When developer Richard Swirnow was in the early stages of planning a $600 million medical trade mart and conference center for downtown Baltimore, he asked urban visionary James Rouse about the idea.
"His advice to us was: 'Let the need dictate,' " he recalled. " 'Identify what the demand is and let the demand dictate what it should be. If you have something that is needed, it will find a home.' "
That simple philosophy -- find a need and fill it -- has guided Mr. Rouse for most of his career. It also could be applied to Mr. Swirnow, who has emerged as a key player in the local business community with two Baltimore redevelopment projects that represent a potential total $1.2 billion investment.
The first is HarborView, the $600 million condominium community taking shape on the former Bethlehem Steel Corp. Key Highway shipyard south of Federal Hill. The $80 million, 27-story first tower is scheduled to open in late next year. It is more than a third sold out, with 94 of the 252 units reserved.
And last month, Mr. Swirnow's Parkway/Swirnow Group Ltd. was selected by the Maryland Stadium Authority to develop four parcels east of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Impressed by his plan to build a $600 million complex with meeting space, a conference center and a permanent trade mart showcasing medical supplies and equipment for professionals, the authority gave him nine months to demonstrate that his group can move ahead.
Not since West Coast financier David Murdock came to Baltimore in the early 1980s and promised to redevelop much of the area around Lexington Market has one man controlled so much prime downtown real estate and offered such an ambitious development agenda for Baltimore. If both Swirnow projects become reality, they would easily make Mr. Swirnow the largest private developer in the city's history.
Unlike Mr. Murdock, a self-made millionaire who exuded a haughty, almost regal, air (and was gone by 1987 without completing all that he promised), Mr. Swirnow, 57, is an unpretentious man who is brimming with ideas.
This week, he and a half-dozen colleagues are heading to Dusseldorf, Germany, to market their Camden Yards project at Medica, a four-day trade show that is billed as the world's largest medical equipment and supply exhibition.
And he is undaunted about controlling such a large chunk of downtown Baltimore -- even in a recession that has brought many developers to a standstill.
"I've always been one who feels that opportunity is what you make of it," he said. "And I don't think there's any better time for entrepreneurs to look at the opportunities that are out there than now. I really believe that that is what is going to take our country out [of the recession]. It is going to take the cumulative results of entrepreneurs making the best out of the market conditions, not sitting back and doing nothing. That's what will bring this market back."
An unlikely developer
The man who put the medical mart team together seems to be an unlikely developer, devoid of the unchecked ego that drove many of the go-go entrepreneurs of the '70s and '80s.
An engineer by training, Mr. Swirnow has a reputation for being a pragmatist and hard-nosed bargainer. He is also a self-effacing man who often lets others speak for him.
He let an associate, Swirnow Vice President Tom Marudas, take the lead in presenting the medical mart proposal to the Stadium Authority's review committee. But in one-on-one situations, when lets down his guard a bit, he can be very personable and animated. Responding to questions from the Stadium Authority representatives, he conveyed complicated thoughts about the site conditions and his vision for the project clearly and persuasively.
"He doesn't look at any of this as being glamorous or not glamorous," said Mr. Marudas, one of his closest associates. "It's things to be done. He's never satisfied. . . . He's not caught up in having to have an office overlooking the city, or something like that."
Born in New York, Mr. Swirnow came to Baltimore in the early 1950s to study engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. While still a student at Hopkins, he got a real estate license and launched a homebuilding firm, the Doric Co. After graduation in 1955, he stayed in Maryland and built a number of subdivisions, including Surfside in Anne Arundel County, Emory Hills in Carroll County and Round Acres in Harford County. In 1972, he broadened his business to include specialty construction systems.
HarborView was the first project that brought him widespread recognition. When a dispute with former partner Malcolm Berman forced the 42-acre parcel to the auction block in
December of 1986, he bought it for $24.3 million, with funds from the Bank of Bangkok.
The Thai bank brought him together with Parkway Holdings Ltd., a Singapore-based consortium of Far Eastern and Australia developers with holdings valued at more than $1 billion. Parkway eventually bought out the bank's stake in HarborView and became a 50 percent owner of the site and the projects there, including a three-story yacht club that houses the Pier 500 restaurant. Plans call for up to 1,590 residences, shops, restaurants, offices and a 410-slip marina built over an eight- to 10-year period.
That's not all Mr. Swirnow is working on. He also continues to operate:
* The Swirnow Group, which markets a line of construction products such as the Hambro floor system and the Ecombo structural framing system;
* The Fort McHenry shipyard, which is currently repairing the tall ship Gazelle for the city of Philadelphia;
* TBO Management Service Inc., which owns and operates air cargo terminals for private companies such as Federal Express in half a dozen U.S. cities, including Rochester, N.Y., Milwaukee and Minneapolis.
His proposal for the medical mart, officially called the International Life Sciences Center, involves the interior of the historic Camden Station, the south end of the eight-story B&O; warehouse, and the air rights above a 6 1/2 -acre tract east of the B&O; warehouse.
Preliminary plans call for the construction of up to 2.5 million square feet of meeting and exhibit space for medical groups and suppliers, including three towers in the air rights over the MARC train line. Mr. Swirnow also has proposed a 1,000-room convention headquarters hotel in the air rights above a $150 million expansion of the Baltimore Convention Center.
Planned for construction over the next decade, the entire project is expected to create 4,000 construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs and to generate $6 million to $7 million in annual tax revenues.
Mr. Swirnow believes the recession represents an ideal time for entrepreneurs such as Parkway/Swirnow to move ahead with new ventures.
"We came into the market at the bottom," he said of the HarborView project. "We're only able to do the project we're doing today because the market is soft. We're buying low in a low market, and that opportunity to buy material, to buy labor, to buy supplies, is enabling us to provide the quality that we believe has not yet taken place in this market." Those benefits should carry over to the medical mart project, too.
The stadium authority gave the group until Aug. 1, 1992, to
finalize its plans for the project and begin lining up tenants. But it faces many obstacles before it can begin construction.
In designing the complex, team members must figure out a way to tie it in with the MARC and light rail lines that run east of the warehouse -- an engineering feat that will force the main part of the mart to be raised several levels above the street, in the air rights over the tracks.
They must control costs to make the space attractive to a variety of tenants -- up to 1,000 vendors of medical equipment and supplies from all over the world. They must get financing. And they must prove to the Stadium Authority that it will not interfere with baseball.
One man they must convince is Stadium Authority Chairman Herbert J. Belgrad. In announcing the awarding of development rights last month, Mr. Belgrad said that he was doing so "with reservations" and that he wished the area around the stadium did not have to be developed at all.
"From my point of view, open space . . . to the east of the warehouse is much more desirable," he said.
But because the Stadium Authority has a charge from the General Assembly to "maximize capital," he said, the medical mart proposal was the best one for the state to pursue.
Sen. Julian Lapides, D-Baltimore, also is concerned about the project. "It's huge. You just hope that it's not so huge that it obliterates the public's view of the stadium itself."
But like Mr. Belgrad, Senator Lapides is intrigued by the concept. "From a public policy view," he said, "I think it has merit."
To Mr. Swirnow, the expressions of concern sound familiar.
He points out that his plan to build housing on the former ship repair yard also drew its share of skeptics, including South Baltimore residents who questioned how he could build high rises without blocking the views to and from Federal Hill. Many still question the plan. But after working with three mayoral administrations, he has reached accord with the city on a master plan that will guide development for the next decade.
He realizes that the medical mart site, like the shipyard, has special constraints and that his project must be designed to address community concerns. In many ways, the new stadium may turn out to be as sacred as Federal Hill. But he is confident it can be done.
"As far as I'm concerned, it's a welcome challenge," he said. "We're very excited about that."