Posted on 08/07/24
| News Source: FOX45
Baltimore City’s spending board approved a contract with a well-known developer in the city, who is also behind the redevelopment plans for Harborplace, to build another development in West Baltimore and lease office space to the city that will become the new headquarters for a city agency.
Under the plan, which was unanimously approved Wednesday at the Board of Estimates, will kick in $16 million of city dollars towards the $41 million project dubbed Reservoir Square that will house the new headquarters for the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development.
Tuesday, after FOX45 News and other outlets questioned Mayor Brandon Scott about the planned contract, Mayor Scott issued a lengthy statement regarding the plan. The funding approved Tuesday will “be used to leverage nearly $21.5 million in financing as well as nearly $4 million in New Market Tax Credits” to build the facility, according to Mayor Scott’s office.
“Two core components of my administration have been to invest in all parts of Baltimore that have been overlooked for decades and to modernize city government to make vital services more accessible to more Baltimoreans,” Mayor Scott said via statement. “The opening of this new headquarters will do both, marking a significant milestone in our administration’s commitment to not only workforce empowerment and economic development but also to reimagining how City services can be funded and delivered.”
Before the final vote, MOED Director MacKenzie Garvin, outlined why she said the agency needs a new building and how the people of Baltimore City and beyond could utilize the development.
“The current model is not sustainable because the facilities are inefficient” and limiting, Garvin told the Board of Estimates. ““we are very excited about our new, reimagined strategy.”
Garvin said the new building will bring MOED’s other buildings into one, centralized location. In addition to the location, which Garvin said is accessible to many people in Baltimore, the building is more than an office building, Garvin said. There will be a computer lab, conference space, and more locations for interviews.
It’s more than an office building, Garvin said, “it’s an investment” in employees, residents, and others who use the services offered by MOED.
David Bramble’s company, MCB Real Estate, along with Atapco Properties, and MLR Partners, are behind the project that also is poised to include mixed income housing, a grocery store and retail space. Mayor Scott, who pushed for the plan in the first place, said the development project will become the “gateway to West Baltimore, eliminating blight and encouraging further development in the area,” which is located along North Avenue.
“By centralizing services, we are making them more accessible while also enhancing the quality and efficiency of support we provide our residents,” Mayor Scott’s statement continued. “Partnering with the private sector, we are delivering projects we would not otherwise be able to deliver if we attempted to do it solo.”
The funding would be loaned to P3 RS Office Holdings, LLC and P3 RS Parking Holdings, LCC, according to the contract proposals included in the BOE agenda. The city would rent the space from the companies, and the rent due from the city “is structured to cover P3 RS Office Holdings, LLC’s loan financing obligations.”
$15 million would be distributed from the City’s general funds in the following way:
An additional $1 million passed through the city from state grant funding would go toward the surfacing parking lot.
The City of Baltimore would not own the building, at first. According to the proposed contract, it’s the city’s “goal to ultimately own the property and all improvements” after the initial ground lease.
“Due to legal constraints, the transaction is structured as a City acquisition of the property through a series of leases to achieve the goal,” according to the contract.
There would be a decade-long period in which the two P3 RS companies have full control and possession of the improvements, “with the right to lease them” in accordance with the city’s ground lease.
“We allowed this liquor store and apartment complex to denigrate a neighborhood time and time again. Now that we are redeveloping that with someone who lives in that neighborhood, who never left west Baltimore and we are moving the folks from MOED out of a dilapidated building that’s been falling in on itself since I was across the street at MERVO, you guys are trying to make issues,” Mayor Scott said Friday when asked by FOX45 News about the contract. “There’s no issue here.”
Mayor Scott said the plans were created by his predecessor, not him, but he supports the development proposal.
“It’s the right thing to do because if the city wants to have development and things happening in neighborhoods that have been ignored, we have to have a stake in it,” he said. “If we want everyone else to say that these neighborhoods matter, then we have to have investment there as well.”
Bramble is someone who has donated to Mayor Scott’s political endeavors over the years, as well as Nick Mosby and Bill Henry, both of whom are voting members of the Board of Estimates.
While Bramble’s Harborplace development plans have faced some criticisms, Mayor Scott has been a vocal supporter of the proposal and Bramble. The Baltimore City Council approved the plan and now it will be up to voters to decide on the ballot in November.
A spokesperson for MCB, Bramble’s main development company, said west Baltimore “deserves investment just like other parts of the City,” adding that it will take “private and public dollars” to accomplish that growth for the neighborhoods.
“For decades, the 8-acre site was a troubled housing complex, known as “murder mall.” When it got shut down, no one else was at the table to take on its redevelopment. We saw a tremendous opportunity to connect emerging and established neighborhoods,” the MCB spokesperson said via email. “We tackled the overhaul of the site’s infrastructure, built 3 new public roads, and provided home ownership opportunities for middle-class residents. Ultimately, we are pleased that the Mayor sees the opportunity to use City dollars to leverage over $100 million of private capital and bring life back to this disinvested part of Baltimore.”