While historic structures nearby have fallen to the wrecking ball in recent years, the six-story Thomas Building has been a survivor in downtown Baltimore - the last early 20th-century building to remain standing on the east side of Light Street between Fayette and Redwood streets.
Though the Thomas Building was once targeted for demolition, too, it now looks as if it will last well into the 21st century, under the latest redevelopment plan for the block where it stands. The French Renaissance-style building wasn't saved because of a push by preservationists or an 11th-hour judge's degree. It was due to a change of heart by the developer.
"It's being saved simply because it's better to build around it," said developer J. Joseph Clarke.
Clarke represents a group that until recently wanted to build a 35-story tower on the block bounded by Baltimore, Light, Redwood and Grant streets.
The project, called One Light Street, was originally designed to be a mixed-use complex containing shops at street level, a parking garage, a hotel and upper-level office space featuring views of the Inner Harbor.
The developers intended to raze a half-dozen buildings to make way for it, including the Thomas Building, so they would have a large enough "footprint" for a tower that size. The maximum height for a building in downtown Baltimore is typically based on the amount of land it occupies - a formula called the "floor area ratio" - and they figured they needed the land under the Thomas Building to be part of the square footage calculations.
But due to a weak market for office space, the developers have scaled back their plans so the project now includes just the retail frontage, 418 parking spaces on six levels and a 311-key Embassy Suites hotel, with conference space and ballrooms.
"Now that we have a lower profile of 23 or 24 stories, we don't need as large a footprint," Clarke explained.
And because they had not yet acquired the Thomas Building, which is owned by McDonald's Corp. and contains a McDonald's restaurant, they decided to build around it.
Peter Fillat Architects is designing the $60 million project. Construction is expected to begin early next year and be complete by late 2004.
Buildings that have already come down for One Light Street include the Southern Hotel at 7-11 Light St. and a narrow office building at 5 Light St. Low rise buildings at 105-115 E. Baltimore St. are still slated for demolition.
Other Light Street buildings that have been demolished since 1980 include the old Union Trust Bank at the northeast corner of Baltimore and Light streets, now site of the First Union Tower, and the 1904 Merchants and Miners Transportation Co. building at 17 Light St., razed to make way for a Marriott Residence Inn.
That leaves the Thomas Building and the Bank of America tower at 10 Light St. as two of the oldest and most ornate buildings in the heart of Baltimore's financial district.
The Thomas Building was the third home of Thomas and Thompson, a pharmacy established in 1872 by John Benjamin Thomas and Albert E. Thompson, who were seated alphabetically next to each other at the University of Maryland's School of Pharmacy.
The pharmacists started at Dolphin Street and Druid Hill Avenue and moved to the Baltimore Street location in 1892. When their building was destroyed in the 1904 fire, they erected the existing one. Designed by Baltimore architects William Miller Ellicott and William Wirt Emmart, it's notable for its mansard roof and large bay windows.
Battered by the emergence of regional drugstore chains, Thomas and Thompson closed its retail operation in 1973 and leased the Baltimore Street space to McDonald's, which opened a restaurant the same year. McDonald's bought the building in 1984 for $900,000. The developers of One Light Street had the building under option in the late 1980s but let the option expire in 1993.
It's fitting that the Thomas Building survived when others haven't, because the building itself helped people survive during the Great Depression.
After the stock market crash of 1929, the drugstore was known as the place that always had a big bowl of free graham crackers at the soda fountain. For many people seeking jobs in downtown Baltimore, that handout was the only sustenance they had all day.
"It was a gesture of the times," John Thomas III, whose family ran the drugstore that dispensed the crackers, said in a 1994 Sun interview. "You could always come in and get a handful."
Thomas was a youngster when his grandfather decided to put out the crackers - as a combination of goodwill and good business.
"I can still hear my grandfather say: 'We'll give them a bowl of free graham crackers, because they're so dry,'" Thomas recalled. " 'Instead of drinking one Coca-Cola, those who can afford to will drink two or three. And those who can't afford to pay can still get a handful of graham crackers for free.' Many a person did just that."
Even today, "a lot of people remember that soda fountain," Clarke said. "It falls in the same category as the rooftop garden of the old Southern Hotel."
The Thomas Building may not have landmark status from the city or state, Clarke said, "but it does in the minds of many Baltimoreans."
Veterans memorial
The Maryland Stadium Authority will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking service at 2 p.m. today for the Veterans Memorial to rise between Ravens Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The chief feature of the memorial, designed by Cochran, Stephenson & Donkervoet Inc., is a curved wall bearing letters from the old Memorial Stadium that read: "Time Will Not Dim the Glory of Their Deeds."
Biotechnology park
The latest plans for a biotechnology research park and residential development north of the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus in East Baltimore will be presented at a free public forum at noon Wednesday at Hopkins' Downtown Center, Baltimore and Fayette streets.
Deputy Mayor Laurie Schwartz and project manager Davon Barbour are the featured speakers of the forum, presented by the Baltimore Architecture Foundation.