Because I’ve heard and read so much opposition to the proposed redevelopment plan for Harborplace, I was surprised to see the results of the poll we published the other day. It showed nearly 60% approval.
Did not see that coming.
As readers might know, I’m not crazy about MCB Real Estate’s desire to have two towers with 900 apartments at Harborplace, which is city parkland. But, hey, if my fellow Baltimoreans think we should turn Harborplace into Harbor East II and a majority of them vote in November to allow that to happen, then so be it.
But I have doubts that support for the Harborplace plan is as strong as indicated by the results of the poll conducted earlier this month for The Sun, the University of Baltimore and FOX45 by OpinionWorks.
I was eager to know how OpinionWorks asked the Harborplace question.
Here’s how: “Do you support or oppose the plans to redevelop Harborplace?”
That was straight-up and short, and most of the time, that’s what you want. Long questions can give you a bad case of ennui. Some of the talking heads on cable — especially Ari Melber and Chris Hayes on MSNBC — go downstairs, around the block and through a coffee shop to ask a question; they take so long, you forget that they have guests waiting to respond.
But the Harborplace question? Maybe a little too short.
First of all, it assumed that the person being surveyed was familiar with MCB’s proposal to tear down the Light and Pratt street pavilions and replace them with much taller buildings, including the apartment towers, and that some $400 million in public money will have to go into the project to pay for public spaces and to reconfigure roads.
Now, it’s completely possible that details of the MCB plan were well known among the Baltimoreans surveyed. But it might have been good to ask first.
Secondly, a person who was asked that question might have heard it in general terms, something like, “Do you support or oppose redeveloping Harborplace?”
And very few Baltimoreans would say they’re against that.
Nobody asked me, but that might explain the poll results: 59% in support, only 20% in opposition and 21% not sure.
But look, my issues with the poll aside, I’m glad we conducted it and published the results.
And it’s good that the question comes up during mayoral candidates forums. Mayor Brandon Scott supports the plan. Thiru Vignarajah does not; he calls it a “backroom deal” that he would scrap. Sheila Dixon supports redevelopment but says, “I do not want to see 900 apartments.” And Bob Wallace opposes using public money for it.
The MCB plan already has the support and approval of relevant city agencies and the City Council. But the plan will require voter approval in November.
Between now and then, the Harborplace proposal needs more mulling and pondering by the people of this city. It’s a grand public space and Baltimoreans deserve to have a say in what happens there.
Just what happens is the central issue.
For me and others, the proposed buildings seem too big for the space.
I know, I know: MCB offers plenty of public space, two levels of waterfront promenades. And that’s great. I just don’t think we should give up public space for apartment towers and an office building. As I pointed out in this column a few months ago, MCB could develop a fantastic apartment tower on the surface parking lot, once the site of The Baltimore News American, right across Pratt Street. That would create plenty of foot traffic for Harborplace. It seems like an obvious and sound alternative.
Of course, some people are fully supportive of MCB’s plan, as is. They think it should have happened yesterday, and that Baltimore moves too slowly to embrace something new and different.
I’ll agree with some of that. But there’s one thing to be leery of, and it’s called desperation.
There’s often a sense in this city that we’ll accept just about anything because we’re such a hopeless, desperate municipality, eager to please anyone who wants to build something here. We should be careful not to succumb to that tendency. “Just do it” is a great slogan, but it doesn’t apply to everything.
We all hate what happened to Harborplace under the lousy management of the last 10 to 15 years. And developer David Bramble, the face of MCB, is an earnest native son who wants to help his city in big ways. He has other projects underway in Baltimore, and I’m sure some people think it would be a slap to say no to his Harborplace plan.
But the corner of Light and Pratt is a valuable public space. Put too much on it and that sense of public space starts to shrink and the feeling of privatization becomes dominant.
Supporters of the plan say Bramble and his planners have tried hard to strike the right balance between public and private space. But, while I’ve looked hard at that aspect of the proposal, I still think the apartment buildings belong somewhere else.
I took a stroll along the Inner Harbor promenade, and it’s still a great walk. When I got to Pratt and Light, I found a tall ship from Peru docked there, a real beauty. I was reminded why we like to go to Harborplace, and it’s not to see apartment buildings. But, hey, that’s me.
