Harborplace’s Future Remains a Question Mark

The view of Baltimore's National Aquarium from the Inner Harbor (Photo by Amanda Krotki, Jmore)

The last time I went down to Harborplace to write about it,the date was November of 2017. A sign on the front door of the Pratt StreetPavilion immediately hinted at the pitiful level of attention devoted to theplace once regarded as the heart of a great Baltimore renaissance.

The sign said: “Harborplace: A New Tradition Begins – Fallof 2016.”

You absentmindedly display a sign like that, a full yearpast its due date, and it shows the whole world you don’t even care enough tobe embarrassed. And the Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which has run Harborplacefor the last seven years, is about to feel the effects of such outwardindifference.

As the BaltimoreBusiness Journal reported this week, a city judge has placed Harborplaceinto receivership. Another firm will run the place and look for a new buyer. Nearlyhalfway through 2019, maybe that “new tradition” will finally take place.

It’s about time.

Both the Pratt and Light Street Pavilions feel like ghosttowns. Where there used to be a bustling food court, and packed restaurants andshops, there are mostly walls with nothing behind them now.

And the essence of the place – showing off the mostflavorful goods of Baltimore itself – has been utterly lost.

“Used to be, this was a place where you showed off the bestof Baltimore to all those tourists, and it made you feel proud,” Josh Hugheswas saying on Tuesday morning. He manages Crabby Jack’s General Store, one ofjust three remaining Harborplace souvenir shops featuring Baltimoremerchandise.

“Must have been 20 places that featured Baltimore,” saidHughes, who’s worked here for 15 years. “I used to come down here as a teen,back in the ‘90s, and there were so many people walking around, you couldn’thelp but bump into each other.

“Now, I get customers coming in here for the first time inyears, saying, ‘What happened? This place used to be great.’ It makes me sadevery time I come in.”

A sign at The Village of Cross Keys (Handout photo)

Ashkenazy Acquisition is a privately held New York company with a $12 billion portfolio. They run both Harborplace and the Village of Cross Keys, which has similar problems – empty storefronts, lack of customers in its commercial square, and a sense that time has passed it by.

In a lengthy analysis in March, The Sun detailed Ashkenazy’s financial trouble. The company owed$67 million on Harborplace and $21 million on Cross Keys, and its loans werecalled “just one step away from default,” according to the real estate researchfirm Trepp LLC.

Meanwhile, a steady exodus of old Harborplace tenants wastaking place as Ashkenazy was promising long-delayed renovations. Some of itcan be blamed on Ashkenazy, but the founding Rouse Company wasn’t totallyblameless. Even at its peak, some tenants complained of exorbitant rent hikesby Rouse. Many of these were small stores with Baltimore themes.

It’s now nearly 40 years since Harborplace opened. The RouseCompany built the place and owned it during its heyday, but sold it to GeneralGrowth Properties. Ashkenazy bought it in 2012.

When I spoke last fall to Stephanie Mineo, a senior vicepresident at Ashkenazy, she said the company was determined to “give the cityback its jewel.”

Now some other company will have to make that attempt.

It’s one more shocking development for a part of downtownBaltimore struggling to get back some of its old luster. The disturbances lastmonth, with hundreds of young people running amok, did not help.

Outside the Light Street Pavilion, there’s a reminder ofbetter days. It’s a statue of William Donald Schaefer, the mayor who pilotedHarborplace’s creation. He’s got one hand in the air, as though welcomingpeople or signaling for a fair catch.

Or maybe he’s saying, “Stop.Enough of this steady decay in my old city.”

The old man would have had somebody’s head rolling by now.

Michael Olesker

A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.

You May Also Like
Dr. Scott Rifkin: The Dilemma for Jews
Joe Biden

When it comes to concern that President Biden's support for Israel is wavering, look at actions not words, writes Jmore Publisher Scott Rifkin M.D.

A New Era for the O’s
Jackson Holliday

Even the great "Earl of Baltimore," Earl Weaver, never had a lineup with as much raw talent as the 2024 Orioles team, writes Michael Olesker.

Praying for the Hostages in Gaza and the ‘Whole House of Israel’
livestream of the Shema broadcast from the Western Wall

The Acheinu prayer reminds us that the deeper we go into the experience of those suffering, the more fervently we will pray for their speedy redemption, writes Rabbi Dr. Eli Yoggev.

Global Village
Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg talks to the Beth Am audience before playing his guitar. (Photo by Jim Burger)

Despite technological strides, human beings still need to interact and be in close proximity to each other, writes Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg.