It may be shaped like a horseshoe, but Baltimore's venerable Memorial Stadium appears to have run out of luck. After reviewing three proposals, the city this month awarded development rights to a team that wants to raze the stadium to make way for a retirement community called Stadium Place. As a result, tomorrow may be the last Memorial Day that the city-owned landmark -- one of Baltimore's most prominent memorials to war veterans -- will be standing on 33rd Street.

The decision may be a victory for community residents who see nothing particularly lucky about having a vacant stadium in their back yard. Many neighboring property owners and renters are looking forward to the $43 million development, which would include a YMCA branch and acres of recreational space.

But while affordable senior housing is unquestionably needed in the city, the decision is a disappointment to those who were hoping Memorial Stadium might somehow continue to fill the role it has played for decades -- as a visual and economic anchor for north Baltimore.

The city had the opportunity to follow a much different scenario -- and for that matter, still could. Besides the proposal to tear the stadium down, Baltimore received bids from two groups that wanted to preserve the stadium. Both started from the premise that the building was a valuable asset and deserved to be the starting point for any new development on 33rd Street.

Either plan might have drawn attention as a model of preservation, not only for Baltimore but for the many other cities that are replacing multipurpose stadiums. Baltimore could have made history by demonstrating how an aging stadium could be adapted for new uses. Now, unless the selected developers falter -- or the next mayor has a change of heart -- some other city will be the pioneer.

Aging sports facilities

Memorial Stadium is one of four aging sports facilities in Maryland that are targeted for the wrecking ball.

The Baltimore Arena is destined to disappear, and the University of Maryland wants to replace Cole Field House in College Park. After announcing plans last year to recycle the Capital Centre in Landover, the Cordish Company and owner Abe Pollin now want to take it down to make way for a retail and entertainment complex.

None of those arenas is likely to be missed by as many people as Memorial Stadium, home of major league baseball and football since 1954. None has as much potential for reuse, either.

One conversion plan proposed turning the stadium into a commercial center with shops, restaurants and recreational activities such as a golf driving range. The second envisioned a technology park that would make the stadium a center for hundreds of high- paying jobs.

Of these two proposals, the one worked out in the most convincing detail was the $44 million technology park plan, submitted by a group headed by Willard Hackerman of Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. and Theo Rodgers of A&R; Development Corp. They proposed that the stadium's shell be preserved and that the seating areas and concourses be reconfigured as 300,000 square feet of laboratories and offices for research and development initiated by Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State and others.

The technology park team hired Hellmuth Obata Kassabaum (HOK) to plan the conversion -- the same firm that designed the new stadiums in Camden Yards for the Orioles and Ravens. A leader in the design of sports facilities, HOK is one of the country's largest architecture and engineering firms, with vast experience designing preservation projects and research facilities as well.

This was a chance for the firm to come full cycle in the sports design field, by proposing a strategy for reusing a stadium rendered obsolete by the firm's own work. It could have been the start of a wave of sports facility conversion work for HOK -- and essentially a new building type for America.

What made HOK's plan for Memorial Stadium intriguing was the way the architects took the very features that made the stadium obsolete as a sports facility and turned them into attributes for the technology park.

For example, one shortcoming of the old stadium was upper-deck support columns that blocked the views of some spectators. The architects realized that these columns also frame areas that could be transformed to high-ceilinged research and development space. They're also part of an extraordinarily sound structural system designed to minimize vibrations -- an important quality for certain experiments.

HOK's plan was creative as well. Memorial Stadium was never one of the country's most attractive stadiums. (Some would say it's downright homely.) The architects wisely took steps to lighten up the massiveness of its brick and concrete shell. They preserved the infield as a garden, with the research space looking onto it. They enclosed the offices and labs with a continuous glass wall that would let in plenty of light. They preserved memorable features, from the imposing Memorial Wall to light stanchions around the perimeter.

An elegant facility

The result, on paper, was a sturdy yet elegant research facility -- one that seemed all the more compelling because of its proximity to Hopkins' Homewood and East Baltimore campuses.

If this reuse was such a good idea, why didn't it get stronger support?

The answer lies not so much with the architectural design as with the developers' ability to generate excitement about the project and address community concerns.

Hopkins' real estate arm, the Dome Corp., developed the original proposal with Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's encouragement. When Hopkins administrators decided the university couldn't afford to take the lead on such an ambitious undertaking, Hackerman and A&R; took over. But the developers never seemed as optimistic about the project's chances for success as Dome's own representatives.

In their proposal, Hackerman and A&R; mentioned that the space would be suited to the demands of bioscience, bioengineering, physics, software development and electronics, but they didn't offer many specifics. That led some community leaders to question what kind of research might be going on in their back yard. Skeptics came up with scenarios worthy of the X-Files, from animal cloning to experiments with radioactive chemicals. City assurances didn't entirely dispel the community's fears.

It also didn't help that at a key meeting between developers and the community at large, Hackerman didn't show up. If all the team members weren't even willing to attend a community meeting to say why they should be selected, some wondered aloud, how responsive would they be to community concerns?

That lackluster technology park presentation was in stark contrast to the warm and upbeat showing put on by the senior housing proponents, led by the Rev. John Sharp of the Govans Ecumenical Development Corp. (GEDCO). In retrospect, one has to wonder if the outcome wouldn't have been different had Hopkins stuck with the project instead of handing it off to private developers. As one city official later said of the technology park team, "It was theirs to lose, and they lost it."

The idea can travel

Now that a selection has been made, city and state officials are making plans to clear the site, using up to $10 million in public demolition funds. Perhaps they shouldn't move too quickly. GEDCO must submit a market study by Aug. 8 and line up financing by Nov. 8. If the senior housing fails to materialize, the city could be back where it started.

Given that possibility, city leaders would be wise to keep the stadium up in case they need to offer the property for development again -- as they had to do with the Power Plant downtown. Otherwise, Baltimore could be limiting its options prematurely -- and losing a chance to develop the sort of one-of-a-kind facility that could draw national attention.

The appeal of the technology park, beyond the jobs it would bring to the area, is that it would show that Baltimore can come up with a unique, blockbuster project. It would enhance the region's reputation as a center for the life sciences. It would have immense symbolic value.

Even if Memorial Stadium disappears, the technology park conversion is too good an idea to die with it. Given the amount of thought HOK has put into this proposal, it wouldn't be surprising to see the designers take this idea to another stadium owner looking for a resourceful reuse strategy.

Someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to build it. But there's no city where it would make more sense than Baltimore.

Pub Date: 05/30/99