NO WONDER Mayor Martin O'Malley is excited. Black Entertainment Television mogul Robert L. Johnson and Robert M. Gladstone, a risk-taking Washington real estate tycoon, are offering to build a badly needed hotel next to the Convention Center and Oriole Park. "We see Baltimore as a market that has great growth opportunities," Mr. Johnson told a packed City Hall news conference yesterday.
Beyond a broad outline -- 750 rooms to start with, function spaces and ample parking, plus a separate headquarters building for Catholic Relief Services -- this unsolicited proposal is sketchy. Crucial details about things such as the project's ownership structure and taxpayer subsidies remain to be negotiated. The principals don't even want to guess the price tag, saying it depends on engineering studies and architectural decisions.
This haziness is to be expected; under city rules, the hotel site must now be advertised to see whether rival bidders exist, and the Washingtonians don't want to give any of their game away.
The unsolicited proposal's credibility is not in doubt. Mr. Johnson is a nationwide hotel owner and Mr. Gladstone has built his Quadrangle Development Corp. into a Washington real estate powerhouse. Its signature project is National Place, a 1.6 million-square-foot hotel, office and retail complex adjoining the historic National Theater, at Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th Street.
"It's not going to be an easy project," Mr. Gladstone warned Baltimoreans. Just ask Peter G. Angelos. The Orioles owner tried for months to figure out how to do it; he could never make the pieces fit together.
The Convention Center's chronic booking troubles have proved the mistakes of building and expanding that facility without an adjoining hotel. With the Washington investors now enthusiastically on board, this is the time to correct that error.
As details about the proposal emerge, there are bound to be controversies. A taxpayer subsidy, for example, may come under attack. In this case, though, it seems justified -- a small price to pay for a development that promises to maximize the unused potential of Baltimore's Convention Center.