A plan to save a children's museum and provide training for future workers for Baltimore's hospitality industry?
Or a public boondoggle that would place a city school in a viable commercial property near bars that hold "bikini contests"?
Those are the polarized views of a plan that has been developed out of the public eye to move the Port Discovery children's museum to the empty marine biology exhibit space at the Columbus Center in the Inner Harbor, and to create a new tourism high school at the current Port Discovery location.
Proponents, including Mayor Martin O'Malley and school leaders, say the idea would solve a handful of public quandaries - improve prospects for the underused children's museum, find a spot for a new tourism high school and put empty spaces at the city's tourism core to more productive use.
Opponents, including the city comptroller and a religious leader, counter that the school plan would place teens too close to adult bars and restaurants, and doesn't fulfill the property's tax potential.
David Cordish, a developer who is bidding against the school system for the children's museum space, contends that the city would lose millions in potential tax revenues by maintaining its $1-a-year, 99-year lease with Port Discovery, which will sublease the property and keep the proceeds to run its museum nearer the waterfront.
His view is backed by commercial real estate brokers, who believe the museum property has gained in value as the Inner Harbor area has grown.
Cordish remade the Power Plant into an entertainment complex on the city's waterfront and is attempting to do likewise at the Power Plant Live, a commercial property near Port Discovery. He was among the first to urge the children's museum to move to the empty hall in the Columbus Center and made the initial bid for the children's museum space, with the intent of reconfiguring it for commercial use.
In recent years, Cordish has made a success out of a series of city-owned buildings that had been vacant by filling them with restaurants and bars catering to conventioneers and young urban dwellers. Buildings he leases or owns generate millions of dollars in real estate, sales and food taxes, and bring people downtown, he said.
If Port Discovery abandons its city-owned building, Cordish said, city officials have a responsibility to explore gaining potential income from redoing the building commercially. He will fight the school placement, by legal means if necessary, he said.
"Aside from the appropriateness of putting high-school students next to bars and restaurants - where we have wet bikini contests - no one wins financially from this plan but Port Discovery," Cordish said.
Entertainment zone
In letters to the mayor and the schools chief, City Comptroller Joan M. Pratt and the Rev. Frank M. Reid III of Bethel AME Church also raised concerns about the school's proximity to the entertainment zone.
Douglas L. Becker, chairman of the Port Discovery board and chief executive officer of Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., expressed irritation that Cordish was attempting to tar the school proposal so that the children's museum might consider only his interest. "David has put more of his time into trying to torpedo the school use than in refining his offer. We consider both his use and the school use to be viable," said Becker, adding they are comparable financially. "If what he was offering was much more than the school is offering, we wouldn't be having this" discussion.
Cordish estimates, based on sales figures from tenants at Power Plant Live, that the city could reap $3 million to $4 million in taxes from redeveloping the site commercially. He said he hasn't developed a formal proposal. "Port Discovery pays zero taxes. A school would pay zero taxes," he said. "With an entertainment theme, [the building] immediately goes on the tax rolls."
Economists and urban planners say the museum switch and the placement downtown of a tourism academy might make sense from a long-term perspective. The children's museum would move from a place where it hasn't worked well to a more visible site beside the National Aquarium, one of the most popular attractions in Maryland. Moreover, the tourism school would be near employers who might provide jobs and training.
But they also said Port Discovery shouldn't rush to find a tenant.
Susan B. Anderson, a retail real estate broker and vice president with Timonium-based H&R; Retail Inc., said she believes a developer could make a success of the Port Discovery building as an extension of Power Plant Live.
"No one [retailer] wants to be the first one there. He's got Power Plant Live pretty well leased out and others would follow," said Anderson, referring to Cordish's investment. "And he'd be the one to do it. You want to control everything so you don't get two Italian restaurants and two Thai restaurants. You want a leasing plan. It makes all the sense in the world."
Unsuccessful search
Months ago, education officials considered other locations for the academy in the city's central business district, near Charles Center, but were met with resistance.
A tourism academy called the Marriott Hospitality High School operates in Washington, in a comparable downtown location near the MCI Center, funded by hotelier J.W. Marriott Corp. In Philadelphia, about 1,000 students attend tourism academies but within their regular high schools. Parts of the schools have been outfitted with mock hotel rooms and lobbies to simulate a work environment.
"Doesn't it make sense to put such a high school adjacent to institutions in which these people would be working? We're still a community, if I'm not mistaken, that's committed to education," said Anirban Basu, an economist at Towson University.
But, he added, "You can't make an educated decision until you have the full panoply of choices, and developers should feel free to speak up. There should be a period of months developers have to be able to work through their plans."
"You have two public boondoggles here, the Port Discovery boondoggle and the Columbus Center boondoggle, and you're trying to figure out how to fix two problems," said Richard Clinch, an economist at the University of Baltimore. "At Port Discovery, my gut instinct is that in the long run, it's more valuable as office space than as a school. I'd rather see something generate tax revenue."
Becker said he's not unalterably committed to the school plan, although he believes that idea fulfills Port Discovery's mission of serving youth. He said he expects the museum board to decide on a course for its current building in a few weeks.
The museum needs approval from the state Board of Estimates to move to the Columbus Center and approval from the city Board of Estimates to sublet the space it currently leases from the city for $1 annually over 99 years.
The proposed moves would reportedly shift the children's museum from running a $1 million annual deficit to making money.
The museum would pay the University of Maryland $500,00 to $700,000 for a location in the Columbus Center. It would gain $900,00 to $1 million a year in a lease from the school system or a developer, Becker said. The museum would also save several thousand dollars a year in utilities and labor costs because it won't require as many workers in a smaller space, he said. The move of the Port Discovery exhibits and improvements would run about $5 million, Becker said.
Cordish said he had lined up a performing arts group that was willing to pay $15 a square foot to lease the glass atrium area of Port Discovery after the children's museum realized it was losing money. That tenant agreed to pay $220,000 a year in rent for part of Port Discovery's atrium, which faces Power Plant Live.
Cordish, who would have paid to reconstruct the space, would have passed on $150,000 to Port Discovery. He estimates that other tenants would pay about $12 to $19 a square foot for space in the building, depending on how much the landlord puts toward retrofitting the space for new uses.
The museum didn't immediately accept the arts group's offer, Becker said, but could lease the atrium to the group and the interior museum to the school or the developer if all the parties were willing.
Thomas Lyons, an associate professor of urban affairs at the University of Louisville, said a tourism magnet school downtown strikes him as similar to the original magnet school concept begun decades ago: Its aim was to improve education opportunities by putting students in places they otherwise might not be accepted, he said.
Taking the long view
"There obviously are some pluses being accessible to tourist attractions," Lyons said. "But there are some genuine concerns with high-school-age students who have less supervision. And there certainly is some truth to the fact that nonprofit uses in prime locations takes them off the tax rolls. The longer-term view is [whether] those uses create critical mass that in the long run draw more people and more uses that do pay taxes."
"The high school is daytime activity, and the [restaurants and bars] will be a nighttime activity," said David Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., and an urban consultant who wrote a book on Baltimore's renewal efforts. "My impression of the Inner Harbor area is that it's already filled with families. This isn't like East Baltimore Street in the old days when there was only one reason you came to Baltimore from Washington, and only if you were a sailor."