Westside Stories (2)

The ink on the report of the Urban Land Institute Advisory Panel can't be dry yet because it hasn't even been written yet (just verbally presented, see older blog below) and already it has been cast to the wind. Just a few days after the Mayor listened breathlessly to the ULI panel reporting back on the task the Mayor had given it, the most specific recommendation issued by ULI has been relegated to the dustbin. Several members of the ULI panel had very clearly stated that the Westside should be developed based on "thousand flowers blooming", based on a "preservation strategy" and that the "Superblock Developer" should either comply with the (preservation) Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) or be fired. The expectation was that the ULI had delivered the final blow to Lexington Square Partner's development proposal and its agreement with the City which was set to expire by the end of 2010.

Instead, the board of estimates of the City followed apparent mayoral pressure to extend the land disposition agreement by six months. Since the hang up regarding Lexington Square's proposal for the Superblock has been the lack of preservation and the missing approval from the Maryland Historic Trust (MHT) attesting compliance with the MOA, everybody thought the six months were needed to find some kind of compromise.

However, this expectation, too, proved to be false. Just after granting the extension the MHT chief Rodney Little published a letter in which a hedged assertion was provided that under the given program the development team had achieved the preservation optimum. Essentially a green light. The biggest hurdle seemed removed.

The developer wasted no time and appeared right away in front of the Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel (UDARP) for his second review meeting (the first had taken place in 2008). And this, too, was good for surprises: Unusual for UDARP, they allowed public testimony from numerous authoritative voices on civil rights issues. Civil rights? yes, not the design or the non compliance with the MOA but the planned demolition of the Read's Drugstore turned out to be the new hurdle. Baltimore Heritage had found out, that this Drugstore had been the place of possibly the first lunch counter protest in the nation as early as 1955. Eight people of various backgrounds and coming from Morgan College staged had a protest against racial discrimination in the headquarter of the local drugstore chain and quickly achieved that Read's changed their policy. Lawyer and law professor Larry Gibson, citizen activist Arlene Fischer and museums director Dr. David Terry as well as past NAACP president Marvin Cheatham all testified and stunned the UDARP panel. The proposal was rejected. In addition, CHAP (the local historic district commission) discovered, that they have a say in City owned property located in a designated Regional Register District. So another hurdle appears before the developer just when they saw themselves coming into the homestretch after five some years and significant moneys spent.

The last chapter of this Westside Story has not been written. It remains to be seen if this development team can be ever brought to the point to include serious preservation into their concept. So far, it didn't look that way. Instead, they tried to skirt the issues and force the thing through politically with. It remains to be seen, who has the longer breath here. Meanwhile, the big hole of derelict and empty buildings in the middle of the Westside continues to drag everything around it down.

See also Rodricks' Midday show on this topic with me as an invited guest.

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wypr/local-wypr-945317.mp3