old story of mega-project "game changers": Spend enough money and expend enough hype and you can purport to solve Baltimore's problems. Even when that strategy has been forced to work in Harbor East or Harbor Point through isolation and subsidies, it really still doesn't.
The real key to resolution at State Center is simple: Incrementalism. Use minor development projects to start weaving the area into the surrounding communities. Bolton Hill is probably the easiest fix because Dolphin Street is needlessly a six lane highway fragment and can thus be tamed. There are plenty of surface parking lots that can be converted into viable activity centers. With the right infill, making parking more difficult can also be made into a plus.
Some of the best development parcels are not even part of the State Center footprint, but have simply evolved to be part of the border vacuum between State Center and the surrounding communities. The recreational uses have become fortresses in themselves, which is never a good idea. Recreation should be a unifier not a divider, even if its only among "privileged" members and not the urban masses.
Yes, the Bolton Hill Swim Club is a fine and exclusive institution. But it should be part of something, and not just sit in gated suburban style between the border of Bolton Hill and State Center. The Swim Club should be redeveloped as part of something larger, so that it has full-time residents who serve as permanent hosts for their friends who come visit for a swim. That's the way to weave it into the city, both socially and geographically, even if it never resembles a public swimming pool such as at Druid Hill Park.
Pearlstone Park is an even clearer example. Its a dead bad location for a public park, along the precipice leading down to the Maryland Institute / Mount Royal Station gully and across from a sprawling parking garage on Cathedral Street. Much of the time, there is absolutely no activity there.
The catalyst for a new incremental State Center plan may be to find a new location for Pearlstone Park, so it can be surrounded by "urban eyes" incorporated into new or existing development. Then the existing parkland can be developed in a way that truly compliments the adjacent Maryland Institute and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the dramatic overlook into the historic station in the gully.
An ideal solution may be to weave the new park into the Symphony Center apartments just across Preston Street and its light rail station on Howard Street. This would fix two problems at once, since Symphony Center now doesn't really relate to anything. Symphony Center should have been planned as an integral Phase One of the State Center redevelopment, but instead it's just one of the city's myriad pathetic failures of "transit oriented development". Somebody with some real urban design talent should be able to create a useful active park out of the vacuous open spaces which surround this building.
Other projects can also proceed on their own timetables, including the adaptive reuse of the Armory for a supermarket and/or other retail and enhancements to the University of Maryland medical system's former Maryland General Hospital, which needs a far better "public face" on MLK Boulevard across the street from the state offices.
With all the transformative opportunities on the edges of State Center, what happens with the state offices at its heart will be of lesser importance. If state bureaucrats continue to occupy their allegedly squalid offices indefinitely as pawns in a larger political game and stampede to the exits daily at 5 PM, so be it. This could actually work to the area's advantage, in that the state offices occupy its most inherently valuable real estate, so waiting to redevelop it could make it more economically viable for higher densities. After all, the whole reason the State Center plan hasn't worked is bad economics.
In stark contrast to State Center, incrementalism will absolutely not work at Metro West. It was built as a fortress compound for government workers and it shows no signs that it could work for anything else. The barriers of that fortress need to come down, mainly by getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere". The building itself is similarly a massive monolith that must be dealt with as such.
Caves Valley Partners, which bought the complex from the federal government at a cheap bargain auction, has tried to interest the state in the complex, so far without success. This is probably far too monumental an endeavor for any private enterprise that's much smaller than Amazon.
But the state should be up to the task. The building itself should be in far better condition than the existing state offices, since it was maintained by the Social Security Administration which is one of the few institutions on the planet that's even bigger than Amazon. Caves Valley also proposed adding a massive new parking garage, which is the traditional response of developers everywhere in marketing properties, but that's just a sideshow.
This is a situation where the customary hype for a transformative "game changer" actually applies. Getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere" would actually unleash a development momentum that would reverberate far beyond into West and Northwest Baltimore, far larger than anything that could be unleashed by State Center.
This blog has provided numerous concepts for the redevelopment of the "Highway to Nowhere", but what is essential is that the transformation must be comprehensive and incorporated into the surrounding communities.
Replacing the highway with a "Walk of History" would be particularly appropriate if it was anchored by an administrative seat of state government at Metro West.
Metro West is also adjacent to the beautiful Heritage Crossing neighborhood which absolutely needs to be integrated with its crumbling and dysfunctional surroundings as well as with downtown, whereas next door to State Center, Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon are already doing well on their own and are not worried about their very survival.
Many plans have been put forth for nearby buildings such as the abandoned Upton Mansion and portions of Upton and Lafayette Square, but without a major boost in surrounding property value, the benefits are starkly limited.
Government facilitated the demise of West Baltimore by building the "Highway to Nowhere", so government is the institution that should end it and mend it. And in the forty years since the completion of the highway, only government has built anything in the corridor while the rest of the land has stayed empty. So government is the only logical occupant for Metro West.
Ultimately, both Metro West and State Center will grow and flourish as little or as much as their economic value allows. At State Center, this process can begin by identifying limited viable projects right now. In contrast, Metro West is a place where only major change can launch the growth and development process that can spread throughout northwest Baltimore. A decision to move the state offices from State Center to Metro West is the major change that would get that process going.
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| Empty Metro West tower with lovely Heritage Crossing in the foreground. They'd be a perfect compliment for each other and would spur revitalization of surrounding neighborhoods if the big bad "Highway to Nowhere" wasn't in between. |
Because of the office glut, the proposed rents for the State Center redevelopment became far in excess of the market value, which led to lawsuits from other downtown property owners and the decision by the state to pull out of the State Center deal. Now is the time for the state to finally take advantage of those lower rents at Metro West. There are plenty of things to do with the savings.
Redevelop State Center in small steps instead of the mega-plan
The bottom line is that the State Center site has inherent geographic value, while Metro West just a few blocks down MLK Boulevard is condemned to remain essentially worthless unless there is a major intervention, and the state government is probably the only entity which can do it.
State Center has the advantages of two rail transit stations and being surrounded by stable neighborhoods in Bolton Hill to the north, Mount Vernon to the east, Seton Hill to the south and even McCulloh Homes to the west, which got a major vote of confidence when it was decided to retain its sorely needed low income housing rather than adding to the State Center footprint.
State Center became a white elephant because of state workers, who stampede to get out at 5 PM instead of creating a community. The time to try to fix that with infill development such as on the parking lots was decades ago before the offices were allowed to deteriorate. But attempting to create a coexistence of bureaucrats and urban hipsters has always been a far-fetched concept that no amount of subsidy could really accomplish.
 |
| The scuttled State Center Plan - These office buildings look too nice for state employees, and definitely too expensive. But they'd be perfect for some rich companies if a market ever develops for them away from the waterfront. Light rail station on Howard Street is in the lower right. |
It's the old story of mega-project "game changers": Spend enough money and expend enough hype and you can purport to solve Baltimore's problems. Even when that strategy has been forced to work in Harbor East or Harbor Point through isolation and subsidies, it really still doesn't.
The real key to resolution at State Center is simple: Incrementalism. Use minor development projects to start weaving the area into the surrounding communities. Bolton Hill is probably the easiest fix because Dolphin Street is needlessly a six lane highway fragment and can thus be tamed. There are plenty of surface parking lots that can be converted into viable activity centers. With the right infill, making parking more difficult can also be made into a plus.
Some of the best development parcels are not even part of the State Center footprint, but have simply evolved to be part of the border vacuum between State Center and the surrounding communities. The recreational uses have become fortresses in themselves, which is never a good idea. Recreation should be a unifier not a divider, even if its only among "privileged" members and not the urban masses.
Yes, the Bolton Hill Swim Club is a fine and exclusive institution. But it should be part of something, and not just sit in gated suburban style between the border of Bolton Hill and State Center. The Swim Club should be redeveloped as part of something larger, so that it has full-time residents who serve as permanent hosts for their friends who come visit for a swim. That's the way to weave it into the city, both socially and geographically, even if it never resembles a public swimming pool such as at Druid Hill Park.
Pearlstone Park is an even clearer example. Its a dead bad location for a public park, along the precipice leading down to the Maryland Institute / Mount Royal Station gully and across from a sprawling parking garage on Cathedral Street. Much of the time, there is absolutely no activity there.
The catalyst for a new incremental State Center plan may be to find a new location for Pearlstone Park, so it can be surrounded by "urban eyes" incorporated into new or existing development. Then the existing parkland can be developed in a way that truly compliments the adjacent Maryland Institute and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the dramatic overlook into the historic station in the gully.
 |
| Light rail station on Howard Street adjacent to the Symphony Center parking garage, with free parking which flies in the face of "Transit Oriented Development". To the left is vacuous open space. |
An ideal solution may be to weave the new park into the Symphony Center apartments just across Preston Street and its light rail station on Howard Street. This would fix two problems at once, since Symphony Center now doesn't really relate to anything. Symphony Center should have been planned as an integral Phase One of the State Center redevelopment, but instead it's just one of the city's myriad pathetic failures of "transit oriented development". Somebody with some real urban design talent should be able to create a useful active park out of the vacuous open spaces which surround this building.
Other projects can also proceed on their own timetables, including the adaptive reuse of the Armory for a supermarket and/or other retail and enhancements to the University of Maryland medical system's former Maryland General Hospital, which needs a far better "public face" on MLK Boulevard across the street from the state offices.
With all the transformative opportunities on the edges of State Center, what happens with the state offices at its heart will be of lesser importance. If state bureaucrats continue to occupy their allegedly squalid offices indefinitely as pawns in a larger political game and stampede to the exits daily at 5 PM, so be it. This could actually work to the area's advantage, in that the state offices occupy its most inherently valuable real estate, so waiting to redevelop it could make it more economically viable for higher densities. After all, the whole reason the State Center plan hasn't worked is bad economics.
Moving state offices to Metro West
In stark contrast to State Center, incrementalism will absolutely not work at Metro West. It was built as a fortress compound for government workers and it shows no signs that it could work for anything else. The barriers of that fortress need to come down, mainly by getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere". The building itself is similarly a massive monolith that must be dealt with as such.
Caves Valley Partners, which bought the complex from the federal government at a cheap bargain auction, has tried to interest the state in the complex, so far without success. This is probably far too monumental an endeavor for any private enterprise that's much smaller than Amazon.
 |
| Caves Valley proposal for a big parking garage to lure a tenant to Metro West, with a huge Maryland flag draped over it to give special attention to state government. The "Highway to Nowhere" overpass above MLK Boulevard can be seen in the left background. |
But the state should be up to the task. The building itself should be in far better condition than the existing state offices, since it was maintained by the Social Security Administration which is one of the few institutions on the planet that's even bigger than Amazon. Caves Valley also proposed adding a massive new parking garage, which is the traditional response of developers everywhere in marketing properties, but that's just a sideshow.
This is a situation where the customary hype for a transformative "game changer" actually applies. Getting rid of the "Highway to Nowhere" would actually unleash a development momentum that would reverberate far beyond into West and Northwest Baltimore, far larger than anything that could be unleashed by State Center.
This blog has provided numerous concepts for the redevelopment of the "Highway to Nowhere", but what is essential is that the transformation must be comprehensive and incorporated into the surrounding communities.
 |
| A maximum development scenario for Metro West - Half the "Highway to Nowhere" is retained which can easily handle all the traffic, and new infill buildings are added. |
Replacing the highway with a "Walk of History" would be particularly appropriate if it was anchored by an administrative seat of state government at Metro West.
Metro West is also adjacent to the beautiful Heritage Crossing neighborhood which absolutely needs to be integrated with its crumbling and dysfunctional surroundings as well as with downtown, whereas next door to State Center, Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon are already doing well on their own and are not worried about their very survival.
 |
| Upton Mansion near Heritage Crossing - There have been many renovation proposals, but it just keeps crumbling. |
Many plans have been put forth for nearby buildings such as the abandoned Upton Mansion and portions of Upton and Lafayette Square, but without a major boost in surrounding property value, the benefits are starkly limited.
Government facilitated the demise of West Baltimore by building the "Highway to Nowhere", so government is the institution that should end it and mend it. And in the forty years since the completion of the highway, only government has built anything in the corridor while the rest of the land has stayed empty. So government is the only logical occupant for Metro West.
Ultimately, both Metro West and State Center will grow and flourish as little or as much as their economic value allows. At State Center, this process can begin by identifying limited viable projects right now. In contrast, Metro West is a place where only major change can launch the growth and development process that can spread throughout northwest Baltimore. A decision to move the state offices from State Center to Metro West is the major change that would get that process going.
