Developers of the $150 million Lexington Square retail and housing project proposed for downtown Baltimore's west side cleared a key hurdle when state officials approved their latest plans.
The approval by the Maryland Historical Trust was announced Tuesday by the Baltimore Development Corp., which is working with developers to finalize plans for the project, known as the Superblock.
M.J. "Jay" Brodie, president of the Baltimore Development Corp., said the Dec. 22 approval letter from the Maryland Historical Trust's director, J. Rodney Little, provided the green light the city and development team needed to proceed with the project.
Brodie said he is optimistic that sitework can begin by late 2011 and that the entire project can be complete by late 2013 or early 2014.
The state's approval is "a momentous step for the west side," Brodie said. "It's the key to the project moving forward."
Continued Brodie: "Looking along Lexington Street, from east to west, you will perceive that a good deal of the [historic] fabric has been retained. … The street will be reminiscent of the halcyon days of Baltimore retail."
The developers, a consortium known as Lexington Square Partners that was selected by the city in 2004 through a competitive bidding process, were grateful for the state's approval.
"We're very excited that, after many meetings over two to three years, we're able to come up with a plan that each party can receive some satisfaction from," said team member John Smallwood.
The state's approval means that the development team can now step up its leasing efforts, Smallwood added: "It allows us to go out to retailers and say, 'Now we have something to show you.'"
According to the latest plans by Peter Fillat Architects of Baltimore, Lexington Square will be a mixed-use project containing 179,261 square feet of retail space, a 27-story tower with about 300 apartments, a hotel with 120 to 125 guest rooms or additional apartments inside the former Brager-Gutman's department store, and a parking garage for 725 cars.
The site — a two-block parcel bounded roughly by Lexington, Howard and Fayette streets and Park Avenue — is filled with more than a dozen 19th-century and early 20th-century structures that have been identified as worthy of retention under a 2001 preservation agreement signed by Little on behalf of the state and former Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley.
The agreement gives the Maryland Historical Trust legal authority to block any plan that it deems not in compliance.
Until last fall, Lexington Square Partners had not presented a design that satisfied the Maryland Historical Trust, a situation that kept the project from moving forward. The Dec. 22 letter from Little means the state is now satisfied with the developer's plan and will not hold up the project for being out of compliance with the 2001 preservation agreement.
Little's letter does not say that the latest design complies with the agreement, but it does state that his office is "prepared to approve the proposed design" as long as certain conditions are met. Brodie, in a Jan. 3 reply, said the city accepts the Maryland Historical Trust's conditions.
The latest plan calls for a combination of new construction, restoration and partial preservation. It also calls for retention of the art deco facade of the old Schulte United Co. building on Lexington Street but new construction behind the facade. It calls for preservation of the entire Brager-Gutman's department store shell at Park Avenue and Lexington Street and the entire Howard Furniture store building and the former Pickwick Theatre on Howard Street, one of the city's last nickelodeons.
At the same time, the plan calls for the former Read's drug store building at Howard and Lexington streets, the site of a civil rights protest, to be replaced by a new structure about the same size. It also calls for the former Greyhound bus station and several small pre-Civil War-era buildings on Fayette Street to be razed to make way for the apartment tower.