A "glass bridge" proposed to connect Piers 3 and 4 in the Inner Harbor has received a first-place award in the 1991 Architectural Design Awards Competition sponsored by Pittsburgh Corning Corp.
Cho, Wilks and Benn Inc. of Baltimore is the architectural firm that designed the bridge, which would replace a 10-year-old wooden footbridge that links the National Aquarium in Baltimore with the Marine Mammal Pavilion.
Cho, Wilks and Benn designed the bridge in conjunction with Whitman Requardt and Associates, a local engineering firm that has an open-ended city contract to complete studies for various projects around the Inner Harbor. The client is Center City-Inner Harbor Development Inc., the quasi-public agency that oversees downtown development.
According to architect David Benn, the bridge was designed to have glass blocks encasing the posts that hold up the steel-framed footbridge, whose surface would also be made of glass block.
The glass-clad posts would be lighted from inside so that they would glisten on the waterfront at night and send beams of light into the night sky, he said.
The design problem called "for a bridge that will stand on its own merits without getting lost among the much larger and very sculptural buildings in the Inner Harbor," Mr. Benn said.
"At the same time, the client wishes that the footbridge not compete with these tourist landmarks. . . . Using glass block and its qualities of transparency and reflectivity, we created a bridge that would make the experience of crossing water truly memorable."
For pedestrians, "the intended effect will be of walking on a glass path, supported over the water on glass columns," he added. "The night lighting of the bridge will contribute to the charm of the lights glittering across the water."
Other members of the design team were James Walsh, John Finnecy and George Holback. Their design was selected over 118 entries from across the nation. Mr. Benn said the bridge was still in a conceptual stage and that the decision on when to proceed with construction would be up to Center City-Inner Harbor. The design could be repeated around the harbor wherever afootbridge is needed, he added.
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The development firm of Greenebaum and Rose has assumed 100 percent ownership of the Festival at Woodholme, an 80,000-square-foot retail center at Reisterstown Road and Hooks Lane, by buying out the interest of its partner in the project, the Trammell Crow Co., for an undisclosed sum.
Trammell Crow and Greenebaum and Rose together still own the 73,000-square-foot office complex adjacent to the retail center.
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Another Trammell Crow development, Annapolis Fashion Festival, will be sold at a public auction on the premises June 20 at 1 p.m.
Completed several years ago on Jennifer Road next to the
Annapolis Restaurant Park and across from Annapolis Mall, the 80,494-square-foot retail center is about 67 percent leased.
Tenants include Britches of Georgetown and the Talbots.
The auction is a foreclosure sale on behalf of Maryland National Bank, according to the auctioneer, Atlantic Auctions Inc.
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Around the region:
*A Safeway supermarket will anchor the Enchanted Forest Shopping Center now under construction at 10041 Baltimore National Pike in Ellicott City. Safeway recently leased 53,000 square feet within the 140,000-square-foot shopping center, which is due to open in the spring of 1992.
Robert Levin, Andrew Feldman and Adam Miller of Kayne Levin Neilson Bavar Realtors represented the tenant and landlord, Stonehenge Limited Partnership, a Towson-based group headed by developer Jack Pechter.
*The KMS Group will have a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its Cranberry Square shopping center near Westminster on June 8 at 11:30 a.m.
*The Sisters of Mercy at Mercy Medical Center will dedicate the center's new professional office building, north tower addition and the Sister Mary Thomas Conference Center on June 21 at 1 p.m.
*The Baltimore Arena Parking Garage at Lombard Street and Hopkins Place is one of eight buildings from around the nation that was honored for outstanding brick design at the Brick in Architecture Awards Program held as part of the American Institute of Architects annual convention in Washington last week. Ayers Saint Gross of Baltimore was the architect.
*CB Commercial Real Estate Group Inc. has promoted Matthew J. Ryan Jr. to first vice president of its Baltimore brokerage office and Gary Dewey from first vice president to the position of senior vice president and senior management officer. CB Commercial also promoted Steven H. Gassaway, Mark M. Deering, George T. Quinn and William S. Roohan to vice president positions.
*Alan Hochman has joined the Downtown Partnership as director of business development.
*Schamu Machowski Doo and Associates Inc., a Baltimore-based architectural firm, has opened a branch office at 734 Main St. in Wheeling, W.Va. It also has begun calling itself SMDA Architects.
*Riggs Bank of Washington and Spaulding & Slye Colliers have begun working together to provide property and asset marketing and management on several office buildings in Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.
Among the buildings managed by Riggs and Spaulding and Slye Colliers are 4720 Montgomery Lane in Bethesda, 11493 Sunset Hills Road and 1821 Michael Faraday Drive in Reston, Va., and 575 Herndon Parkway in Herndon, Va.
*Lenny and Alan Smith, the owners of 6-year-old Lenny's Delicatessen, recently expanded their operation at 9107 Reisterstown Road in the Valley Village Shopping Center in Owings Mills.
*Belfast Valley Contractors recently purchased a 2,000-square-foot office building at 9719 Pulaski Highway in Baltimore County. Bob Moore of O'Conor Piper & Flynn Realtors represented the buyer and Daniel Hudak and Michael Goetz of Mid-Atlantic Properties Inc. represented the seller, Ethel Sperl.
*Obrecht & Associates Inc. is beginning construction on the first of two warehouse/office buildings planned for the Schafer Business Center in Rosedale.
The 50,750-square-foot first building has been leased to Alexander Moving and Storage Eastern Inc. and was designed by Nelson-Salabes. Construction of the 167,960-square-foot second building is expected to begin in several months. P. Fred'k Obrecht & Son of Timonium is the developer of the 13-acre business center, which is located on Todd's and Schafer lanes near Md. Route 40. Carter Dye of O'Conor, Piper and Flynn represented Obrecht and Alexander in the first transaction. Provident Bank of Maryland is providing financing for the development.
*BTR Realty Inc. announced that the 116,000-square-foot Burke Town Plaza Shopping Center in Fairfax County, Va., which is owned by a BTR subsidiary, has been refinanced by the Lutheran Brotherhood. The total mortgage was $7.45 million. Lutheran Brotherhood was represented by Towle Real Estate.
*Noted Southern California designer Gary Considine has joined RTKL Associates Inc. as director of interior design in RTKL's Los Angeles office.
*Philip Iglehart, former co-managing director of Alex. Brown/Kleinwort Benson, has become managing director of the financial services group of the eastern region of Cushman & Wakefield Inc., a real estate broker active across the nation. Mr. Iglehart is responsible for transactions in two dozen cities from Boston to Miami and as far west as Chicago.